Almost 97% of people without a dentist who try to get NHS care in England are turned away. Demand isn’t the problem. The issue is that by the time a new patient calls your practice, they may already have been turned away elsewhere, and one in five is in pain.
That first phone call is where you win or lose them. If it goes unanswered, if they’re left on hold, or if their details never make it into your practice management system (PMS), they’ll call the next practice on the list.
Here are five ways dental practices lose new patients before their first appointment, and how to fix each one.
1. Unanswered calls
During practice hours, new patients can struggle to get through during busy periods. Most will call another surgery instead of leaving a voicemail. Out of hours, the patient will be diverted to NHS 111 if it’s an emergency, so the opportunity is lost.
Practices who are still relying on voicemail or outsourced call-answering services will be hardest hit. However, no call needs to go unanswered.
With Dentsy’s AI phone system and receptionist, call overflows and out of hours calls are picked up automatically, with notes and details passed directly to the PMS and CRM. Even if the final outcome is the same – that the patient books treatment with a different surgery in an emergency – at least the practice can seamlessly capture the record for follow up. In addition, there’s a clear record of incoming call volumes by purpose, supporting tracking of urgent care delivery.
2. Slow callbacks
When the patient leaves a voicemail or missed call about non-urgent care, for example cosmetic treatments or routine check-ups, all is not lost if the practice can respond quickly. That’s often the case first thing on Monday morning or as the practice opens during the week. Unfortunately, many practices still lack an efficient automated system for managing missed calls. The task has to be squeezed into an already busy schedule by a receptionist who may already be handling patients arriving for their appointments.
The solution? Dentsy AI phone system records every incoming call, including missed and voicemails, and assigns a follow-up automatically. As a result, receptionists can arrive on Monday morning to find a list of missed calls to take care of, and follow the status of each one so that nobody is left behind. One-click dialing directly from the dashboard makes the task easier, too. Instead of having to leave the dashboard to find the patient’s number, records and history, it’s all there on the screen, with the number ready to dial.
3. Answering the same questions each time
The last thing a patient calling with toothache wants to endure is a tedious recap of their name, details, and history. But that’s the experience for many when the practice has no way of identifying incoming callers, so every conversation has to go back to the beginning.
Denty’s smart caller pop-up solves the problem by recognising the number of any returning caller and automatically pulling up their details from the PMS for display on-screen. Not only can the receptionist greet the caller by name, but they can also start the conversation from the last relevant stop. It saves time and relieves frustration, and is the kind of feature that persuades patients to come back to a practice.
4. Unclear information
One of the biggest challenges for dental practices since the introduction of NHS dental contract changes is meeting the requirement on transparent pricing and information. In short, dental practices must ensure that they are quoting accurate prices for treatments in advance, clearly communicating their ownership structure, and maintaining a transparent process for handling complaints.
The problem for many practices is that there is no system for storing and tracking call data in the system. The CRM and PMS might record patient treatment information, but no call data is captured.
Dentsy closes the gap. By recording, transcribing and summarising every incoming call, receptionists and managers can see exactly what was said on a call, what next steps are still unresolved, and whether customer sentiment was positive or negative.
5. Inconsistent first impressions
A new patient’s first call shapes how they see your practice. But the experience they get can depend on who picks up the phone. One receptionist might explain the next steps clearly and offer an appointment. Another, juggling the front desk, might rush the call and end with “we’ll call you back.” For a nervous patient, or someone comparing practices for Invisalign or implants, that difference can decide where they book.
Most practice managers can’t listen to every call, so these gaps often go unnoticed until a complaint or a poor review appears.
Dentsy’s AI Phone System helps you see what’s happening across the team. Every call is transcribed and summarised, and sentiment analysis highlights how the patient felt about the conversation. Agent scoring and intelligence dashboards show where calls go well and where new enquiries aren’t turning into bookings. That gives you a fair, consistent basis for coaching. You can share strong calls as examples and support team members who need it, rather than relying on guesswork.
With Dentsy, you stop losing bookings
We built Dentsy by studying how dental practices work and listening to what they needed. Then we developed an AI phone system that still manages to surprise them.
The practices we partner with are consistently amazed at how much time they didn’t know they were wasting on inefficient processes, and how much more productive they are from day one.
Ready to see for yourself?
