The number one place that new patients are turned away is that your front desk via phone. So much depends on the quality of how that first call is handled that I can make or break your yearly growth.
Monitoring your front desk staff’s handling of new patient inquiry calls can be critical to your practice’s success.
Regularly reviewing recordings of these calls, when legal and with the proper permissions, can provide valuable insights into how well your staff implements their training and interacts with potential patients.
An anecdote involving a healthcare professional illustrates the importance of this approach:
The practice owner had recently hired an expensive ($17,000) consultant to train their front desk staff on the latest techniques and scripts.
The training seemed successful, as the staff performed well in role-playing scenarios, and the practice experienced a slight increase in new patient schedules and show-up rates.
The practice owner believed their staff was handling calls well, as they had observed them in person.
However, when they reviewed several random recorded calls the next week, they discovered that the staff’s performance was not always as good as it had appeared.
In one instance, a potential patient called to inquire about a weight loss program for herself and her husband.
The front desk staff put her on hold for three minutes(!), ultimately causing her to hang up and resulting in the loss of two new patients who were ready to start the program.
This example highlights the importance of regularly checking your staff’s performance when they are unaware they are being observed.
It’s a business reality. If you monitor it, you can manage it – and If you manage it, it will improve.
Of course, there are many more things to know in order to create a consistent flow of qualified new patients for your practice.
To save time, many practitioners choose to partner with my agency, The Customer Factory.
To find out if our marketing program is a good fit for your practice visit our website and book a 15-minute Discovery call. You could have new patients coming in as soon as this time next week.
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