Dr. Allen Nazeri advises dental practices to attract patients during COVID slowdowns by showing safety measures in short videos and bundling services rather than discounting. Call patients with pending treatment plans, add perceived value with extras like water picks, and use promotions like iPad giveaways to close cases without eroding profits.
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Hi guys, this is Dr. Allen. I had a question coming in from a doctor asking how they can get patients come to their practice because many patients are worried about the COVID 19 and it's going to be very difficult for the business if they can't get enough new patients in. So I thought I shared this with you on a public channel to give you guys some suggestion on some ideas or guidelines. So I think the first thing you must do. And by the way, I went through 2008 global crash, which was not easy at all. I had three dental practices. I had opened a brand new dental laboratory which I had invested over $500,000 in downtown Los Angeles.
It was a horrible, horrible time to be in business at that time. So let me tell you what we did and what you should do. I think the first step, the that you need to do is you need to be proactive in terms of getting out and letting people know what sort of safety measures you have in your business, meaning especially about infection control. So if I was part of your marketing team and I wanted to create a suggestion or strategy for you, I would create some short videos for you.
That shows the patient journey coming in, exactly what happens as they walk into the office and show people with protective gears and so forth. And obviously you need to be doing it. It's not just show a video, okay? And show them how well you take care of them, show them the infection control. Share all of this on your social media on a regular basis. Okay? So you want to get people thinking, hey, this office is absolutely on top of it. Okay? That's number one. Number two, you have to entice patients coming in. So one of the ways that you could do it is through what I teach in one of my classes is the bundling techniques. So bundling techniques, basically, if you're not familiar with the word bundling, it means putting a bunch of products or services together. So the value of it exceeds.
If someone would actually get this on their own. So otherwise the bundled price is lower than individual price of those items. So what could you bundle? Well, if it's a new patient package, you could possibly. For example, a new patient package which includes exam X ray cleaning, possibly you can add a water pick to it. We had bundled packages, I remember, for orthodontics during the global recession, where someone would actually start their orthodontics, we would give them free iPads. And iPads was very popular in 2008, still is, but it was even more popular among kids. And I remember we signed up like 100 orthodontic cases, okay. You could do bundle packages for emergency patients and so forth. So these are some ideas, and I'm sure you can come up with more creative ideas, but you need to entice patients to come in. So that's a big advantage of bundling. There are other advantages of bundling, and that is that.
Most practices, these situations, what you can expect is they're going to start dropping their prices. Okay? So what you need to do not to just drop your prices, you need to increase the value that you're offering to the patients. As a matter of fact, if you drop your prices, what happens? It eats your profit and you cannot service those patients. So if you're thinking about, oh, you know what, I'm doing implants for $2,000, I'm going to do it for a thousand dollars, they're going to come in. Not going to happen. Maybe you get few patients in, but guess what, you have an implant failure, then you're going to end up spending four or five times that amount toward, you know, getting it repaired and so forth. So I'm not about dropping, but increasing the value. Okay? So what bundling can also do as an advantage is when other offices drop their prices, okay? With bundling, it's going to be difficult for patients to shop around, okay? And this is what's going to create. We're going to move the patients from being price focused to be more value focused, okay? And that is absolutely important. Okay? So bundling is a great technique to entice patients in. Now, the other thing that you could do is have your staff call those patients. If the times are slow in your practice, have your receptionist, have your assistant call those patients that have outstanding treatment plan, maybe they have an implant they've been thinking about, maybe there are some crowns or bridges or cosmetic and let them know, you know what, because of the COVID 19.
I wouldn't say I do it, but I would say my partners, like the laboratory partners or the dental suppliers have certain specials and they are going to offer certain rebate. We know, we've been thinking about this. So please, if you, if you want to come in, we can schedule you and do it. But remember, you got to create the value. You have to. Also, the first thing is safety of the patient and your employees. So you need to demonstrate that not just on a video, but by taking good actions. The most important thing is to keep the momentum going, okay? And that is the law of the momentum, the big mo, which I teach in some of my leadership training programs. Because if you stop the momentum, everything falls. Momentum is like getting on a bicycle and not pedaling it. Okay? You're going to fall, so you got to keep the momentum going. So when things slow down, it's even more important that you show up. If everybody else doesn't show up, you and your team do show up to work. Even no phones ringing, you show up to work, do your stuff at work, rather than closing the office. This is Dr. Allen. If you find value in this video, please share and like it. And I'd like to hear your comments on what you're doing to fight this bad global economy that's happening. Okay, thank you so much. Take care. Bye.
