Alan Hsu, CallHero Call Tracking Software

Let me share a few call performance stats that might blow your mind:

• Most clinics miss 27% of incoming phone calls.
• 85% of callers won’t leave a voice message.
• 50% callers will hang up if put on hold (0–3 mins).
• 11% callers will hang up during a menu system.
• Most clinics book less than 60% of potential patients over the phone.

Crazy, right?

One of the most frustrating problems I hear many physiotherapy clinic owner’s complain about is spending a lot of money on marketing and not seeing any boost in new patient numbers.

Now you know why. It could be your internal call performance letting you down. And all that hard earned money you’re spending on marketing could be going straight down the drain. Those callers are going to go straight to your competitors, never to be seen again!

Here’s the thing though. Most clinic owners don’t know how many calls their front desk are answering, how many callers are being put on hold, or how many callers hang up and don’t leave voicemails. That’s not surprising because most people don’t know that there is a tool that can measure call tracking metrics and measure performance so you can improve it. It’s a new tool called CallHero. I co-founded CallHero and it’s already changing the way clinic owners do business.

Right now though, we’re going to go over 9 easy tactics you can use to lift your answer rates right away.

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

Let’s go.

What you can measure; you can manage.

My co founder use to own a bunch of physiotherapy clinics in Canada. While Rick was running those clinics, he discovered his staff weren’t answering the phones. He knew he was wasting a ton of money on marketing and if he kept going down that track he was going to put himself out of business.

During that time, Rick developed some pretty unique internal systems that did help. But one thing he didn’t have was a way to easily measure and track call performance of his front desk.

You may have heard the saying: “What you can measure; you can manage.” It’s a popular business quote that suggests the more we can measure, the easier it is to grow and improve our business. Being in business for a long time now, I know this to be true.

The point is, measurement helps you make HUGE gains in business.

But, clinics had no way to easily track and measure call performance so they could make more effective decisions, answer more calls and book more patients without having to spend more on marketing. That’s what inspired us building CallHero.

CallHero’s call tracking software helps clinic owners solve the most important problems when it comes to healthcare marketing:

1. Get phones ringing, answered and more patients booked.
2. Booking potential patients that are already ringing.
3. Booking more new patients without spending more marketing dollars.

If you’ve already got the calls coming into your clinic, the patients and bookings are there, and so is the revenue. The real issue needs to be fixed on your end. And that’s what CallHero helps you do.

9 Easy Tactics to Answer More Calls

If you use the following 9 tactics starting today, I guarantee you’ll soon see your call performance moving in the right direction.

1) Get a headset.

I recommend this headset – the Panasonic KX-TCA430 Comfort-Fit, Foldable Headset.

It’s not expensive and has all the basic features your front desk admin team needs.

When you use a headset, it instantly increases productivity and ensures a call never gets missed.

Let’s face it, front desk have a lot of stuff to do. They answer phones, book patients, bill insurance companies, talk with insurers, take payment, do laundry, schedule next week’s appointments, show and sell product to patients, fill charts, and the list goes on.

Being hands free really does make a big difference. You will find they are able to take more calls, book more appointments, and multitask while they are at work.

More productivity. More calls being answered. That means you’re a happy clinic owner!

2) Remove the menu system on your phone if you have one.

Let me ask you a simple question.

Do you like talking to a call centre and pressing 1 or 2 or 3?

I highly doubt it. None of us do.

So think of the patient.

Would they want to go through a menu system?

The answer is: A BIG FAT, NO!!

At CallHero our numbers show that 11% of callers will hang up when they listen to a menu system.

A menu system really boils down to a bad patient experience. And that’s not what you want, right?

You want your patients to be happy and have a great experience from the very first time they make contact with you.

Also, in the physical therapy industry, every unbooked call costs you at least $500. So if you’re losing 11% of callers, your menu system can be an expensive mistake!

So, it’s definitely time to ditch the menu system – if you have one.

3) Start measuring call performance each day and have daily staff meetings.

Once you get your clinic stats using a tool like CallHero, post your call performance metrics daily and keep everybody accountable for answering more calls.

For example, share your:

• Total Calls
• Missed Calls
• Answer Rate

You need to understand these metrics on a daily basis.

Remember, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

I’d recommend having quick daily meetings or huddles on this to ensure everyone is being a team player. Spend 3 minutes before their shift or during lunch to review and this will keep everybody on the same track and highly motivated, too.

4) Screen calls and always prioritize new patient callers.

You can do this by answering every call and screening every caller. If it’s not a new caller, ask to put them on hold or grab their number and ask to call them back.

If you have patients waiting for you at reception, just acknowledge they are waiting and whisper, “thank you for waiting.”

Basically, you just follow this 3 step process:

1. If you have a patient at the front desk. Ask them to wait.
2. If you’ve got an existing patient on the other line. Ask to put them on hold, or if you can call them back within the hour.
3. Always put the new patient caller first.

5) Rerouting calls to another clinic.

If you have another business location or another person you can reroute calls to, you can create rules so when your business is not answering the phones, you can redirect the calls to another clinic or person.

Or you can hire a telephone answering service. I have recommendations so just ask me.

Or even better, reroute your calls and track any missed callers so you can chase them up.

6) Add another phone line.

If your clinic is always busy on the phone, you’re dropping a lot of calls.

The solution is to get another phone line from your telephone company. This will allow you to do #3: screen more calls.

7) Manage spikes in call volume.

You first need to find out when you’re missing most of the incoming calls to your clinic. What days and what times?

For example, most clinics have the highest volume of calls on Mondays and Tuesdays and then it starts tailoring down.

If you’re missing a lot of calls, it may make sense to hire extra staff during those busy days and times. Especially considering every new patient caller is worth at least $500.

It may also make sense to staff your front desk on Saturdays, even though your clinic is not open.  You won’t know until you know how many phone calls you are missing on the weekends.

8) Dedicated staff for new patient callers.

If you have multiple front desk staff, this step may make sense for your clinic.

Some busy clinics have multiple people working at one time. If that’s you, have one staff member be the primary handler of all new patient callers and leave the others to deal with everything else, including helping patients.

Having more focused front desk roles will dramatically boost productivity and efficiency, and most importantly,  ensure new patients are handled as priority.

9) Train your staff to be faster over the phones.

Listen to all the longer calls and come up with training for your team to help them to be faster over the phones.

A few topics you want to help train them on are:

• How to deal with an upset patient caller
• Dealing with the constant talker
• Handling multiple callers and the front desk all at once
• How to put callers on hold
• How to control the call so the patients book with you

At CallHero, we have specialist training that teaches staff exactly how to do all these things and become experts over the phone. We even provide scripts and live Webinar trainings, too.

If you implement all these tactics at your clinic, I guarantee you will soon see your patient numbers and revenue boosting!

Want to Make Answering Calls Easier?

CallHero can help measure your call data, grade your current call performance, and train your staff to become call experts.

Start by getting your calls graded for FREE.

CLICK HERE and we’ll start grading your calls right away

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