For dental practices
Reception is with a patient. The phone is still ringing.
A patient in front of the desk always comes first. That is correct, and it is also why the practice loses new patients every single day.
- Price
- $50 a month, no contract.
- Your number
- Stays exactly as it is.
- Setup
- Two minutes. We do it.
- Reply time
- Seconds, not this evening.
01 The moment
Why dental practices miss calls
Not because you are careless with the phone. Because of where your hands are.
One person on the desk, a patient checking out, a card machine that will not connect, and the phone going in the background. Whoever is calling has toothache and is working down a list of practices that can see them today.
02 What they get
The text that goes out
Within seconds of the call dropping, in your words, with your name on it.
Your business
It’s Brightwater Dental — sorry we missed you, reception is with a patient. Text us what you need and when suits, and we’ll call you back shortly. If you’re in pain today, reply PAIN and we’ll prioritise it.
The caller, a minute later
Broke a tooth on the weekend, quite sore. Are you taking new patients? Any chance today or tomorrow?
That reply is the job written down. You ring back knowing what it is, where it is and whether it is worth stopping for.
03 What changes
What it changes for dental practices
- 01
Reception stops having to choose
The person at the desk should not have to decide between the patient in front of them and a ringing phone. The text-back removes the cost of choosing the patient.
- 02
Emergencies come to the top
Toothache callers are the ones most likely to go elsewhere within the hour, and they are the easiest to identify if you simply ask. The reply tells you who to ring first.
- 03
Lunch, after hours and Saturdays are covered
A large share of new-patient calls land when the desk is unattended. Those hours currently return nothing at all — with this they return a written enquiry waiting on Monday morning.
- 04
The patient who rang back about a quoted plan
Unaccepted treatment plans are the quietest leak in a practice. A patient who has gone away to think about a quote and then rings with a question is at the exact moment of deciding — and a call that goes unanswered at that moment usually settles it the other way.
04 Questions
What dental practices ask
The questions that come up on the phone, answered the way we'd answer them there.
We have a practice management system already.
This sits in front of it, on the phone line. It does not book the appointment or touch clinical records — it holds the caller and hands you the enquiry so your desk can book it the way it always has.
What about patient privacy?
The text asks for as much or as little as you want. Most practices keep it to a name, a callback time and whether it is urgent, and leave anything clinical for the phone call. Nothing clinical needs to go in a text for this to work.
We use an answering service after hours.
Then compare the cost. An answering service is priced per call and reads from a script; this is a fixed $50 a month regardless of volume. Some practices run both, with the text covering the daytime overflow the service was never watching.
Will it text patients who ring for something routine?
It texts anyone whose call was not answered, which includes existing patients rescheduling. They are usually the happiest to get it, because it saves them ringing back at lunch.
See what you’re missing before you pay anything.
The audit counts the calls to your business that went unanswered last month, from your own records. It costs nothing and nothing changes on your line.
05 Read next
Related
- Trade Hair and beauty salons Every call you miss is someone who wanted an appointment, and appointments do not wait.
- Trade Physiotherapists and allied health A hands-on appointment cannot be interrupted, so every call during a session is a call you are structurally guaranteed to miss.
- Trade Cleaning businesses Cleaning enquiries are decided fast and by whoever replies. Almost nobody rings one cleaner and waits.
- Explainer How missed-call text-back works The mechanism, plainly, including what it does not do.