The other day I was driving past a Dental Practice and I noticed they had a huge illuminated sign outside the premises which read “Payment plans available”.
Now, I don’t know about you, but that immediately suggests to me “this dentist is expensive” and that’s not the first impression you want to give to any potential patient. After all, if a payment plan is needed it probably means that, whatever the treatment, it is going to cost a heap. Not a good first impression!
I’m sure the dentist was trying to indicate they could make payment easy on a prospect’s budget but obviously the dentist hadn’t give much thought to how to say it in a way that would take the payment pain out of the picture.
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Maybe the best approach would be not to mention costs/payment in the signage at all… wait to talk costs until after the prospect has met the dental team and experienced their gentle dental care. I reckon that’d be my preferred approach, so my signage might be just those three words… “Gentle Dental Care!”
Of course, if you feel you must mention it, you could take a humorous approach about cost, something like “Great dentistry that won’t cost you an arm and a leg!”
However, my Miracle Worker, Felicity, has a different perspective as she explains here.
“This is a tough one – maybe it depends on your target market?
I know my dentist attendance record was woeful for years, mostly because the cost, even of just a regular checkup, was too much for my weekly budget. When the kids were younger they at least got a government voucher once a year, but that program got scrapped.
So from that perspective, the sign would probably have been reassuring and appealing to me! I saw something similar in Chirnside Park years ago, and I remember thinking “what a great idea!””
So there’s two sides to the argument. I’ll leave it to you to determine what would work for you.
Hi Winston
Thank you for the article “Think before you sign” and all of the other wisdom you have shared with me and many others. I have a question to ask you. Do you think it is ok to mention consulting fee/price in my website, that I am building, to take away the surprise from prospective clients and to use the fee as a way to position myself as providing a premium service.
G’day Gerard! Thanks for both your kind comments and your question. Id love you to call me 0415 358324 coz your question is worthy of some discussion particularly if I can learn more about your business. However, if that is inconvenient, I’d give the broad answer that there are better ways of positioning you as a premium provider than doing it by price. Have a f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c day… Winno