Due to the very nature of dentistry, there will be times when your patients need after-hours assistance.  A patient might have an emergency.  A concerned parent might call with questions after her child’s dental procedure.  If your office has closed for the day, what happens?  Unanswered calls are costly.  If your patients can’t reach you or a staff member when they need you, they’ll feel unappreciated and uncared for. 

However, if you have an after-hours phone answering service for your practice, all your patients’ calls will be answered, and the level of personal service you can provide to them increases exponentially.  Anytime your office is closed, unattended or busy, even if that means you have closed early for a holiday or just a special lunch celebration, calls will be diverted to you a live person.

A disadvantage to using such a service is that when patients call, they will assume they are talking to your own staff.  They may be disappointed to discover otherwise.  In a true emergency, they will take comfort in knowing that the person with whom they are speaking will get in touch with you on their behalf, but what if the caller simply wants general information that the answering service cannot provide?  This can be frustrating.

If you do use an answering service, make sure the operators are equipped with appropriate responses to frequently asked questions.  This way, patients will not feel as though their time has been wasted.