Trust before treatment: building rapport to drive case acceptance

Lia Melconian shares her top tips for building rapport with patients and explains how this can be utilised to increase case acceptance rates.

Throughout my training, I naively thought the ‘best’ dentists were the ones with the most knowledge about teeth.

Looking back on my career to date, first as an associate dentist and now as a young practice owner, I’ve realised it isn’t theory alone that makes a dentist successful. You need a minimum level of understanding – of course you do. But what sets the most successful dentists apart is their ability to build rapport. Patients don’t remember the occlusal reduction you did on UL6. They remember how you made them feel.

That first hit home on the three-month follow-up call for my Invisalign course. The speaker asked: ‘How many cases has everyone started so far?’ Most people said zero or one. I said I had 15 sign-ups and everyone gasped. Quickly, another dentist chimed in and said I must work at a practice with a huge marketing budget and a diary full of Invisalign consults.

I told them all the cases were from my own patient list, people I signed up during their routine examinations. The call fell silent again.

I’m not saying this to sound flashy. I’m saying it because it proves something we don’t talk about enough: case acceptance isn’t only about explaining the clinical details. It’s about trust. And trust comes from rapport.

Rapport starts before you even sit in the chair