I occasionally meet dentists who think their patients don’t want to get emails. Some even say that email is dead–nobody uses it anymore.  It reminds me of the old Yogi Berra line about a particular restaurant, “No wonder nobody comes here–it’s too crowded!”

The fact is, people spend more time using email than every other online activity except social media, averaging 39 minutes a day.  Also, 91% of consumers check email at least daily, and more than 50% check it on a smartphone (Helplama).  Snail mail may be dead, yellow pages may be dead, but email is far from it.

I often tell practices that the best time-saving tool ever created in dentistry is automated digital communications.  Applications like PatientActivator, RevenueWell and others all save time while increasing production and marketing capability. My friend Gary Takacs asserts that it saves his clients more than 20% of their time, time that allows them to talk to the patients that need a phone call.  And office managers I meet confirm that over and over again.

Dentists considering PatientActivator will often ask, “How many email addresses should I have before it’s worthwhile?”

The answer is, “As few as zero.”

Why? Because the fewer you have, the more you need to start collecting this very valuable bit of information. Pair this with the fact that I will also meet dentists who say, “I’m waiting until my team has gathered enough email addresses to justify using your application.”  Then I’ll meet them six months later and they have exactly the same number of email addresses, simply because they have no effective way of gathering them.

What’s the best way to get something done in business? Make it systematic, and make it easy. The solution here is a Daily Confirmation Sheet. PatientActivator–and most of the other applications–have one that you can print out. It lists every patient coming in that day, and shows whatever information may be missing or need to be updated.  Use this, and before you know it you’ll have a nice fat email list, as well as everyone’s cell number.

And every person you can send an email or text to is one less person you have to call. How can that NOT save time?

“But patients don’t want to give us their email.”

It all depends on how you ask.  I ran into an office manager who told me she had the email for 95% of their patients. “Wow,” I said. “That’s amazing.  How did you do it?”  She said, “We treat it just like their phone number and their home address.  If they ask why we need it, we say email and text are the main ways we communicate with patients. If you don’t want us to email you, we won’t, but we would still like it in case of an unusual occurrence where we have to contact our patients, like a power failure or natural disaster.”

In other words, she didn’t make it optional.  Make it a benefit instead: “This way we don’t have to disturb you with a phone call, and you can put it right in your calendar if you haven’t already.”

Was she an anomaly?  I decided to check on our PatientActivator clients.   The one with the most also has 95% of their patient emails.  Sure, you say, maybe in Silicon Valley. Nope, this is Austin, Texas.  Another one in Plano has 93%.  A third in Fort Mill, South Carolina has 87%.  So it’s possible. Everywhere.

On average, our clients have around 25%.  But if you have that many emails, that’s 25% less calls you have to make. Add that to the cell numbers you have, and every one is saving a call–it’s that simple.  Even if you had 10% email and 10% cell numbers it would be a huge timesaver.

And also keep in mind that you can turn email messages off or on individually for each patient,  so you can tailor it to what each patient prefers.  Because the truth of the matter is that many people no longer want a phone call, particularly at work.  They don’t find it personal, they find it annoying.  They are used to digital communication in every aspect of their lives.

And let’s not forget the other two big bonuses to email in your practice.  First, it’s a great way to do promotions to your patients–whitening specials, Invisalign discounts, or free implant exams, for example–and it also gives them something they can easily share with a friend.  74% of consumers prefer email promotions over any other source, and they prefer them 5 to 1 over direct mail (Merkle).  Why? Because they can view them whenever they want, delete them easily, or store them for later.

The other big bonus is you can use email to request reviews on Yelp and Google from your patients, and with one click they can go to your business on those sites.  (Going back to my previous point about making it systematic and making it easy. For more detail on that, read this previous blog.)  And at this point, because Google and Yelp will discard reviews that come from the same place (the i.p. address, as it’s referred to), then this is practically the only effective method of requesting reviews, short of personally asking your patients to do it.

Long live email, I say.  As a matter of fact, subscribe to this blog and I’ll email my post to you the moment it’s published!

Be sure to check out my next webinar, “Yelp! The Dentist Survival Guide.” It’s free, and happens on June 19 at 11am PST.

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