How to Improve Orthodontic Case Conversion

Here’s a question for you.

If ten patients at your practice showed genuine interest in orthodontic treatment, how many would actually go ahead?

Six?

Three?

No idea?

In my experience, that last answer is surprisingly common.

Plenty of practices have a vague sense of whether they’re doing well with orthodontic case acceptance. But when you ask for the actual numbers, things get a little hazy.

And that’s a problem.

Because before you spend another dollar trying to generate more orthodontic leads, it’s worth finding out what’s happening to the opportunities you already have.

As a rough benchmark, for existing patients I’d be looking for a conversion rate of around 60% or better. For enquiries generated through advertising, somewhere around 30–40% would be more realistic.

If you’re well below those numbers, your first reaction might be:

“We need more leads.”

Maybe.

But maybe you don’t.

Maybe you’ve already got enough opportunities coming through the door. You’re just losing too many of them before they start treatment.

And fixing that can be considerably cheaper than buying another batch of leads.

Start with the value proposition

One of the biggest mistakes I see practices make with orthodontics is explaining the treatment from the dentist’s point of view rather than the patient’s.

We talk about aligners.

Treatment plans.

Scans.

Technology.

Clinical processes.

All perfectly legitimate things to talk about.

The trouble is, that’s not necessarily what the patient is thinking about.

They’re thinking:

“What will my smile look like?”

“How much is this going to cost me?”

“How long will it take?”

“Is it going to hurt?”

“Am I going to have to change everything I eat?”

“Will people notice?”

That’s the conversation happening in their head.

And if your communication doesn’t answer those questions, you’re making the patient do far too much work.

I’ve said this many times about dental marketing: patients don’t buy treatments. They buy outcomes.

Nobody wakes up in the morning desperate to purchase a series of clear plastic aligners.

They want to feel better about their smile.

They want straighter teeth.

They want to stop hiding their mouth in photos.

The treatment is how they get there.

So take a critical look at the way orthodontics is explained across the entire patient journey — on your website, over the phone, in the surgery and during the treatment presentation.

Is the value obvious?

Or are you giving patients a pile of clinical information and expecting them to work out the value for themselves?

Make the next step ridiculously easy

The next problem is what happens after someone shows interest.

Imagine one of your patients says:

“I’ve actually been thinking about straightening my teeth.”

Great.

You have an interested patient sitting in your chair.

They’re not necessarily ready to sign up on the spot — and that’s perfectly normal.

So what happens next?

Far too often, it’s something like:

“No worries. Have a think about it and give us a call.”

And off they go.

No appointment.

No follow-up.

No next step.

A potentially valuable orthodontic case has just disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle of “I’ll think about it”.

Don’t make the patient do the work.

Every stage should have a clear, simple next step.

Book the consultation.

Schedule the records appointment.

Explain the payment options.

Arrange the follow-up call.

Put something in the diary.

This starts from the very first enquiry.

You can run brilliant marketing and generate plenty of interest, but if the phone isn’t answered properly, the enquiry sits in an inbox for two days or nobody follows up, all that marketing has achieved is a more expensive way to lose patients.

Generating the opportunity is only half the job.

The practice still has to convert it.

Follow-up is part of the process

There’s another trap here.

Practices sometimes worry that following up will make them look pushy.

It won’t, assuming you do it properly.

There’s a big difference between pestering somebody and helping an interested patient take the next step.

People get busy.

They forget.

They need to talk to their partner.

They want to check their finances.

The timing wasn’t quite right when they first spoke to you.

None of those things necessarily means “no”.

Which is why a clear follow-up process matters.

Who follows up?

When?

How many times?

By phone, SMS or email?

What happens if they don’t respond?

If the answer is “it depends who’s on reception that day”, you don’t really have a follow-up process.

You have hope.

And hope is not a particularly reliable conversion strategy.

Measure your conversion rate

Finally, start measuring.

Let’s say you had 30 genuine orthodontic opportunities last quarter.

How many started treatment?

And just as importantly, what happened to the rest?

Did they disappear after the first enquiry?

Did they attend a consultation but go no further?

Did you present a treatment plan and then hear nothing?

Was price the sticking point?

Did nobody follow them up?

Those are completely different problems.

And they need completely different solutions.

If you’re losing people at the initial enquiry, you may have a front-desk or response-time issue.

If they’re attending consultations but not proceeding, you may have a value proposition or case-presentation problem.

If plenty say they’re interested and then disappear, you may have a follow-up problem.

But until you measure it, you’re guessing.

And you can’t fix a conversion problem you haven’t identified.

Before you spend more on leads…

There’s nothing wrong with generating more orthodontic enquiries.

But don’t automatically assume more leads are the answer.

First, look closely at what’s happening to the patients who are already putting their hands up.

Clarify the value.

Make every next step easy.

Follow up consistently.

Measure what happens.

Then fix the part of the process where patients are dropping out.

You may discover that the fastest way to grow orthodontic revenue isn’t finding hundreds of new people.

It’s doing a better job with the opportunities already sitting inside your practice.

About the Author 

Angus Pryor is the founder of Dental Growth Solutions and Dental Stars.  With a background in business, marketing and consulting, Angus focuses on helping dentists attract more of the right patients, improve conversion and build stronger, more profitable practices.