With all the work that it takes to run a practice, it’s easy to forget that business is not all about you – it’s about your clients. There are a thousand little things that make up the client experience, but making things easy – simple, fast, pleasant – tends to keep patients returning and referring.
And of course, making it easier for your clients tends to come around and make it easier for you.
Make it Easy to Book
Make sure someone answers the phone. Clients can’t book if no one answers the phone, and leaving a message is not the same.
And although it’s tempting to offer patients their choice of any available time slot on any available day, consider the possibility that perhaps this doesn’t make life easier for you or them. Offer one or two specific time slots. It may seem like good service to leave it wide open for them to choose the best day, but it’s actually easier for many people to simply be told when to show up. It also means you can book more effectively. And don’t worry – the patients with specific scheduling demands will always let you know.
And always try to book that next appointment before the patient leaves the office.
Make it Easy to Refer
Your patients want to refer to you. They really do. Make it easy for them.
1. Tell them you want more patients. In their eyes, you may be the busy chiropractor who clearly is run off their feet, or the accomplished acupuncturist who couldn’t possibly need new patients. Remember that clients only see a very narrow slice of your day. Put up a small sign saying that you’re always happy and grateful to be able to help more people, or find some other way to let your patients know.
2. Make it risk-free. The CAM practitioner-patient relationship can be far more intimate than in allopathic medicine. As a result, it’s often hard for current patients to assess whether their friends and family will “like” you. Offer short, free “meet-the-practitioner” visits to curious patients. Leave cards on your reception desk for just this purpose – people will take them.
3. Get it out there. Make sure all the print materials in your office are marked with your name and contact info. Leave business cards and brochures out for people to take. Your odds of a successful referral rise when Jane has your business card in her wallet when she meets Dave on the sidewalk, as opposed to, “you should look up my homeopath”.
Make it Easy to Pay
Accept debit and credit cards. I know – I seem to say this a lot, but…just do it.
Offer incentives for advance/bulk payments. Consider offering ways for your patients to save by paying in advance – a slightly reduced price for a series of homeopathic treatments, for example. (Make sure your regulatory body allows this first.)
Have change. This may sound a little simplistic, but it’s often overlooked. It’s unprofessional to not be able to make change, and besides, there’s nothing wrong with encouraging cash payments.
Make it Easy to Contact You
Your patients – new and existing – can’t book appointments if they can’t find you. Or, more accurately, they’re less likely to book if you don’t make it easy.
Make sure you have a yellow pages ad. Many people use the Yellow Pages like a regular phone book – even though they know who their holistic practitioner is, they still turn to the Yellow Pages to look up the number. Having an ad makes it easy to find you, and keeps them from turning to someone else when if they don’t find you.
Get a website. More and more people are using the Internet as their phone directory. If you don’t have a website, don’t panic – all you need is a single page site with your contact information, and people will be able to find you. Nothing expensive.
Have (and use) Business Cards. Business cards have a long lifespan. They tend to hang around in wallets and purses, on bulletin boards and on fridges. And as cheesy as those fridge-magnet business cards can be, they tend to hang around forever.
Make it Easy to Get To You
Do you have clear maps to your office? Clear instructions for driving from various directions? What about parking? Do you let new patients know in advance where to park? Do you validate parking, or otherwise offset the cost if they have to pay for it?
Many of these ideas are really about closing a time gap. Think of easy as another word for sooner. When someone thinks, “I should call my chiropractor,” you want that to happen right away, before the idea fades. When someone wants to pay, it’s always better for that to happen now, as opposed to later.
Later’s more expensive. Later means less revenue. Or worse still, later can mean never.
PS
Daryl at the Simplicity Institute has a marketing tips newsletter. His recent email on making it easy for patients to refer planted the seeds for this post. You can sign up for it on his site.
Related Posts
Accept Debit and Credit Cards
Answering the Phone
