
Did you catch our last post about the 7 important moments every patient goes through in a modern, comprehensive dental clinic?
Understanding this patient journey is your first step to implementing it, optimizing it - and providing patients with experiences that surprise and delight. This is one of the key topics that Christian Coachman explores at DSD Residency 1 courses.
To clearly explain the patient journey and how to improve it, he breaks it down into three comprehensive stages that he believes every dental clinic owner needs to master. Have you ever considered these?
DSD Residency Tip #9: The 3 games to master in the dental clinic business

Game 1: Before the patient comes to you
Christian Coachman believes that the first game to master is all about helping people to find you and convince them that they should choose you. How can we bring more people to our door? How do we show people the value we can offer before they arrive here?
What are our strategies for game 1?
- Master the compelling stories that demonstrate the full value of what you can offer your patients - and become better at telling them
- Reach out to more people to increase your audience
- Empower word of mouth from your existing happy patients
Game 2: The 1st and 2nd appointments
The second game dental offices need to win at is managing the patient’s experience throughout their first and second appointments in our dental office. This includes everything they experience from the moment they step through our door for the first time, to the moment they say ‘yes’ to their treatment plan - and the ways we can improve it to increase the chance of them becoming real clients.
What are our strategies for game 2?
- Enhance the experience your patients have at every single moment in your dental office
- Change the way you gather and process your patient’s information to offer a positive experience
- Wow your patient with a treatment plan presentation that demonstrates the value of your treatment for them
Game 3: Treatment and maintenance
We’re all too aware that often, patients expect dental treatment to be uncomfortable and even painful. So how can we change this perception? This is the third game Christian Coachman believes we need to master.
At this stage, our goal is to delight patients with an experience beyond their imagination. And after this, to exceed their expectations, surprise them and transform them from happy patients into loyal fans and promoters of our dental office.
What are our strategies for game 3?
- Improve the way you perform dentistry
- Change the way patients see your performance and the value they place on it
Creating your playbooks for these three games will bring home the trophies. It will equip you to understand the psychology and human behavior of your patients as well as how to create value. These are emotional moments, and emotion is key if we want to do them well.
In next week’s blog post, we will explain what Christian Coachman calls the Emotional Game and how you can use it in your own clinic to improve patient experience.
Master your patient journey with DSD Residency
DSD Residency 1 courses teach dentists around the world about a new comprehensive dental office model that is not only good for dentistry but good for dental business too.
Improving patient experience is just one of the important topics that Christian Coachman teaches to help participants to succeed with comprehensive dentistry.
There are DSD Residency 1 courses taking place in exciting locations around the world in the second half of 2022 – as well as our Livestream course which delivers all the same learning in a live, online format. Want to learn these strategies? Schedule a call with one of our sales reps to learn more about DSD Residency 1 courses.