Recent booking data analysis has identified that online appointment booking is fast-becoming a must-have service within the dental practice, revealing that half of all live bookings (50%) made are done so outside of surgery hours.
This ever-increasing statistic represents a dramatic shift in the way patients perceive dentistry and the options available to them, as their personal time is being spent researching cosmetic treatment and trawling practices for last-minute appointments whilst sitting in the comfort of their own home.
The analysis also uncovered that over a third of these bookings (37%) were made for cosmetic consultations.
With around one in ten general dental practitioners now signed up with toothpick.com – and the average practice offering cosmetic treatments, online appointment booking is proving to be an ideal platform to promote these services.
Mintel’s ‘Dentistry MBD 2013’ recent report also supports these statistics, reporting significant growth in cosmetic dentistry over the last five years, increasing to £1.3 billion in 2013, and highlighting that there is likely to be as much as 21% growth in the next five years.
Such findings are further evidence that by opening your doors 24/7 with an online appointment booking system, your practice can generate additional revenue and become more profitable while working the same surgery hours.
Additionally, this electronic revolution offers an obvious solution to prevent last-minute ‘white space’ in the appointment diary, as Toothpick’s analysis confirmed that over 1 in 5 (21%) bookings are made within 24 hours of the practice putting them online, successfully making unfilled gaps in the diary visible to potential patients and ensuring they’re quickly occupied.
References
Toothpick booking data analysis, online bookings, Jul-Aug 2013
2. MINTEL, 2013. Dentistry MBD August 2013. London.
