In this guest blog by Dental Business Coach, Lucie Simic, stresses the importance of the patient experience to achieving membership plan growth.
If there’s one thing I keep coming back to in my work with dental practices, it’s this: patients don’t judge your clinical ability first, they judge how you make them feel. Yet when practices want to grow their membership base, the focus often goes straight to marketing campaigns, pricing structures or what other practices are doing.
The reality is that the biggest driver of membership growth isn’t your marketing. It’s your patient experience. You cannot deliver a 5-star patient experience with a 2-star team culture. What happens behind the scenes will always show up at the front desk. If your team feels uncertain, unsupported or unclear on expectations, it will be reflected in every patient interaction.
This matters because joining a membership plan isn’t just a financial decision. It’s an emotional one.
Patients are asking themselves:
- Do I trust this practice?
- Do I feel valued here?
- Will this team look after me?
- Is this somewhere I want to stay long-term?
One of the biggest lessons I share with practices is that it is rarely the big things that lose patients. More often, it’s the accumulation of small, everyday moments.
For example:
- Answering the phone with “How can I help?” and placing all the pressure on the patient.
- A lack of structure or confidence in conversations.
- Missed opportunities to build rapport.
- Inconsistent messaging about membership plans.
- Team members who understand the fee but not the value.
These moments may seem minor, but they directly influence whether a patient chooses to commit to your practice long-term. Encourage your team to stop selling memberships, patients don’t want to feel like they’re being sold to. Instead, your membership plan should feel like a natural next step in their journey with the practice.
That happens when your team:
- Communicates with clarity and confidence.
- Understands the value of what you offer.
- Believes in the experience they deliver.
Here are three practical tips to improve membership growth in your practice:
-
Refine your first impression
The patient journey starts long before someone sits in the dental chair. Review how your team answers the phone. Listen to recorded calls or spend an hour sitting alongside reception and ask yourself: does the conversation feel confident, welcoming and structured?
Instead of:
“How can I help?”
Try:
“Good morning, ABC Dental Practice, Sarah speaking. Can I start by taking your name please?” This immediately removes pressure from the caller, allows the team member to build rapport using the patient’s name and creates a more professional, guided conversation.
Practical action:
- Mystery call your own practice once a month.
- Review three new patient calls at every team meeting.
- Create a standard phone greeting and ensure everyone uses it consistently.
-
Create consistency across the team
Patients should receive the same message regardless of who they speak to. Too often, one team member explains the membership plan confidently while another avoids the conversation altogether.
Every team member should:
- Understand exactly what is included in the plan
- Know who the plan is designed for
- Be able to explain the benefits without reading from a leaflet
- Feel comfortable answering common patient questions
- Be able to sign up the patient, either there and then or by sending a link for them to do it at home.
Practical action:
Hold a 15-minute membership huddle each month. Ask each team member to explain the plan in their own words. Role-play common patient questions such as:
- “Why should I join?”
- “Can’t I just pay as I go?”
- “What happens if I don’t use all my appointments?”
-
Invest in your people before your marketing
Many practices spend thousands attracting new patients while investing very little in the experience those patients receive when they arrive. Patients don’t join membership plans because they want a direct debit, they join because they want peace of mind, continuity and a practice they trust. They want to know that someone will remember them, look after them and make their dental health easier to manage.
Membership isn’t about spreading the cost, it’s about creating a relationship that patients value enough to stay for. Before increasing your marketing spend, ask yourself:
- Has every team member received customer service training this year?
- Do we regularly recognise and celebrate great patient feedback?
- Are our team members clear on what exceptional patient experience looks like?
- Do we invest as much in developing our people as we do in attracting new patients?
Practical action:
Choose one patient experience improvement every month.
For example:
- Learning every patient’s name before they arrive.
- Introducing welcome calls for new patients.
- Following up after treatment.
- Sending handwritten thank-you cards.
- Sharing positive reviews at team huddles.
Culture is your reputation inside the building and patient experience is how that reputation is felt on the outside. Patients don’t stay because of what you charge, they stay because of how you make them feel.
If you want to grow your membership base, don’t start with your marketing, start with your people because when your team creates an experience patients trust, membership becomes the natural next step.
