Live Chat Case Study: Flucke & Associates Dentistry

Technology is evolving quickly and it can be hard for dentists to keep up.

 

John Flucke, DDS, is the technology editor of Dental Products Report, the nation’s largest dental publication. His blog has over 90,000 readers, plus he has a podcast called Dentistry’s Technology Evangelist.

He’s also a practicing dentist with more than 30 years of experience providing state-of-the-art care at Flucke & Associates Dentistry in Lee’s Summit, MO. Their team of 15 includes three doctors and six hygienists all with a common goal: providing excellent dental care and customer service. They go the extra mile to make their patients feel comfortable, offering freshly-brewed coffee, hand lotion, and even warm blankets.

In late 2020, they added another feature to help make potential patients feel as comfortable as possible about scheduling an appointment. They added Simplifeye’s 24/7 live chat service.

“Our world is evolving,” Dr. Flucke explained. “We had seen other websites utilize live chat and decided to check it out. We went into it with the idea of ‘let’s see how this works and it turns out, it works pretty darn well.”

In just one month, Dr. Flucke’s office scheduled 9 new patients through live chat.

Live Chat Reduces Anxiety, Increases Appointments

Live chat added benefits that Dr. Flucke hadn’t even thought of when he signed up.

“When patients come to our website, they’re thinking ‘Let me take care of this right now.’ They want instant help. Simplifeye’s live chat provides so much more than I envisioned. It’s been amazingly effective,” Dr. Flucke explained.

“The generation that should be your target audience hates making phone calls. Live chat lets them reach you the way they want to reach you.”

88% of Millennials prefer texting over calling

Source: Times Record News

Simplifeye’s team responds to website visitors within seconds, answering questions and gathering the relevant information needed to schedule an appointment. It integrates with most practice management software and can schedule directly, or can securely pass along the leads in real-time to the dental practice team to finalize the appointment details.

“It’s really convenient for patients,” said Dr. Flucke. “When you consider that more than half of the patient population in the U.S. has some form of dental anxiety, it’s hard for some people to pick up the phone and call. This makes the interaction low-stress.”

60% Have dental anxiety

Source: Dental Products Report

“That first phone call can be uncomfortable. This is low anxiety and much easier,” added Peggy Flucke. “A lot of patients are overdue for an appointment and they feel guilty about it. It’s easier for them to share how long it’s been when they’re putting that into a chat, instead of having to say it over the phone.”

57% Self-conscious about their teeth

Source: NY Post

In addition to making it simpler for patients to schedule an appointment, Simplifeye has also made it easier for team members.

“Because so much screening and data-gathering is done by Simplifeye, it makes our team’s job super easy,” Dr. Flucke said. “All they have to do is call and close the new patients. It’s a tremendous advantage to use live chat to help with that process.”

“Almost 80% end up scheduling an appointment,” added Peggy Flucke.

Now Dr. Flucke recommends Simplifeye to other dentists.