Assignment 1: Product Development
Jocelyn Phillips
Professor Becky Foster
Health Services Strategic Market Management
The organization I chose was Chrysostom Family Dentistry, very small dentist office in Lexington, SC. The dental market has changed totally the last few years and dentists sometimes feel wedged among the older ways of marketing, the future marking where everything is digital and this is what is being used on patients today. With the way that the dental industry is going now the best way to deal with the market is to remain in the middle. Marketing a Dental practice today basically requires some of the old and some of the new, with this is causes that practice to evaluate its strategy closely. What the marketing team needs to do first is re examine conventional approaches making sure that what the marketing team is using can still work for the office, keeping those that are still bringing in results and doing away with strategies that are unproductive or traditional. Then they need to teach the team and the themselves on the qualities of the new selling technologies, and steadily initiate them into the new strategy. “Dental practices, like all business, expand for the purpose of providing more services and creating profit.” (Pinous,2014) However, better precautionary care has vaguely covered up business income increase. Restricted patient entrance to dental care, due to almost a half of states in the United States solitary covering urgent situation in dental care for Medicaid patients, has made some dentists to bring down some of their prices and cut into productivity. Not many dental office offer products on site for the patients, they mostly have recommendations on what products the patient should use for their dental needs. Many dental office offer teeth whiting as well, which is a product that they sale for the business, but it is from a different manufacturer. The dentist office may do their own moldings for teeth in the business; they seem to always have them readily available. Whatever the products that Chrysostom Family Dentistry offers the introduction stage is the most expensive and so the team will have to make sure that everything has been tested and that it’s ready for the patients. The growth stage of the product all it does is when the customers come is that Chrysostom Family Dentistry make sure that they benefit from the production, and that the profit will eventually increase from that product. The maturity stage is when the teeth whitening has been best for the business, and also has been going though the competition. The patient is satisfied with the teeth whiting and will also provide feedback to Chrysostom Family Dentistry if they are happy or not. The decline stage their maybe some type of down fall, but if the patient that is using Chrysostom Family Dentistry teeth whitening product will advertise the business by word of mouth.

Chrysostom Family Dentistry is an awesome dentist office, but they are very expensive in the Lexington County area. Many people that go there go because they are very sweet people, very professional, and when I have left the office I never had to use pain medicine if I had a tooth abstracted. What is hindering Chrysostom Family Dentistry from being the best in Columbia, SC are their prices, and they only advertise to the patients that come to them. One strategy that will help improves the marketing mix for Chrysostom Family Dentistry business is social media. Social media is the way to spread the good news about the business and it requires a detailed strategy for a dental practice. The more places a dental practice is listed on the Internet with true, important, appealing content, the more likely Chrysostom Family Dentistry is come up in a normal; which is a free search on Google, or Twitter. Basically, building a social media existence is worth the shot. Facebook is one of the major and most vital social media sites, so that’s should be the first step in building a social media existence. Using social media with real testimonies of the service that is provided at Chrysostom Family Dentistry will have the business booming!

People in this century trust businesses that take the time to keep up with the newest trends. Being a director or person in charge in the society and offering patients an app for their phones signifies that the business care enough to give their patients the best service by way of the technology of their preference. Technology is very important in the health care industry, and it has also brought about great improvement. “Technology is vital to health care, free health clinics, and the way our world view health. These processes make up the framework and the ways professionals and the public search for, understand, and use health information, totally impacting their health decisions and actions. Many people have some type of capability to handle their health and the health of those that they care for. Nonetheless, with the escalating density of health information and health care settings, most people need extra information, skills, and helpful relationships to meet their health needs.”(Topol, 2013) Public and private business is more and more using the Internet and other technologies to it easier for their information and services to be released to the patients.

Dear Valued Patients and Customers
In an effort to repeatedly progress the excellence of the service we make available we depend on comments from our respected customers. Please take a minute to appraise our performance.
RATINGS: 4 = Excellent 3 = Good 2 = Fair 1 = Poor
___ Ease of access to help you requested ___ Timeliness of service delivery or problem resolution ___ Effectiveness of solution/information
___ Courteous service
Please help us progress our service by providing comments about how we may better serve your needs in the future: Thank you from your friends I Chrysostom Family Dentistry
It is evident that each marketing approach has its own benefits and drawbacks, and the approaches that are being used will not all yield the same results for all. A healthy mix of traditional and new media, combined with high patient loyalty and word of mouth is usually the best strategy for a healthy growing practice. Whatever the marketing manager may decides to do, track the results carefully so that the marketing manager can do more of what works best for the business, and get rid of the strategy that doesn’t work out. “However, in a dental practice this can also be achieved more simply by training the front desk to ask every new patient how they heard about the practice, then recording the source of that patient in the practice management software. The important factor is to be able to see clear statistical proof of which channels are bringing in new patients and production, and continuing to adjust the business strategy to yield the best return on the business marketing asset.”(Dentists Market Research Report 2016)

Reference
Fortenberry, J. L., & Fortenberry, J. L. (2010). Health care marketing: Tools and techniques (3rd ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
Pincus, Michael (March 15 2014) Seven Stages of a Dental Practice Life Cycle . Advantage Media Group http://www.dentistrytoday.com/management/1399--sp-168916374 http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/default.aspx?indid=1557
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/hospital-of-tomorrow/articles/2013/07/12/how-technology-is-transforming-health-care