Congratulations to our Practice Of The Month: Riggs Family Dental!

This month, we’re proud to share with you the story of Dr. Carlos Lopez and his practice, Riggs Family Dental. We’re going to show you how they came to be one of our most successful clients and continue to see consistent new patient growth at their Chandler, AZ dental practice.

Riggs Family Dental became a Firegang client in October 2016 and, like most of our clients, what brought them to us was a desire to see consistent new patient growth and a need for an online marketing plan that worked.

Success “By The Numbers”

• October 2016 = Average of 32 new patients per month
• 2017 = Average of 52 new patients per month
• First Quarter of 2018 = Already on track to exceed 2017’s average at 62 new patients per month!

This dental practice stands out as one of our best clients for many reasons, but one of the biggest contributors their success is their exceptional, well-trained front office staff.

Their staff’s entire focus is on how to treat each patient as if they’re the most important person in the office. Their front office staff has been trained to handle everything from complicated insurance questions to anxious patients to price shoppers.

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Dr. Lopez and his team have built an extensive online presence using their practice’s website, Google Reviews, Facebook Ads and Google Ads.

They give potential new patients a look into their patient-friendly, welcoming dental practice and turn phone calls and website visitors into new patients every day.

That vision is consistently reflected in their stellar patient reviews! They are at 138 patient reviews and are at 4.9 stars on Google – plus more are coming in every week!

Their front office staff is well-trained, helpful and kind to any patient calling the office. Because of their focus on providing the best patient experience from the first phone call, Riggs Family Dental consistently ranks in Firegang’s top 10 dental practices for converting phone calls to new patients each month.

So how does the team at Riggs Family Dental create an amazing experience patients happily review?

We reached out to Nichole Sietsema, the practice’s office manager for some insight into their practice and how they feel about working with us at Firegang.

“We liked that Firegang specifically modeled its business around dental. You know the psychology behind what dental patients are looking for, what ad language works and what doesn’t and you have tried and true methods from working with dentists across the country.”

We hope you learn something new and can take something away from the success they’ve experienced and apply it to your own dental practice!

Ready to see real, sustainable new patient growth for your practice?

Click here to schedule a free marketing assessment and learn how to hit your goals starting today!

 

 Q & A With Nichole Sietsema, Office Manager At Riggs Family Dental

Where was Riggs Family Dental before Firegang?

I worked with Dr. Lopez to open this practice from the ground up. We had no patients when we started and had more time when we were building to do some of our own internal marketing. However, as we grew, we couldn’t handle all the marketing needs of the practice on our own.

What made you originally look for a marketing company?

As we grew and had more and more patients, we really were just looking to try to put ourselves out there to gain more new patients and put more money into the proper marketing channels.

Online marketing has been the way to go, whether through Facebook or Yelp, or any platform, digital marketing is where it’s at and we knew we needed support and weren’t experts.

We would have had to hire for a whole new marketing position in the office and Firegang has jumped into that role and been the exact expert that we needed.

Is Firegang the first marketing company you’ve worked with?

We worked with small companies on print advertising here and there but never with a true comprehensive agency like Firegang that provided us with support and handles everything.

What’s something you were surprised by once you started working with Firegang?

I really liked the recordings of our phone calls. As much as I know that’s not anything new, that insight really helped our staff become hyper-focused and improve our communication with patients. Especially since we’re the first part of the experience a patient has. That was huge, really helpful and continues to help us today.

The other thing I was surprised about and liked is that we have our dedicated client success manager, Jenna, who seems to really work well and communicate well with teams.

She takes the initiative and works with the different teams within Firegang so she can come to me and say things like, “I talked to our SEO team or our paid ads team and we’re seeing these numbers, so because of that I think we should put dollars over here instead of there.”

She understands the dental industry and what we try to do. The open communication between Firegang’s expertise and our expertise in our office is so beneficial and mutually respectful. We’ve made some really great progress and choices for our marketing and because of that.

Do you feel like you get a lot of transparency from Firegang?

The transparency of information and marketing metrics has been hugely helpful. Not only to provide me with the additional education of what Firegang does and the value you bring to our practice, but to also understand that this isn’t just a marketing template you apply to every dental office, but that your services are unique to the relationship we’ve built between you and our office.

What do you feel has been the #1 factor to your success over the past year with your new patient growth?

I would say it’s been the positive experience the patient has from the moment they call to their first visit with us.

Our strength is being helpful, very customer-service oriented, well trained on how to answer difficult questions and being able to navigate difficult patients.

Sometimes we hear that online marketing leads to a lot of price shoppers or patients who just want to come in for a free consultation and never come back. How do you feel about patient quality from the internet for your practice?

I think that a good marketing campaign will bring in a number of people from different walks of life: those that are price shopping and also those that are really looking to establish a relationship with a new dentist.

Our philosophy is not to market ourselves to patients with tricks or misleading sales. We are very up front with patients that we would like them to take advantage of the new patient special for affordability reasons.

We can then present them with any treatment they need as options for affordable care through a dental discount plan, through insurance, our in-office membership or a cash discount. We take that time with them. This isn’t always an easy thing to do, but we make it a priority to do this with each of our patients.

What advice would you give a practice that is just starting out with a new comprehensive digital marketing strategy?

Remember that you’re going to want to rely on a comprehensive plan with an agency where that’s their area of expertise, but also you can’t expect that to be the only thing that feeds your practice. Internal marketing and referrals are still going to be infinitely valuable. You still need to reply to your patients when they review you and give you positive feedback.

You can flood a practice with a number of patients looking for a dentist, but it’s ultimately up to that practice to make that the experience they provide is worth coming back for.

How’s your experience been with Firegang so far and what’s it like working with us?

I’ve had a great experience with you guys. One of the nicest features has been the partnership with Sikka, which has allowed us to see the KPIs and analyze the practice in a different way. Navigating business documents and reports are organized in a very visual fashion has been great.

I like having a timely, organized, open client success manager. Any question she has for me or any task that needs to be done doesn’t come with judgement or frustration but with patience and understanding.

It’s been nice to have that support and guidance on a number of things and having fresh ideas coming our way constantly through our partnership with Firegang.

Thank you for your kind words, Nichole! We’re so proud to have Riggs Family Dental as one of our success stories and can’t wait to see how you continue to grow and build your dental practice.

Ready to become a success story but aren’t sure where to start?

Click here to schedule a free marketing assessment and learn how to hit your goals starting today!