As a small business, collecting data can be hugely beneficial for understanding the areas where you are excelling and where you may need to focus more attention. However, once you have your information, the key is to analyse it carefully. There’s no point spending time and energy collecting it if you can’t use it to your advantage.
Simply working out a set of averages and using that as a guide point is dangerous territory. Take the current concerns with regards to children’s oral health in the UK. According the long term statistics, dental health among children has, on average, been improving over the last 30 years. However, a huge 27 per cent of five year olds and 12 per cent of three year olds (that’s hundreds and thousands of children) still have tooth decay. This shows that you will only get the insights you need to make informed decisions by correctly interpreting the information you have collected.
Integrity
The integrity of your data is vital. According to Experian Data Quality, nine per cent of revenue is wasted as a result of poor quality information. ’Cleaning’ your information is worthwhile in order to ensure that what you have is up to date. Patient contact details, for example, should be confirmed at each available opportunity. When you consider that every day in the UK, 1,600 people die and 18,000 move house, it goes to show how easily the information you have on file can quickly become out-dated.
It is also important that you ask the right questions in order to collect the relevant data. If, for example, you want to assess how well your marketing is working then you need to know exactly how that patient found you. Did a friend or family member refer them? Did they find you on the internet? If so, you need to know what they were searching for and why in order to ensure the integrity of the data you record. If they went online looking for ‘a dental practice in London’, then it was your listing in Google perhaps that brought them to your page. If however they had seen your practice advertised elsewhere, and then proceeded to search specifically for you, then it is your
initial advertising that worked.
Question
Asking what patients are trying to find is also worthwhile because it will give you an insight into where people look for certain things. For example, they might ask friends for a recommendation when it comes to finding a new dentist, in which case you might want to think about referral cards as opposed to online advertising. However, more specialised and higher cost services like implants may be something that they will turn to the internet for
a broader search. In this instance, did they choose you based on online reviews or your reputation? Understanding these factors can be crucial when planning where to focus your marketing attention.
With regards to the services you provide, to be able to analyse whether you’re offering what people want then your data must be accurate here too. Do patients desire convenience in terms of accessible opening hours and easy parking? Do they mostly enquire about cosmetic treatments?
To get the data that you can actually work from it is vital that you ask the right questions. Measuring what patients are looking for as well as exactly how they heard about you will give you the answers you need to fully understand how well your marketing is working or how strong your web presence is. This applies to all of your KPIs.
Analysis
Without employing the expensive services of a business data analyst it can be tricky to know where to begin. This is where having the right technology can be of huge benefit. The CS R4+ practice management software from Carestream Dental, for example, has built in features that will not only help to gather the data you need, but also correctly analyse it in real time for an accurate overall picture.
Running a dental business can provide many pressures and as a practitioner you will want to do the dentistry you trained to do, rather than mountains of paperwork and business analysis. To ensure your practice is working well for you it is vital to apply KPIs and correctly interpret the data they provide, but it doesn’t require excessive time or energy when you have the right software in place.
References available on request.