As the economy approaches its one-year mark in the recovery phase, many dental practices are implementing direct marketing strategies in hopes of recovering lost sales due to the economic meltdown in 2008.  In both the United States and Canada, about 95% of dental practices use a patient recall program to stimulate patient loyalties, according to a survey from Sharper™.  Moreover, the use of phone calls remain the most widely used method in recall activities.

A total of 722 customers having a dental practice responded to the survey.

For many dental practices in the United States and Canada, obtaining patient loyalty is considered one of the most important goal.  Among all surveyed respondents, telephone and direct mail remain the most utilized tool in a recall program, 96% of respondents used phone calls and 88% used postcard mailing, compared with 56% and 25% of practices using emailing tool and text message marketing.

Moreover, all respondents considered phone calls to be the most effective and successful strategy in a recall program.  This may be due to the fact that the majority of practices (71%) use front staff to administer their recall program.  While many practices are relying on traditional methods to promote patient loyalty, email and text messaging are quickly gaining popularity.  However, many practices are reluctant to use email and text messaging in their recall program due to inefficient, and in some cases unavailable, in-house computer software capabilities.

Among the United States survey respondents, professional designs promoting practice-branding was rated strongly in their recall mailing program, while Canadian respondents were more concerned with family oriented designs.  In addition, 75% of respondents stated that catalogs are still the preferred tool to use when ordering postcards and laser cards, compared to 18% using online systems as their preferred ordering method.

As these survey results suggest, using a well-resourced patient recall program will be a key component for dental practices to increase patient loyalty rates, especially as the economy moves into its second year of recovery.

About the data: Sharper™ conducted the August 2010 online survey of 722 Canadian and United States dental practices.  Dental practices is defined as any practice that performs professional oral care on patients.  Respondents are existing customers of Sharper™.