There are notable differences between the oral healthcare industries in China and Japan. In China, pharmacies are primarily visited by the sick population, as medication purchases are typically associated with illness. Conversely, in Japan, drugstores not only cater to patients but also attract a broader range of consumers. For instance, many Chinese students studying in Japan often buy items like eye masks and face masks from drugstores. As a result, drugstores in Japan serve a more diverse customer base beyond just those who are unwell.
This distinction is also evident in the positioning of dental institutions. In China, dental institutions typically focus on treating patients in need, while in Japan, drugstores cater to the entire lifecycle population. Dental institutions can initiate oral prevention efforts, serving people of all ages, not just those requiring treatment but also healthy individuals. This lifecycle approach enables dental institutions to reach a wider user base and establish a more sustainable business model.
Oral prevention projects offer several advantages. Firstly, there is significant demand and a broad audience, encompassing all customers. Secondly, oral prevention entails high-frequency repeat purchases, transforming one-time transactions into long-term cooperative relationships. Finally, the impacts of oral prevention projects are often immediately discernible, allowing customers to experience treatment effects promptly, thereby enhancing market responsiveness.
We must pay attention to this and ensure that every dental institution has a department dedicated to oral prevention. Whether managed by administrators or entrepreneurs themselves, this department should monitor patient satisfaction. If satisfaction levels dip below 100%, preventive measures should be implemented. Furthermore, each dental institution should ideally feature a specialized oral prevention section, ensuring focused and comprehensive service. If satisfaction is low and a patient is cavity-free, for instance, they might receive additional oral hygiene services. In many dental institutions, we observe a considerable emphasis on teeth cleaning, with nurses and doctors actively promoting these services.
Marketing strategies for dental institutions should also be tailored to the customer’s lifecycle value. Pursuing the lifecycle value of every customer is crucial for increasing customer retention, which can substantially enhance profitability. Therefore, dental institutions need to adopt a long-term perspective, providing continuous services to customers, attracting and retaining more clients, and achieving a more robust business model.
How to cultivate patient habits and earn their time is the second point.
Delving deeper into the concept of sunk costs, let’s explore further. Suppose you purchase a movie ticket, enter the cinema, and after half an hour, realize it’s a bad movie. What would you do? You have two options: first, you might opt not to waste time on a subpar movie and leave immediately. Second, despite having already spent the money, you may choose to stay and endure the movie to the end, reasoning that “I’ve already paid for it, so I might as well finish it.” Most individuals would likely select the second option, illustrating the concept of sunk costs. When making decisions, people consider not only future benefits but also past investments. This psychological phenomenon is known as the sunk cost fallacy and is prevalent in various aspects of our lives, including bargaining at markets, where sellers may be reluctant to accept your desired price unless they’ve invested time and effort in you, leveraging their sunk costs. Similarly, many individuals may hesitate to exit a troubled marriage due to investments like children or building a family. Sunk costs permeate our lives. Hence, how can we leverage this concept in our dental institution? We should aim to occupy the patient’s costs, ensuring they continuously return to our clinic. By consistently drawing them back to our clinic, we heighten their reliance on us. We often say a child can influence a family, but how does this occur? Through consumption. However, the crux of this statement lies in building trust with customers and occupying their sunk costs, increasingly binding their time to our clinic. Only then can we foster more trust and consumption, the fundamental logic behind a child influencing a family.
The core of this strategy lies in driving low-frequency behaviors with high-frequency contacts. This entails ensuring frequent interactions with patients and leveraging repurchases and quality assurances to enhance patient retention.
In the dental medical industry, profitability often stems from a series of minor projects. This resembles our implant projects, which typically evolve from simple procedures like teeth cleaning or filling after establishing a certain level of trust. Hence, the prudent approach is to contemplate major projects only after trust has been established.
It is crucial to comprehend that major projects often comprise a sequence of minor endeavors. Just like marriage, mutual understanding and shared experiences require time to thrive. Therefore, for our dental institution to genuinely achieve long-term growth, we must prioritize the trust relationship with patients and gradually develop major projects through minor ones.
Thirdly, we need to prioritize the visualization of oral medical service reports and consultation processes to enhance patient satisfaction and compliance. Through these tools, we can gain better insights into patients’ needs and devise personalized treatment plans for them.
For instance, there is a doctor in Shenzhen, China, who has developed a robust system. If you input a panoramic dental X-ray into this system, it will outline all the patient’s oral health conditions, including every untreated step in their future. Additionally, tools such as PowerPoint presentations of dental patient cases are indispensable. However, all these tools necessitate a visual report to be elucidated to patients.
Lastly, we need to articulate our value proposition. For instance, following a dental implant procedure, we can apprise the patient that their teeth are now in excellent condition. However, they must continue preventive measures. They should undergo regular check-ups annually, and we will remind them of these appointments and offer necessary guidance on oral health concerns. Thus, we instill a value system in all our patients, emphasizing that all treatments, whether restoration, extraction, or filling, ultimately serve as preventive measures. We must convey this mindset and value to our clientele.
Alright, until next class.
