Surveys can save you time and wasted effort. By properly utilizing surveys, you will not be shooting in the dark when you implement a new idea. You will not be left wondering why people are not coming back to your practice. You will KNOW what your publics need and want, so you can provide just that.
Have you ever come up with a “great” new idea, implemented it, and when nothing significant or productive occurred as a result, found yourself tearing out your hair wondering what went wrong? Or even worse, tearing out the hair of your staff because “New patients are down!”
Have you conversely wondered, pondered and meditated over why new patients have dropped off even though you’re doing the same things you have always done for 20 years? It might well be that the things you’ve been doing for 20 years are no longer appropriate. These scenarios are likely due to failure to survey.
There are answers to marketing problems that you simply cannot procure from any source other than your patients themselves. The motto in marketing is “know before you go”, which is done by surveying.
A sample survey is given at the end of this article to illustrate what a survey should look like.
CONSTRUCTING THE SURVEY
Although surveys will vary practice to practice, there are some guidelines to follow:
1.Indicate to your patient WHY you are doing a survey and thank them for participating.
2.Ask only relevant questions in your survey. Restrict your questions to important factors that will actually TELL you
3.Keep the survey BRIEF. Write the survey so that it takes no more than 3-5 minutes to complete. If the survey is too long patients may feel annoyed, overburdened, bored or will not respond.
4.Construct a survey that asks for specific answers. Create questions that provide you with information rather than having only “yes” or “no” answers.
5.Allow patients the option to remain anonymous if they so choose.
6.Provide a way for them to receive a response to their questions or input if they desire.
7.If appropriate, set a deadline for the receipt of the surveys. Tell participants why you have a deadline and when it is.
8.Graciously thank your patients for taking their time to fill out the survey.
9.For mail-out surveys, include a self-addressed stamped envelope. Recipients will be much more likely to send it back to you.
DISTRIBUTING & PERFORMING THE SURVEY
Surveys can be done in person, handed to patients to fill out while in the office, done over the phone or done via the mail or email. If the survey is done in person or over the phone, ensure that whoever is doing the survey fully understands the questions and why the survey is being done.
TABULATING THE SURVEYS
1. If you do not receive an adequate number of responses (an adequate response being enough surveys to see a clear majority in the answers, at minimum 30 responses) by the stated deadline, increase your sampling or extend your deadline. An inadequate response will give you a poor measure of patient trends.
2. Collect all survey results and tabulate each question by tallying responses. People’s answers can vary on open-ended questions, in which case you should group similar responses together. An example would be if your survey question was “Describe the perfect dentist”. If in response to this question 5% of the people surveyed said “happy”, 5% said “cheerful” and 10% said “always smiling”, these could all be grouped together in one category as they are all a similar response.
3. Once you have the raw number tallies of people’s responses, change these tallies into percents based on the total number of surveys done.
4. Ensure that you promptly respond to any requests for a personal response.
5. At a staff meeting, discuss the areas of the practice that are indicated to be in need of change.
The information gathered from doing the above is extremely valuable in deciding
what you provide and how you promote and present that.
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“In recessionary times such as these, we see dentist/owner of stand alone practices tighten their belts in unhealthy ways. By this we mean that they get very worried and reduce their promotion,” reports Fred King, CEO of Silkin Management Group. “They may start letting go of staff and making do with fewer personnel.”
Current economic conditions seem to demand that dentists cut corners but this causes lower standards of service and patient care. When the quality of service goes down patients become unhappy and start looking for another dentist. Most patients already have some aversion to going to the dentist which magnifies the effects for this category of health care provider.
“This situation makes it a perfect time for dentists making the correct management decisions to capture more market share and increase their productivity,”
“We help dental practices know exactly what to do to in each economic cycle so they are making correct management decisions that continually grow their practice.”
For those dentists wanting to take advantage of these tough economic times but who don’t want to start with any financial investment, Silkin Management Group offers a 2 hour practice analysis at no-charge. All the dentists’ questions are answered by a veteran senior analyst. Silkin analysts have worked with dental practices in every part of the country. They have a wealth of experience and an understanding of the issues dental practices have to deal with on a daily basis.
Silkin Management Group was established in Portland, Oregon in 1983. Since that time the company has focused on delivering consulting and training services to doctors in private practice. Now an international leader in practice management, Silkin has a long standing track record of providing assistance to its clientele that consistently exceeds their expectations. For more information about Silkin Management Group visit http://www.silkinmanagementgroup.com/
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