Components of dental clinic patient loyalty as perceived by the dentist

Resumen

The dental clinic market has been subject to different changes while have led to the development of a new business model for the sector. These changes have been the great increase in the number of dentists, new business models, the demand of new services, churn patients, among others. With the purpose of stopping patient churn, the main objective of this research is to investigate the perception that the dentist has of the behavior of Loyal Patient (LP) and Non-loyal Patient (NLP) in dental clinics. The study analyzes the data obtained from a survey collected among 220 Spanish dentists who were active during 2012. The main findings obtained from the Principal Components Analysis (PCA) are: (i) the dentist perceives that the behavior of the LP is driven by three components: "Same dental clinic and recommendation", "Patient willingness" and "Low sensitivity to prices"; (ii) the dentist perceives that the behavior of the NLP is driven by three components: "High sensitivity to prices", "High churn and few recommendation" and "Less visits". This study allow to understand patient loyalty in dental clinics by a holistic approach, evaluating the dentist's perception; at the same time, it helps in decreasing negative bias in the dentist in order not to condition their professional behavior when a new patient arrives at the clinic.