Updated 2026-07-25 · 2 min read
Getting somebody to write to your practice costs money and effort. Losing them between that first message and the chair is the most expensive way to fail, because you'd already paid for the hard part.
The journey has four fairly identifiable drop-off points. Closing them doesn't require spending any more on getting new patients.
Point 1: response time
Somebody asking about a first appointment is almost always writing to several practices. The one that answers first has an enormous advantage, and not because of the speed: because of the feeling that this is a place where they'll be looked after.
There's no strategy available here: either you answer within minutes at any hour, or you lose a share of those patients.
Point 2: the friction of booking
Every extra detail you ask for and every unnecessary back-and-forth costs patients. If getting an appointment means phoning during office hours, plenty of people won't phone.
What works is closing the appointment in the same conversation in which they asked, with specific times and no forms.
Point 3: the days of waiting
Between booking and turning up there are days in which a new patient goes cold. They don't know the practice, they have no relationship with it, and anything unexpected beats the appointment.
A reminder that asks them to confirm cuts that drop-off a lot, and it also turns a silent no-show into a cancellation with notice — which can be filled.
Point 4: the appointment itself
If the practice has a policy on arriving early or something the patient should bring, saying so when you confirm avoids the classic problem: arriving on the dot, in a rush and in a bad mood.
And if they don't turn up, it's worth being clear about what happens next: a short message, with no reproach, offering another date. A proportion of no-shows are recoverable as long as nobody treats them as an offence.