How We Help Dental Practices Thrive

In our 16 years of operating, we have been helping dentists and their many practices to grow.

We have been fortunate enough to gain the support of the dental community over the years and trusted as the leading provider of phone systems for dentists. This has all been done through word of mouth and recommendations amongst peers, of our team and our service.

To help you (hopefully you’re a dentist reading this!) better understand why practice principles choose iceConnect, this blog post will break down what these phone systems exactly do and why it can enhance a practice’s marketing strategy.

Phone Systems

What are they?

Whether you own/run one or multiple sites, your practices can operate under a single telephone system that connects all locations and every single individual employee’s line.

Features include;

  • Silently listening into phone calls
  • Listening back on recorded phone calls
  • Taking office calls from any location with the use of an app
  • Creating on-hold menu options
  • Easily adding/removing new lines for employees
  • Transferring calls in and out of office easily

How can the phones boost productivity in my practice?

The phones run on a system that constantly records and monitors all activity, which is then compiled into statistical and analytical reports.

Available on a monthly, weekly or daily basis – as often as you choose, these reports offer crucial insights into how your interaction with your patients is impacting on business progression. They can provide answers to questions that could help advance areas of your business you didn’t know needed improvement.

KPIs We Provide For Dentists

  1. Number of abandoned calls
  2. Number of new patient vs. existing patient calls
  3. Average time to answer a call
  4. Average time spent talking to patients
  5. Daily list of abandoned calls so they can be called back
  6. Individual extension statistics comparing receptionist activity.

With all this information, you can begin to see where you could improve and any changes you can start making today e.g. making sure staff answer every single call.

Based on the information you find, the marketing methods you use can be tailored easier to your existing patients or new patients because now you know their behaviours and habits.

What is Phishing?

Phishing is a fraudulent online method of coaxing sensitive information such as; usernames, passwords, credit card details, medical history, etc. through the use of emails, phone or text.

These emails are designed to seem legitimate and are sent by scammers posing as real people or companies that that person does business with.

In actual fact, they are from attackers looking to infiltrate your system or attain a payment or your credentials. It could include a prompt in the form of a link to a website or a simple request of payment details.

TIPS TO AVOID SCAMS:

1. If the email is from a sender you don’t recognise – DO NOT OPEN IT.

2. If the email is from a sender you DO recognise, but the subject line and message are regarding an issue unknown to you or asking for a payment, always call the person to CONFIRM the details.

3. Double check the sender’s email address – often scammers will misspell or add numbers to a familiar email to make it believable. E.g. if the real email is ‘[email protected]’, the scammer might use ‘[email protected]’

4. If the email isn’t addressed to anyone – be suspicious. If payments are being requested, it should at least greet your personally (Hi John). If the email goes right into requesting funds without any niceties or conversation topics familiar to you and that person, it could be a sign of phishing.

5. Some blackmail hackers will use scare tactics to get you to make a payment. This could be threats such as; ‘We will release your search history to your colleagues’ or ‘We will delete your database’, etc. followed by, ‘unless you make a payment to this account’. Don’t believe it and make your IT department aware.

6. Change your password regularly [See our post about how to create a secure password].

What Type of IT Support is Best for Your Business?

In-House IT VS. Managed Service Providers

There are many factors to consider when making the choice between hiring an in-house tech team or a managed serviced provider (MSP). A managed service provider is a company that manages client’s IT infrastructure and end-user systems, remotely.  Businesses usually hire MSPs to provide them with a recurring, subscription-type service with different support features based on their company needs.

By ‘support’, we mean the dedicated team in charge of your staff’s tech. This is everything from physically installing hardware to email set-up, software installation and virus damage control.

For small companies, MSPs might be more cost effective rather than an in-house tech team. If you have few computers and your relationship or primary mode of communication with your clients isn’t dependant on the smooth running of your tech, it might be futile to fork out large salaries to technicians who are hardly needed.

By choosing remote support you can select a plan that works for you. This could be pay-as-you-go, monthly or yearly support with on-call assistance – the flexibility of the conditions of your tech support are negotiable between yourself and the company you choose.

An in-house technician might only have general knowledge and not always know the best method to care of your staff’s tech needs. If you have a large company however, with 50+ staff that require a tech guy on hand to deal with minor issues e.g. email set-up, internet connectivity, it would be cheaper to add a technician to the permanent team. MSPs have high hourly rates and can charge more for call-outs. When you’re paying these rates for small problems that happen frequently, you’ll begin to see which option is most cost-efficient.

Managed service providers (which is what we are), house a full team of technicians with a broad spectrum of specialist knowledge and skills. Where one technician might still be learning a topic, another might thrive in it. An MSP team is constantly learning about new software, systems, devices and completing training courses in order to stay up-to-date with evolving technologies, to deliver a comprehensive service to the large range of clients they cater to.  

If it sounds like your company would be better off with an MSP – we are one!

Our CEO is extremely accessible and loves talking to new clients – seeing how we can best tailor our plethora of services to come up with a plan that works best for you.

Give us a call or send an email and you’ll hear from him directly.