Every clinic needs more revenue, especially as we continue to wrestle with this pandemic and can’t fully operate our practices the way we want to.
As you’re about to see, the path to quickly accelerating your revenue doesn’t depend on finding new patients. It depends on making outbound calls to patients who have already reached out to you, and then using outbound call recording to improve your conversion rates.
To help you understand how this works, here are seven types of outbound calls your clinic can start making – right now to make you money.
Note: If you prefer videos to reading, you can also watch a video that explains the seven types of outbound calls.
These missed calls can either be new patients calling because they heard about your clinic somewhere, or returning patients who need more treatment. Either way, if you miss the call, these patients want your help so badly that they even left you a voicemail. Hardly anyone does this anymore. So anyone who does – you can pretty much count on them being a high probability conversion.
But not if you don’t call them back! You must develop procedures and set a cultural expectation that all missed callers who leave messages will be called back the same day.
This is the easiest outbound call strategy you can implement
These are the same types of patients as in the first example, with one important difference: There are many more of them. While there are many reasons someone might not leave a voicemail, the most likely one is, “I need help now, and since no one answered my call at this clinic, I’ll find another one.
That person is probably looking for a second clinic to call just minutes after your clinic failed to pick up the phone.
So, while you may have a little more time to call back patients who leave a message, you need to call back the non-voicemail callers within minutes, or you will likely lose their business forever. Once they find another clinic, they’ll probably stick with them for a long time.
We call these ‘winbacks’, and they are a massive source of untapped revenue for every clinic.
One clinic owner started pursuing winbacks in the last few months of 2019. In just one quarter of the year, she made $17,000 in revenue just by calling people back. She shares her story in this video.
This is money that will go somewhere else unless you try to win it back. It is there for the taking if you start making these outbound calls.
And for this clinic owner, the exciting extra benefit from outbound calling was that it did much more than just bring in more money. It transformed her entire clinic culture. More on that in a bit.
Here is another easy outbound call strategy you can implement
The third type of outbound call is to reach out to patients who called and did speak to your team, but decided not to book an appointment. The most common phrase you hear in this situation is “I’ll call you back later,” which of course hardly ever happens.
But there’s nothing stopping you from calling them back. We recommend doing this later that same day.
Imagine that your team gets told by ten patients every day that they will call them back. If you decide to stop waiting around for them to call you, and you start calling those ten people back instead, and book even two or three of them for appointments, that is money right at your fingertips that you have been letting walk away for years.
These are high probability calls, because these callers already reached out to you.
This is the same situation as above, except now you have a tracking number from the online ad that led them to call you. This helps because you know a bit more about them, depending on the content of the ad. Plus, as you start recording these outbound calls, you’ll be able to see which ads are generating the highest quality patients and those most likely to book – even if they didn’t book the first time.
The success of your outbound calling efforts will only be known if you measure it, and this is one of the most financially rewarding benefits of CallHero’s call tracking software.
With our call tracking software, you can monitor your outbound call conversion rates, for each admin person who makes these calls. The software also enables you to record the outbound calls, so you can listen to the calls and use them as training tools.
One of the best ways to improve outbound call conversion rates is to develop and use an array of phone scripts. CallHero includes pre-written phone scripts for a whole host of situations, including calling active patients, self-discharges, cancellations, and many other scenarios, including winbacks.
In fact, you can view a sample phone script right here. Once you click the link, it’s about halfway down the page.
Ever have a patient who was slated for eight to ten treatment sessions, but then they stop coming in after two or three? We call these ‘fall offs’ or 'self discharges'. Failing to complete a care plan (aka treatment plan) is depressingly common, and it hurts the patient’s long term health in many cases. It also represents another source of lost revenue for you.
But what are you doing about it?
If you monitor your data, you will know when a patient has stopped coming in before they had received sufficient treatment.
Using CallHero software, you can make outbound calls to your fall offs, record the calls, and win some of them back.
These are less urgent than most others on this list, but they still represent big revenue opportunities. After several months or even a year or two later, previous patients who successfully complete treatment may re-aggravate an old injury. They might be dealing with new injuries, posture issues, or other nagging pains.
If you reach out, proactively, and check in on how they’re doing, they may appreciate the timing and will agree to come back in to your physiotherapy or chiropractic clinic. Again – this is a super-easy call to make, because they already know you. You’re not talking to a stranger. You don’t have to win their trust, or convince them of your ability to deliver. You already delivered!
And the great news is, patients do appreciate when you check up on them.
We spoke with another clinic owner who committed to pursuing winbacks, and he found patients very impressed and thankful that they were called back. Outbound calling improved his patient experience, as well as increased his revenue. Watch this clinic owner’s video.
The final type of outbound call is to reach out to patients who have completed their treatment but haven’t yet paid for it. They owe the money, and they know it, but for a variety of reasons they haven’t paid in full yet.
These are of course very different types of calls than the other six on this list. But don’t neglect them.
Earlier you saw the video of the physiotherapy clinic owner who talked about how using CallHero marketing software to help make outbound calls, track the conversion data, record the calls, and use phone scripts brought in new revenue, but also transformed her clinic’s culture.
Her own staff told her CallHero “is the best thing we’ve ever bought,” and that she should never get rid of it.
Why?
What could so inspire your employees to say something like that about some workplace software? It’s not like it has a dating feature.
In part, it’s because employees – especially younger ones like Millennials – want more from their workplaces than just money. They want to be rewarded. They want to be recognized for their work. They want to see progress, that their work is making a difference. CallHero’s software makes all this happen.
Once you have the conversion data and the recorded outbound calls for each team member, you can start rewarding successes and transform your clinic’s culture too. Get 28 ways to reward your staff that don’t involve raising their salaries.
And for those who need additional training, which you’ll know because of the call recordings and the conversion data, you can use the phone scripts. Employees want to do better, and phone scripts give them something practical to use for this purpose. Get 5 powerful phrases to connect with patients over the phone.
Creating a positive and motivated clinic culture is a huge win for any clinic. So don’t stop with the software. Here are 11 super-practical ways to boost the culture of your clinic.
CallHero offers a Free Mystery Caller Audit where one of our professionals calls your clinic posing as a patient, and then grades you on how well you handle the call. This includes a recording of the phone conversation.
Normally, this service costs $199. But if you click below, you can get a FREE Mystery Caller Audit. Try it out!
Has built three 10 million dollar healthcare businesses over the past 15 years including a network of 127 clinics with over 1400 employees. He is one of the most sought-after mentors for clinic owners in Canada and USA where he helps owners double, triple, and even quadruple their profits by optimizing their clinic operations using his proven systems and leadership strategies.
Plus he has spent over millions in google and facebook ads during his career.
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