6 Ways Your Practice Can Make a Great First Impression

Print & Go GuidanceBy Genni Burkhart, Editor

A 2025 study in BMC Oral Health of 236 dental patients found that service quality accounted for 42.9% of patients’ willingness to return to the same dental clinic. The factors included responsiveness, assurance, empathy, accountability, and the physical aspects of the clinic.

Those findings align with a separate 2025 review in the Journal of Patient Experience, which found that dental patient experience is shaped by everything from communication and office environment to follow-up care and interactions with team members. The review also found that a welcoming reception, clean and comfortable surroundings, clear communication, transparent payment systems, and supportive follow-up can influence trust, satisfaction, and return visits.

As such, trust is built through dozens of small interactions throughout the visit, from the first phone call and visit to the website, to their greeting at the front desk, to the conversations that happen at the end of their very first visit.

Fortunately, many of the factors that shape a patient's experience are entirely within a practice's control. Let's review six ways your team can make a stronger first impression and create a better experience for every patient who walks through the door.

1. Have a Strategy

Every practice has busy days, the phone never stops ringing, and it seems like every appointment is running late. However, patients aren't aware of what happened five minutes before they arrived, let alone what happens behind the reception desk. They only know how your team treats them.

A patient's first visit should feel clear and welcoming right from the start. Patients should know where to check in, what to expect, and who can answer their questions.

A simple front desk checklist can include:

• Does every patient receive a warm greeting?
• Does the team make eye contact?
• Are new patients told what will happen next?
• Are questions answered without making the patient feel like an interruption?

Everyone has bad days, but the patient’s first impression at your dental practice shouldn’t depend on which kind of day the team is having.

2. What's on the Outside Matters

Before patients see the operatory, the technology, or the credentials hanging on the wall, they see the physical location of your practice. Everything from the parking lot, landscaping, and signage to the sidewalks and entrance tells your story before anyone on your team has a chance to say, "hello."

Take a walk outside and look at the practice through the eyes of a first-time patient and consider:

• Is the entrance easy to find?
• Is the parking lot clean, safe, and well-maintained?
• Is the front entrance to your practice easy to find, and are the doors operating properly and safely?
• Is the landscaping neat and inviting?
• Would the outside of the practice give patients confidence before they ever step inside?

The goal isn't to impress patients with extravagance; rather, it's an outward expression of your attention to detail and care as an oral health provider.

3. Atmosphere and the Patient Experience

A recent Harvard Medical School article noted that smell has a powerful connection to memory and emotion. That's worth remembering because patients will relate to the atmosphere of your front office long before they enter the operatory.

Patients expect dental practices to be "clinically clean," and most understand there's a smell associated with that. However, here are a few things to take notice of from the patient's perspective:

• What does the office smell like when patients first walk through the door?
• Are harsh disinfectant odors overpowering the waiting room or entry?
• Are there lingering food smells coming from the break room?
• During rainy, snowy, or muddy weather, are patients tracking the outdoors onto the floors?
• Do entry mats or rugs need cleaning or replacing?
• Does the restroom look as clean and well-maintained as the treatment rooms?
• Are there dead bugs collecting inside light fixtures or along windowsills?
• Is there a fluorescent bulb that's been buzzing or flickering?
• Are chairs, tables, and other high-touch surfaces clean and free of dust, or in need of repair?

In reality, patients don't separate the parking lot, waiting room, restroom, smells, sounds, and treatment room into different categories. To them, it's all part of the same experience.

4. Make Every Conversation Count

A 2024 literature review in Patient Preference and Adherence emphasized that effective dentist-patient communication plays an essential role in dental care, particularly on a patient's first visit, where trust has yet to be established.

Factors that contribute to good communication from the start include:

• Did the patient understand the purpose of their visit?
• Were treatment options discussed in plain language?
• Did the patient understand the benefits, risks, limitations, and costs of care?
• Did someone pause long enough to ask, "What questions do you have?"
• Was the patient given information they can review at home?

Every patient wants to feel informed, involved, and heard. That's especially important in sedation dentistry, where care plans are often more complex and require more understanding on the patient's part.

5. Don’t Forget the Final Impression

The end of the first visit matters just as much as the introduction.

While a patient may have a great clinical appointment, they could leave feeling uncertain if next steps, costs, and post-treatment instructions aren't properly reviewed.

The 2025 Journal of Patient Experience review also found that post-visit factors, including follow-up, patient education, billing clarity, and continuity of care, can support satisfaction and encourage return visits.

That’s an opportunity. Before patients leave, make sure they know what was done, what happens next, whom to call with questions, and what financial or scheduling steps remain.

6. A Better Patient Experience Starts With What Patients Actually Notice

Most patients will never know how much effort went into treatment planning, scheduling, staffing, compliance, or keeping the day on track. What they do know is how your practice made them feel.

Studies have shown that communication, the treatment environment, follow-up care, and positive interactions with dental team members all contribute to patient trust, satisfaction, and return visits. Those findings probably won't surprise many providers, but they do provide evidence that even the smallest details can leave the biggest impression on a patient's first visit to your dental practice.

Author: With over 16 years as a published journalist, editor, and writer, Genni Burkhart's career has spanned politics, healthcare, law, business finance, technology, and news. She resides in Northern Colorado, where she works as the editor-in-chief of the Incisor at DOCS Education.

References

1. Haji Seyed Javadi SK. From Patient Experience to Dental Service Return Visits: A Narrative Review of Strategies for Improving Dental Care Services. Journal of Patient Experience. 2025;12:23743735251406349. doi:10.1177/23743735251406349. PMID: 41383219; PMCID: PMC12690051.
2. Ho JCY, Chai HH, Lo ECM, Huang MZ, Chu CH. Strategies for Effective Dentist-Patient Communication: A Literature Review. Patient Preference and Adherence. 2024;18:1385-1394. doi:10.2147/PPA.S465221.
3. Othman BM, et al. Patient satisfaction, willingness to revisit, and implications for oral health policy: A service quality assessment at dental clinics. BMC Oral Health. 2025;25:1469. doi:10.1186/s12903-025-06879-2.