#283 40% to 74% Conversion: Why We Switched AI Receptionists

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Most dentists assume an AI receptionist is either working or not working. The reality is that not all AI platforms perform the same.

In this episode of Dental Marketing Goat, Gary Bird sits down with Dr. Jancy Parkerson to break down why they replaced their original AI receptionist and what happened next. You'll learn how one system converted around 40% of missed new patient calls while the replacement converted 74%, resulting in 17 scheduled new patients from 23 calls in a single month.

If you're focused on dental marketing, new patient growth, phone conversion, practice management, fee-for-service dentistry, or scaling a startup or DSO practice, this episode provides a real-world case study with actual numbers and lessons learned.
Gary and the SMC team work with dental practices across the country and continuously analyze what drives patient acquisition, phone conversion, and sustainable growth.
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Website: https://chattanoogadentalarts.com/

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Dental Marketing Goat is the go-to podcast for dentists who want to grow faster, market smarter, and build practices that thrive in today’s competitive landscape.
Hosted by Gary Bird, the Dental Marketing Goat himself and founder of SMC National, recently named Best Dental Marketing Agency by over 60,000 dental professionals. Each episode unpacks the real strategies, marketing frameworks, and operational shifts that high-performing practices use to attract more patients and increase production. Whether you're a solo practitioner or scaling a DSO, you’ll learn how to align your marketing, team, and systems to drive predictable growth.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It was converting at about 40%. Our other AI agent convert at 78%. This month alone, you saw 23 new patient calls come through that AI agent and it booked 17 of those.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

The benchmark for humans is 70 plus. It's doing just as well as team members are, maybe better, because AI is consistent and humans are humans.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome back to another episode of Dental Marketing Go. I'm your host, Gary Bird. I'm the owner of SMC National, where we help offices just like yours love the playing field against the big guys out there so you can grow the way that you want. And in today's episode, we're going to be talking about AI and how it's not all created equal. If you've ever used AI before, you know some of it is really bad. Dr. Jancy's going to break down how she went from doing 40% conversion with an AI receptionist to now 74%. That means she's getting more new patients through the door, her marketing ROI is higher, her office is busier, all from just making one small switch with AI. This is a mess watch. If you're using AI and you're not tracking its results, it could be costing you a ton of new patients. Stay tuned. One thing that we noticed is you had an AI receptionist taking your calls, and we kind of did a deep dive into that. And we noticed that it was converting at about 40%. So it was taking a good number of calls. Last month it took eight new patient calls. Um, and the month before it took, I think, uh seven new patient calls. And it was scheduling between like 20%, 30%, a high was like 40%. So we said, hey, let's try our other AI agent. Let's see if it can we can do better. And it was able to convert at 78%, which is a lot. Let's, you know, two, three X, uh, the number of new patients. So this month, just this month alone, um, you saw 23 new patient calls come through that AI agent, and it booked 17 of those. And a lot of those did treatment. So tell me a little bit about that experience with AI. I know AI is new, so we're learning, we're growing. Everybody's, we're constantly tweaking the stuff that we're doing as well. What, what, what were your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 2:10

So we had had an AI receptionist through a different platform for about a year. And the original receptionist did not filter calls, um, whether it was new or existing. It took any calls that were missed by the office. So if it was during business hours and team members, the lines were busy, it would pick them up there. And then obviously after hours. Um, so it was it was answering any of those. And if it was an existing patient, there wasn't a lot that it could help with. Um, ultimately, it would, you know, say, hey, we're closed, we can't handle your billing concern, we'll, you know, forward this to the office, and it would kind of send us like a transcript. Um, and then we would end up having to call them back on the next business date anyway. New patients, uh, we worked with them closely uh trying to modify its verbiage, the scripting, because our office is predominantly out of network. We're only directly contracted with two remaining plans. And we had a really hard time nailing down what the AI receptionist was saying to the patients. Uh, we would think we'd have it tweaked, and then I would get a transcript because I always got an email uh when any call was answered. And it might do okay for a couple of weeks, and then I would see that it was, you know, using out-of-network language or um just telling them, no, we can't accept that here or what have you. So uh it was a little bit frustrating um for us because we thought we had something that was going to benefit the practice, but really it didn't help with existing patients whatsoever, just because of its innate limitations. But it also wasn't really helping with new patients as well. Um, it was actually deterring some of them because of the language that it was using, which was not consistent with the language that our team was using if they would have answered the phone. Um, but it also wasn't doing a great job, even for the ones that it did schedule. Because even though it integrated with EagleSoft, which is the PMS that we use. Let's say we had a gray block, but the chair wasn't closed. For those of you that use Eaglesoft, you'll understand what I mean. It would still try to schedule a patient where my gray block was, indicating that I didn't really have availability in that area. So oftentimes we would have to call the patient and say, Hey, we actually need you to come at such and such time. And for new patients, you never want to have to call and move them and there'll be issues because you want to get off on a, you know, good first impression, good foot. But sometimes AI did not set us up for that, even if it did convert it. So there were multiple layers of issues that we were running into with the former platform, but we did have a year-long contract that we had to abide by. So even though Gary had introduced us to it several months ago, we still had an obligation to kind of see it through. Um, but we were finally able to convert over to the new platform May 1st. So it's been our first full month with it. And like Gary said, it's converting at like 74%. And the benchmark for humans is 70 plus. So it's doing just as well as team members are. Um, I would just dare say maybe better because AI is consistent and humans are humans.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

And it blows my mind that we're at a place in the world, and I know dentistry's kind of experienced this with other technology before, but like just seeing AI be able to do things that people will actually interact with, they'll they'll answer the questions, they'll schedule, and then they'll actually come in to the office. So that's amazing. So that helped your new patients because you went from third 30 to 40 percent to all the way up to 74 percent. I just pulled up the exact number there. So 74% so far this month conversion. So that helped us get more new patients through the door, um, which is great.