Every dental practice, every business out there, has this problem. They invest a ton of cash to generate a new patient, client, customer. People call, show up, buy whatever. But, the worst possible thing happens…after they leave, they don’t refer anyone and they never return.

The relationship is short-lived and extremely UNprofitable.

Not a single business owner I know wants a one-visit interaction with a customer. Even funeral parlors shoot for that second customer – the spouse – if there is one.

We all want ‘em: repeat visitors that pay, stay and refer!

It stands to reason that we want to do everything we can to make that first visit a positive impression.

Even doing so can and will result in losing some customers.

According to Jonathan Reeves, a columnist for sociallyin.com, the top 5 reasons why you lost customers or patients are:

1% die.
3% move away.
5% form other relationships.
14% are dissatisfied with your product or service.
68% leave because they don’t believe you care.

If you look at which of those reasons you can influence, you cold potentially affect 87% of those leaving, and keep more of them…

…if you worked more diligently and systematically at never letting them go.

What would keeping 87% of those you’re losing now, mean to your practice?

If you lose 10 each month to those bottom 3 reasons (the biggest 3), and you capped that to just losing 2…after 1 year, you’d have fewer openings in hygiene, for one.

Two, you’d have less of a need for new patients. You’d be investing less in external marketing.

The value of your practice increases, too.

I won’t cover what you can do here to go from losing 10 to just 2, but rather, I wanted to make you aware of the problem…and that you’re spending buckets of duckets every month on generating new patients when it might not be 100% necessary.

Maybe it’s time to put some thought (and action) into retaining those you have and replicating them via referrals and increasing their value to your business via education and more opportunities to interact and invest in their own health.

In my next blog post, I’ll share a letter I crafted recently for one of our ClearPath Society® Members, who after seeing his ROI on a single ad run, decided to double down on his efforts to reactivate those who only showed up for one appointment.

You see, when you get a 6:1 ROI on an ad, your attention should be piqued that maybe in fact, there is some BIG value to be captured!