#1 Rated Clinic Owner Blog

I’m no SEO guru, but even so, I’m really good at it.

My other business, Clinic Supplies Canada, gets 55,000 in monthly traffic. We have 1000 keywords ranking on page 1 in Google. And our website traffic is converting into customers, as we’ve had year after year growth and increasing revenue. 

That’s the type of thing we all want to see in business, right?

Well, it’s all about doing the right things for Google. And thankfully I can help you with that.

In fact, I just came back from a business workshop for the PABC where I had a lineup of clinic owners asking how I can help them rank #1 on Google.

I thought you might be interested to learn the same tips.

So we’re going to cover:

• Why Google is so important
• How to be on the first page with Google
• What to do so Google rewards your website
• And one thing not to overlook

How was your sales last month?

Was it a record month? With record amounts of new patients booked into your schedule?

Or, were you on flat on patient bookings, as usual?

I had record sales for both my businesses because I did 3 things:

1. We focused on client happiness - I spent two whole days with my leadership team discussing how we could accelerate our client’s happiness.
2. We focused on gaining metrics - we discussed how we could get more clients to give us a 9 or 10 on our Net Promoter Score.
3. We mapped out the customer journey - from the very first touch point through the lifecycle of the client.

I really got pumped to DOUBLE DOWN on customer happiness after learning from INBOUND marketing conference in Boston. There was over 19,000 marketers there!!! 

Here is my biggest takeaway: there are still two major sources people rely on for making purchase decisions:

1. Word of mouth
2. Customer references

So even if you have good numbers, you should never stop learning how to make those numbers better, so your competitors can't catch up.

This includes always learning how to make your hiring and training process better - because your team, especially your front desk, play a great role in the customer happiness journey.

So today I want to share how you can hire and train your front desk staff to supercharge your customer happiness, and therefore, supercharge your business growth.

We’ll cover:

• A new trend occurring in hiring front desk staff that has the potential to increase patient bookings and revenue, fast.
• How to flick the switch and turn staff roles into more meaningful work they commit to
• My secret process to hiring the perfect front desk staff
• Why the first month after a hire is crucial and one big mistake to avoid
• Plus, learn how to measure your phone scripts training and figure out if you chose the right one

Ready to jump in? Let’s go...

Let me start by asking you a question: Do you like being put on hold?

Likely the answer is no. Because let’s face it, none of us do!

So… have you stopped to question HOW your clinic is putting patients on hold?

Chances are you haven’t.

That means you’re probably making the mistake most other clinic’s make.

When a caller rings, you (or your front desk) put a caller on hold by saying:

“Hello, this is ABC Clinic, please hold.”

So what’s wrong with this, you ask?

The answer is: everything is wrong with it!

There’s no consideration for the person on the other end, you haven’t used the most basic of customer service principles, and you’ve forgotten one major priority: the new patient caller.

If you are currently using the above script to place patients on hold, as a consequence, a large percentage of those callers will hang up and ring your competitor, especially new patients.

For real! At CallHero, we analyze a lot of phone calls  and our phone call analytics shows that, if put on hold, more than 50% of callers will hang up within the first 3 minutes.

More than 50% - that’s a lot of callers!

The good news is there is an effective way to put callers on hold so you don’t lose them.

Let’s dig into that now and I’ll also give you the exact script I use with the clinic's I mentor. 

Happy satisfied patients. That’s what any clinic owner wants.

But, do you actually know how happy and satisfied your patients really are?

It wouldn’t come as a surprise if you said: “I think my patients are happy but I haven’t measured it.”

What you measure you can manage. Not only that, when you measure, you can use the results to fix problems and drive better clinical performance.  

Thankfully, there is a great tool for measuring patient happiness: The Net Promoter Score, otherwise known as NPS.

NPS can be used to measure overall patient satisfaction. It can be used to identify unhappy customers at each point of the patient journey. It can also be used to identify your biggest fans so you can ask them for referrals or google reviews.

The data you collect from NPS is essential to running an optimized practice.

In this post, you’ll learn:

• How to use the NPS to boost your clinical operations
• How to calculate your Net Promoter Score
• What does the NPS score mean
• The NPS template I use for my private clients

In a sold out business summit I recently ran with over 118 clinic owners in attendance, one of the big factors we talked about was patient discharge.  And on the flip side, better patient engagement.

So let me ask you, does this sound like a familiar situation?

You seem to be getting a good number of new patients but the challenge is you finish the first appointment and YOU WANT THEM  to book the next couple of appointments in advance.

Or better yet, you schedule their entire plan of care so they make it through the entire treatment plan to a full recovery. But...the reality is this rarely seems to happen.

The patient gets to the front desk and says, “Ben wants me to book more appointments.”

The front desk replies, “Ben’s schedule is pretty wide open, what time works best for you?”

Instead of locking down a time, the patient responds, “Actually, let me just check my schedule and call you back later.”

Your front desk simply replies, “Okay" and the patient walks out the door — and they never call. Or, at least, it might take them a while to get to it.

Sure, they had every intention of calling back straight away but they got super busy and life got in the way - everything else seemed like a greater priority. While they may come in intermittently for a few more appointments, they aren’t fully committed to the treatment plan and end up self discharging.

This is really bad news for you and your business. That’s why we’re going to talk about how to fix it — to the point where you can pre-book a patient's appointments BEFORE they have even seen you for their first appointment. Sound impossible?

With the following strategies, you can boost your business by guilding and driving your patients to the end of their treatment plans.

Big, hairy, audacious goals - the type of goals that separate great companies from the rest.

These types of goals can be a little scary, even for the most experienced business leaders. But they are the type of goals that make your business 10 times more successful.

What I am about to share with you here may seem like a big, hairy, audacious goal — nurturing the career of your front desk team and rewarding them with bonuses or experiences.  

Okay, I can hear you already… you’re thinking:

Every year your front desk team asks for a performance review and a raise and you give them the raise without really doing a proper performance review.

You know if you don't, they’ll quit and then you’ll have to retrain another person all over again, which is going to cost you even more (in both money and time). Unfortunately, most front desk positions turnover every 2 or 3 years, so you’re always thinking — the longer you can hang onto them the better.

But, it doesn’t have to be that way...

That’s exactly why I’m going to challenge you to take on the big, hairy, audacious goal of nurturing the career of your front desk team and rewarding them with bonuses.

I’m going to show you:

• Why looking at your front desk team from a totally different perspective will instantly change the outcomes of your business
• How to measure front desk performance on a daily and weekly basis for rapid business transformation
• How to set definable, achievable goals that yield results
• How to give front desk staff a real stake in the outcome of your goals so you gain and maintain their commitment
• How to calculate the bonuses and rewards you intend to offer so you don’t break the bank

Once you know all this, you won’t lose your front desk team members, ever.

Are you ready to take on the audacious challenge?

Let’s dive in...

Mary Jane, otherwise known as The Phone Lady, has worked with over 400 clients training over 10,000 individuals how to communicate more effectively on the telephone.

As soon as you get a chance, I'd recommend you watch the recent webinar we had with The Phone Lady covering: How to Get More Patients by Fixing Your Call Performance.

Recently Mary Jane and I caught up for a phone chat about some of the simple phrases people can use to get more out of their conversations.

One thing we know is: Call performance is an underestimated skill.

But when it comes to call performance, the words that are spoken can literally make or break your business. Think about it.

Your front desk only has to say the wrong thing and you'll never see those patients again. This goes for new patient callers or dealing with existing client appointments, issues and problems.

All this can add up to big fat mistakes that close down the channels of communication. Not to mention, they cost you time and money. And these mistakes not only affect you but leave these patients upset that their problems weren't solved, which isn't so great for your reputation either.

While everyone is far from perfect, there are a number of phases to keep in mind that can rescue you should things go bad. And often, all it takes are some simple words to clearly express yourself, inspire conversation and build effective relationships.

Today's post will cover:

• 5 powerful phone scripts you need to include in your front desk phone training
• How to build relationships with patient callers over the phone
• Plus get instant access to the phone training webinar by The Phone Lady 

In my 10 year career being at the forefront of running and growing one of the largest network of rehab clinics in Canada, I’ve worked with hundreds of therapists, front desk staff, managers, cross functional teams, and executives.

Regardless of the roles I was working with, “buy-in” from staff is the key to making permanent change in the business. The success of any cost saving or revenue growth strategy hinges on one key attribute, the ability to execute with your teams.

Yet, quite often I speak to clinic owners that are very clear on the strategy and tasks they want to implement but are challenged on how to speak to their staff about the upcoming change, get them to “buy-in”, adequately train them, start and keep it going, and ultimately, make the change long lasting.

The result for many is an initiative that starts but eventually stops, then starts and stops again, eventually ending in some type of workaround. If you can't get your team motivated to integrate the changes you intend to implement, your plans to grow your business end in dismal failure.

Of course, that's not what you want. 

That's why we're here to discuss how you can overcome these challenges and influence long lasting change in your business.

We'll cover:

• How to determine your business priorities so you don't waste money and time
• How to create an effective kick-off event when planning internal changes
• 7 strategic tactics to ensure your team "buys-in" to what you want and sustains the changes

When was the last time you bought something on Amazon?

Do you recall looking at the number of reviews it had?

One of the most frustrating problems I hear many physiotherapists and chiropractors complain about with healthcare marketing is, you seem to spend a lot of money on digital marketing but you don't see any boost in your new patient numbers.

You have a sneaky suspicion that it could have something to do with phone performance. Because when you’ve tried to test your front desk admin with an anonymous call, you realize, every time you call your clinic, you’re either put on hold or you get the busy signal. Not exactly the kind of performance you’d like.

It is incredibly important that the phone gets answered.

Why?

Because, according to Marchex Call DNA phone call analytics, 50% of callers will hang up if you put them on hold  for 0-3 minutes. And here at CallHero, we’ve identified that 52% of those customers whose calls weren’t answered the first time, won’t call again.

If you’re not answering calls as the number one priority, then you’re basically flushing your hard earned physiotherapy marketing dollars down the drain. And, that’s one clear reason your new patient numbers aren’t budging.

So, in this article, we’re going to go over 9 easy tactics you can implement right away to lift your answer rates.

Ready to dive in and boost your patient numbers starting today?

Let’s go.