Online dental appointment booking is steadily growing. It’s estimated that approximately 51 percent of dental patients in Australia use online search engines when looking for excellent dental practice. The implication is that dentists must incorporate different tactics to retain old patients and gain new ones. One such effective tactic is online booking.
Online booking is more contemporary and convenient, unlike the traditional method requiring you to call your local dental practice to arrange an appointment over the phone. Additionally, online booking is beneficial for both the dentist, team members, and patients.
Read on to discover why you’ll need to book dentist online.
What Is an Online Dental Booking System?
Online dental booking systems are web-based software allowing you to securely and effortlessly book your appointments.
Appointments are usually made through the book now icon on the homepage of the practices’ website. The system automatically confirms bookings once an individual selects a time and date. This way, there’s no need for staff to do any work regarding scheduling.
Benefits of Online Dental Booking
While increasing patient load implies profitable business for dental practices, it also creates more challenges for them, their staff, and facilities.
Simply put, previous procedures and processes might be inadequate in handling this new growth. As such, it becomes necessary to introduce technologically advanced techniques to improve the traditional methods.
Booking appointments online is the new trend seeing as almost everything is done online these days. And the good news? Dental practices and patients can benefit from this technology for several reasons.
Efficiency
The traditional method of seeing a dentist involves sitting down at a waiting room, writing down your medical history in a provided form, and answering some questionnaire.
However, an online booking system helps you fill out these forms before leaving your house. Remember to input the need-to-know information when booking your appointment. One benefit of this is the increased turnover time and reduced waiting time.
Convenience
An online dental booking system offers patients the opportunity to book their appointments outside office hours. Traditional methods won’t allow you to book an appointment during midnight when you have a severe toothache. You’ll need to wait till the office hours, which may affect your job, especially if you’re among those that aren’t allowed to make personal phone calls while at work.
Dental booking online offers convenience and discreteness that the traditional method cannot match.
Improved Customer Experience
With an online dental booking system in dentistry, the administrative staff will spend less time answering phone calls of people interested in booking an appointment. This measure implies that rather than keeping you waiting at the reception desk while the receptionist handles calls, the staff can spend more time attending to you because of the reduced workload of continually answering phone calls.
Reminders
Besides scheduling appointments, online booking systems often come with other useful features. Some of these features include text messaging services and automated email, which helps to ensure that you don’t miss an appointment once it’s enabled. Through the text messaging service and automated emails, you’ll receive alerts of valuable information before your scheduled appointment. Additionally, you’ll also receive timely reminders notifying you of your next dental clean and check-up.
Conclusion
Making dental appointments has become a completely automated process for patients through online booking systems. You don’t have to wait on the phone or spend time looking for nearby local dentist practice to contact or visit after working hours. The ease of scheduling afforded by online booking systems allows you to make your appointment at your convenient time. Additionally, it offers you the choice of selecting the best time for your appointment.
