Fred Joyal's Page

As the CEO of the nation’s largest dental referral service, I know how important new patients are, particularly when people seem to be tightening their budgets. However, it does occasionally feel as if those of us in the dental industry spend so much time discussing methods of bringing in new patients that we sometimes forget about the ones already in the practice.

Most practices understand the importance of internal marketing on some level and are already conducting so

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You’re no doubt very familiar with this situation:

You get a call a few minutes before you’re heading home on a Friday night. The caller isn’t a patient of yours. In fact, he hasn’t seen a dentist in years. He’s broken a tooth, is in extreme pain and doesn’t have a lot of money. He’s not sure if he can afford to have his tooth fixed, but hopes you might be able to prescribe him some pain medication to help him get through the weekend.

Most dentists would receive a call like this and immediatel… Continue

Legendary film producer Samuel Goldwyn once famously said that he’d take 50 percent efficiency to gain 100 percent loyalty.

While I highly doubt he was talking about dental practices, the sentiment applies to our industry in a big way. Patient loyalty is essential to dental practice success.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “My patients are loyal to me.” But the truth is, while the majority of your patients may be satisfied with you as their dentist, that doesn’t mean they’re loyal.… Continue

A common complaint that dentists hear, particularly in a tight economy, is that their fees are too high. The truth is when people complain about cost, it’s almost always because they don’t realize the value of what they’re paying for. That’s certainly true of dentistry. People don’t understand how it can be so expensive because they don’t understand what they’re getting for the money.

It’s incumbent upon all of us in the industry to educate patients about the true value of… Continue

In these challenging economic times, I’ve noticed that I’m getting more questions about increasing word of mouth referrals. It’s only natural to want to make every marketing dollar count, and considering the cost (or more accurately, lack of cost), you can’t get a better return on investment than you do with good word of mouth.

If you’re not already doing it, start actively pursuing referrals. It sounds simple, but most dentists forget — or are unwilling — to actually ask f… Continue