At 7:52 on a Tuesday night, Gloria fills in your website's implant form. Gloria has worn a lower denture for six years, and it slipped at dinner on Sunday. Gloria answers the three questions, taps send, then opens the next dental office on Google and fills in that one too.
By then the desk had been closed for almost three hours. The form lands in an inbox nobody opens until after the morning huddle. At 9:15 the treatment coordinator calls and gets voicemail. The office down the road texted Gloria at 7:54 and has a consult booked for Thursday.
Nothing went wrong in your office: the phones were off, as they should be. But a full-arch patient doesn't wait for business hours, and the ads that brought Gloria in ran all evening. Here is how to get more of those forms to a consult: the numbers to watch, the texts and calls word for word, the deposit question and when to stop trying.
What a full-arch form costs before anyone calls
Start with your own numbers. In WordStream's figures, Google Ads for dentists average about $7.85 a click and $84 a lead, across every kind of dental search. Implant and All-on-4 searches cost more, because every implant office in town bids on them.
Work it through for one month. Here is an example office:
| Step | Example month |
|---|---|
| Ad spend | $6,000 |
| Implant forms and calls | 40 |
| Cost per form | $150 |
| Consults booked | 14 |
| Consults that showed | 10 |
| Full-arch cases started | 3 |
At $150 a form, every form that hears back too late is $150 spent, plus the case behind it. Book four more of those 40 into consults, and the same spend starts about one more case a month. None of that needs a bigger budget. It needs a faster reply.
Why full-arch patients go quiet after the form
A Harvard Business Review study checked how 2,241 US companies answered web inquiries. The average reply took 42 hours. Companies that replied within the hour were nearly seven times as likely to reach the person as those that waited one hour more.
Implant patients move even faster. Many fill in two or three practices' forms on the same evening. The first office to answer books the consult, and the others hear “I already found someone.”
The rest go quiet for plain reasons:
- The call came from a number they didn't know, so they let it ring.
- The call came at 10 a.m., while they were at work.
- The voicemail asked them to call back, and calling a dentist about dentures is hard to do.
- Nobody offered a time, so there was nothing to say yes to.
A text from your practice's number answers most of these. It can be read at work, answered later, and replying never takes a phone call.
The first text, word for word
Send it within a minute of the form, at any hour. Use the patient's first name, a real person's name and two consult times. Leave the price for the call.
Within a minute, day or night: “Hi Gloria, it's Sam at Cedar Hill Dental. Thanks for asking about implants. I can hold a consult with Dr. Patel on Wednesday morning or Friday afternoon. Would either one suit you?”
The next morning, if there's no reply: “Morning Gloria, Sam again from Cedar Hill Dental. No rush. If Wednesday and Friday are both hard, tell me an easier day and I'll find a time.”
During office hours: send the same first text, then call within five minutes. The text tells them who's ringing, so more of them pick up.
The first call: who rings, and what they say
By day, the call goes to the person who books consults, not whoever is free. In most general practices that's the treatment coordinator or the front desk lead.
The goal is a booked consult, not a yes to treatment.
- Open: “Hi Gloria, it's Sam from Cedar Hill Dental. You sent us the implant form a few minutes ago. Is now a good time?”
- One question: “What made you look into implants now?” Then listen. The answer tells you what matters: eating, a slipping denture, photos at a wedding.
- The price: “Full-arch cases here usually start at $X an arch. The consult tells you which option fits and the exact fee. Most patients pay monthly.”
- Two times: “Dr. Patel sees implant consults Wednesday at 9:00 and Friday at 2:30. Which suits your week?”
- What happens next: “You'll get a text to confirm, and a short health form to fill in before you come.”
Put your own starting fee in step 3. A caller who hears a real number books more readily than one who hears “it depends.”
After 6 p.m. and on weekends
Plenty of implant forms and calls arrive in the evening, when patients are home and the denture is on their mind. Owners often see a run of missed calls after 6 p.m. Three things cover those hours without anyone staying late.
- A text back on every form, inside the minute. The first text above goes out at 7:52 p.m. the same as at 10:52 a.m.
- A text when a call goes unanswered. Someone who calls at 8:10 in the evening and reaches voicemail is texted at once, from your practice's line, with your booking page.
- Something that can book at night. Pick one: an answering service, an on-call cell, or an AI receptionist that offers consult times, passes the rest to your desk and opens every call by saying it's AI.
Whatever covers the evening, the patient should end it with a consult time, or at least a time to talk.
Should you take a consult deposit?
For full-arch consults, usually yes. A long consult blocks an hour of the dentist's day, and an empty hour costs the practice.
Offices that take one tend to ask $50 to $100, credited toward treatment if the patient goes ahead. One owner on a dentists' forum collects $50 for each scheduled hour and puts it toward the treatment when the patient keeps the visit. Another said patients who know the cost and have already paid turn up.
How to say it: “We hold the consult hour with a $75 deposit. It comes off your treatment if you go ahead, and we refund it with a day's notice.”
Two habits keep it fair. Take the deposit by card when they book, so nobody at the desk chases it. And waive it for patients of record your desk already knows.
Seven tries, then stop
Most offices stop after one call and one voicemail. Most implant patients need more than that. Write the schedule down, so nobody has to remember who's next.
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Minute 1 | First text, two consult times |
| Minute 5, by day | Call, then a short voicemail |
| Next morning | Second text, “no rush” |
| Day 2 | Call at a different time of day |
| Day 4 | Text: before-and-after page |
| Day 7 | Call and text |
| Day 14 | Last text |
That's seven tries over two weeks. The moment the patient books, every try left on the list stops. If day 14 gets no reply, move them to your monthly newsletter and try once more next quarter.
The last text often gets the most answers: “Hi Gloria, Sam at Cedar Hill Dental. I don't want to keep texting if now isn't the time. Shall I close your implant request, or hold a consult for later this month?”
From booked to in the chair
A booked consult isn't a kept one yet. Between the booking and the visit, three texts do most of the work.
- Right after booking: the date, the address, where to park and who they'll meet.
- Two days before: the medical history form to fill in on their phone, so the hour goes to the consult and not a clipboard.
- The day before: a reminder they can reply to confirm, plus a reschedule link in case the day no longer works.
A rescheduled consult is still a consult, so move it without fuss.
A Monday sheet for implant forms
Keep one sheet with a row per week:
- Implant forms and calls in, by ad or source
- Median time to the first text, and to the first call
- Consults booked, and the share of forms that booked
- Consults that showed
- Full-arch cases started from those consults
- Ad spend, and the cost of each consult that showed
Watch the second line closest. When reply times creep up, bookings fall a week or two later. When a source sends forms that never book, move its money somewhere else.
Where FlossBooked fits
FlossBooked builds implant and Invisalign consult funnels for US dental practices. They come inside the same plan as the front desk software and the website. Our team builds yours: a landing page with a short quiz, a consult calendar and a deposit at booking. Every form is texted back before a minute is up, from your practice's line, at any hour. Then it joins a pipeline your front desk works from. See implant and Invisalign funnels.
During office hours, a new form rings the desk phone and connects your coordinator to the patient. In the evening, an AI receptionist answers implant calls, opens each one by saying it's AI, and offers consult times. Our team also runs your ad campaigns on Google and Meta, in ad accounts you own. Ad money goes to Google and Meta, never through us, and running the campaigns is part of the plan.
Every plan carries the whole thing, starting at $97 a month. See every plan, or talk it through with our team. Bring your last ten implant forms to that call.
FlossBooked
Written by the FlossBooked team, who set up texting, phones, booking and ads for US dental practices. Each guide starts from a question a front desk or coordinator asked us.
