Building Trust Before They're in the Chair

Full Transcript

In Harris's Own Words.

The theme for this evening is building trust before they're in the chair. I chose this because right now, more than ever, there is the need for us as doctors to connect with our patients and build relationships before they ever step foot in the practice. It is a different world that we're living in now when it comes to marketing cosmetic dentistry, or even just regular general dentistry.

I want you to think about your patient experience. When you meet with your team and talk about creating the ultimate patient experience, you talk about all these different touchpoints. For a majority of my career, I was obsessed about the patient experience. And then years ago, I had a totally different perspective, and everything shifted for me.

It happened when I started using social media. I posted some before and after cases, and then a young woman named Kendall sent me a direct message. She was 22, self-conscious about her smile, had been to four different consults, and had done nothing because everybody told her she needed surgery. The initial response was going to be, come and meet me in person. And then I stopped and thought: what if I could just ask her for a photo and send her a video with my recommendations?

Within about a month's time, this young woman was posting on social media, tagging me, saying 'can't stop smiling, thank you Dr. Harris.' And when she posted that, I had a mental shift. Everything shifted from the patient experience to the patient's experience.

The patient experience is what we curate within our practice. The patient's experience is what the patient actually wants. What do your patients truly want in the end? That is the secret to doing more of the dentistry you love.

Patients want three things: who can I trust, what are my options, what is it going to cost? The person who gets them these answers the quickest is going to win.

76% of every online search results in zero clicks because everybody's finding their answers in the AI summary at the top. Yet we're all still over here paying our SEO and AdWords company more money, hoping if we spend more, people will find us. That's not how people are looking for dentists anymore. The best place to build trust is on social media.

Rule of one-third: one-third personal, one-third the kind of people you treat, one-third the kind of work you do. If you don't have good before and afters, you can create them. Find two or three patients, be really intentional, get full face, close-up, side views, testimonials before and after. Now you have 30 pieces of content from three cases.

The Confidence Project. Pick a date, brand it, invite every patient who has had their smile work done by you. 'We're hosting an event, there'll be a professional photographer, you get to keep all the photos.' Now you have 30 pictures of real patients in one afternoon.

On options: I have one highlight on my Instagram now. My process. I believe everyone deserves to smile with confidence. Three options: Smile Shape (reshaping your own enamel, gums, whitening), Smile Sculpt (3D printed additive restorations), Smile Design (porcelain). Call it something. Package it as a procedure. Make it really clear.