In this guest blog Neil Stephen, CEO of specialist dental CRM software company, DenGro, outlines the benefits to practices of automating repetitive tasks.
Amidst the noise, the hype and the buzzwords like AI, robotics and machine learning, it can feel overwhelming. How do you take those first, or further, steps towards greater efficiency and effectiveness without compromising service excellence and patient care? How can automation actually benefit your practice?
Take a look at your business operations today, those processes and workflows at the Front of House, for example how inbound enquiries are managed. What if you could automate as many manual, routine, repetitive and predictable tasks and processes as possible? Without automation you and your team are likely spending precious time on these unfulfilling tasks day in day out that would be better allocated to high value ‘human touch’ activities such as patient care and communication.
Don’t start from scratch. Smart CRMs come packed with automation, one or two have even been tailor made for the dental industry.
What are the benefits of automation for my Dental Practice?
Efficiency
The application of RPA (Robotic Process Automation) means that a CRM software automatically receives, validates, extracts, processes and organises all your online enquiries (for example). In this way, it completes repetitive rule-based tasks.
Without RPA these tasks would be manual, time-consuming and prone to error – consider the missed revenue potential of missed, lost and/or forgotten enquiries. Without RPA, you might also find your CRM clogged up with spam!
Some CRMs also embed BPA (Business Process Automation) into the software to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of work within the dental practice, an example of this is marketing automation. No user needs to click a button to make any of this happen. If they do, it’s not automation. In this context, we’re talking about practice branded, treatment specific messaging that’s relevant to the patient enquiry and sent at timely intervals:
• Instant acknowledgement (e.g. emails & SMS) offers reassurance that the enquiry has been received and that someone will be in touch.
• Automatic deployment of sequenced follow-up messages containing information relevant to each enquiry.
Without BPA, all messages would need to be copied and pasted from templates (if these are available) and sent one by one…manually. That’s also assuming that every inbound enquiry has been spotted and acted upon in the first place.
Patient Experience
Automation isn’t just about efficiency; a CRM helps practices to elevate the Customer Experience. The CRM helps the practice to establish and then maintain a customer centric experience that exceeds patient expectation. By automating internal processes (e.g., those associated with the new patient journey, how online enquiries are managed from start to finish) you can significantly enhance efficiency, reduce errors and free up valuable employee time to focus on higher-value, and let’s face it, more fulfilling activities – i.e. those conversations and consultations with existing and prospective patients.
Having an AI powered chatbot on the practice website also ensures that enquiries are met with instant responses any time of day, making wait times a thing of the past. Visitors to your site will feel heard and valued and reassured that a member of the team will be in touch with them.
Data Integration
A smart CRM uses APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and webhooks to integrate your data from various applications:
• PMS (Practice Management Software) like Dentally, Aerona, EXACT & SfD
• Social media platforms like Meta (Facebook & Instagram)
• Chatbots
These integrations mean that your team can do more in the CRM without having to constantly switch across to another solution to locate an enquiry or complete a task manually and potentially make a mistake.
Integrations save huge amounts of time, reduce loss, lower the chances of human error and free up the team for more interesting and high value activities.
Data Driven decision making.
Some CRMs offer automated and real time dental specific reporting on performance.
• marketing effectiveness
• team effectiveness
• overall business
These reports turn data into information and information into insight. Principals and managers are then in a position to make both tactical and strategic decisions based on data not a hunch.
How do I apply these automations to my Dental Practice?
DenGro’s dental specific CRM delivers all of the above, it also offers the following benefits:
1. Empowering – so your team can handle all the enquiries that come your way and acquire more new patients
2. Transformative – your decision making is based on real time information and insight, no more reliance on hunch
3. Ease of Use – we’ve built the solution specifically for dental practices so your Front of House team, TCO and others can hit the ground running with minimal training
4. Scalability – it will grow as your business grows, no upper limit to the number of enquiries etc.
5. Integration capability – DenGro has market leading seamless integrations with Top PMS, unlike competitors we’ve been running and improving these integrations for several years. Its why DenGro is SOE’s preferred solution provider for DENTAL CRM
6. Cost – competitive, unlike our competitors we are solely focused on Dental and release new/improved features and functionality every 3 weeks
In 2025 DenGro’s use of AI will continue to expand for the benefit of its thousands of daily users – watch this space! Existing customers can vote and comment on the AI enhancements they want to see first in our Product Portal.
