There is a lot of competition for dentists nowadays, with a new office or clinic seemingly opening every week. When you have this many professionals in such a small area, you need to step up and improve your patient's experience in order to retain the ones you have and perhaps to recruit new patients to your practice. There are a few things you can do to implement into your practice to help you make sure your patients are happy staying with you.

Patient Questionnaire

When your patients are new or even if they have visited your office before, in order to improve their experience with you, you need to know what they expect and want from you. You can create a new patient questionnaire and one for existing patients so you can find out more about them and what they are looking for from you. You can ask what their concerns are when visiting a dentist, what type of services they require or would like if they would like more cosmetic type procedures such as whitening or straightening and even if they have any medical or anxiety issues you should know about.

This way you can help build trust with your patients, especially if you listen to what they say and care for each patient depending on their individual needs.

Tell Them About Yourself

A great way to build trust and a rapport with your patients is to tell them about yourself. You don't have to take an hour to tell a whole story, but take a few minutes to relax them and explain why you became a dentist and why you are interested in and passionate about dentistry. When you open yourself up a bit to new patients and even to existing ones, they will trust you more and feel like they can relate to you. You can also ask about your patients and what worries them about dentists (if they do have fears) and take the time to make sure they are comfortable with you before you begin your work.

Social Media Presence

You could create a patient survey to determine how happy they are with you and what you need to change. You could also create a social media presence on Facebook or Twitter, or even within your own website, in which patients or potential patients can message you to ask questions or even get to know you and your practice better. You may not have a lot of time to post on the site, so you could hire someone to create posts for you with a little of your guidance, or pick a day or two a week to make new posts and answer questions.