Patty Romeo, VP Marketing
Juvonno.com – Canada’s Best Clinic Software
“Repetition makes reputation and reputation makes customers”. – Elizabeth Arden
When you treat people a certain way repeatedly, whether in business relationships or otherwise, they come to expect that treatment. It is this expectation that is your reputation, good or bad.
This is why business gurus will tell you that your business’ reputation reflects your ability to consistently provide value and that an organization’s reputation is the cornerstone of its long-term success.
What kind of reputation does your clinic have? Maybe you have a hunch based on off-the-cuff remarks or from a survey you distributed last year. But, without a standard metric and an ongoing process for measuring client happiness, it’s almost impossible to say with any degree of certainty. And that, my friends, is where a Net Promoter Score Program can help.
Research by Bain & Company (one of the most prestigious business consultancy firms globally) shows the Net Promoter Score leaders outgrow their competitors in most industries—by an average of 2.5 times.
What is Net Promoter Score?
If you’re not already familiar with Net Promoter Score (NPS), here’s a quick summary of how it works. You ask your patients two questions:
- “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our clinic to a friend or family member?”
- “What is the main reason for your score?”
Patient responses are then categorized into three groups:
- “Promoters” (loyal) score 9 or 10;
- “Passives” (satisfied, but not loyal) score 7 or 8 ; and
- “Detractors” (dissatisfied) score 0 to 6 .
To calculate your NPS, simply take the percentage of Promoters and subtract the percentage of Detractors:
NPS = % Promoters – % Detractors
(Tip: the average NPS score for rehabilitation therapy practices is 84).
NPS: leverage exceptional client experiences and watch your clinic grow
About 5 years ago, I walked into a Club Monaco store underdressed and unprepared to spend a nickel on new clothing. I certainly didn’t look the part of someone who was about to drop $1200!
I am here to window shop, I told myself, as I strolled in, determined to maintain a low profile.
While I was browsing their jewelry assortment, a sales associate approached me. She encouraged me to try on the bracelet I had my eye on. Before I could say no, she had already put the bracelet on my wrist. She was friendly and disarming in her approach and she put me at ease. Then she took the time to get to know my colour preferences and asked me where my style inspiration came from. Based on my appearance it looked like K-Mart’s 2001 activewear collection. But at the time it was actually Robin Wright’s character from House of Cards, Claire Underwood. Nobody would have guessed!
The next thing I knew, I was walking out of the changeroom in business attire fit for Ms. Underwood that had been hand selected just for me.
Needless to say, I left the store with three full bags that afternoon, glowing like a woman 8 months pregnant. To this day it was the best retail and customer service experience I have ever witnessed. This sales rep nailed every aspect of the customer experience from Discovery, Evaluation, Purchase, and Use/Experience, to creating a bond with their brand. In transactional (or POS) business models, nailing these phases of the customer experience will almost always guarantee you’ve earned a happy client, and likely a loyal repeat customer.
But there’s a 7th and final phase of the customer experience that Club Monaco and most businesses miss entirely. And it’s a huge lost opportunity for scaling your clinic – mobilizing brand advocacy. I never heard from Club Monaco personally after I left that day. Their company will never know they made me feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman walking out of their shop, and neither will the rest of the world. Little did they know I would have enthusiastically written a glowing review and spread the word to my circle of family and friends given the right communication forum.
The lesson here: delight your clients and they will be delighted to advocate for you. So, make sure you give them a way to advocate for you! This is a powerful strategy for building your reputation faster and spreading the love for your brand virally and why so many industry leaders are turning to Net Promoter Score programs to grow their business.
4 Growth Levers of an NPS program:
- Generate more referrals and client reviews
A well-executed NPS program at Club Monaco would have enabled them to turn happy clients (promoters like me) into brand evangelists. Promoters are actively telling you they would recommend you. This is a prime opportunity to thank the client and direct them to your review page to share their valuable feedback and advocacy with others. It’s also timely to incentivize them to refer your clinic. 81% of people trust their friends and family’s advice over advice from a business.
Tip: Send an NPS survey immediately after an important stage in their Client Experience, and you will be more likely to receive their feedback. Timing is of the essence.
- Retain more clients
You can now identify clients that have little or no intention of returning for another visit.
The best part is you can now (you can leverage this knowledge to) proactively formulate a strategy to bring them back.
Perhaps all it takes is an acknowledgement of their feedback or enticing them with a small incentive. The greatest value here is derived from opening the lines of communication. It shows your clinic cares about the well-being of its clients and values improving the quality of its services. That in and of itself can leave a lasting positive impression. - Measure the health of your clinic brand’s reputation Remember, the average NPS score for rehabilitation therapy practices is 84. With that, you can now see how your clinic stacks up to others in your industry and best of all, you can measure your progress over time. An improvement shows your efforts and dollars have been invested in the right places.
- Learn & improve your offering Bill Gates said, “your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” Your passives and detractors are incredibly valuable. Pay close attention to the answers given to the follow up question, “What would it take for us to earn a higher score?” You will start to notice trends very quickly. Let this feedback help identify which areas of your clinic need more TLC and which ones are working well.
There are many NPS applications out there to choose from that are designed to facilitate your NPS program and make the whole process much easier! At Juvonno, we use Delighted to manage our NPS program.
The right clinic software will have tools available to track your feedback and customer satisfaction scores. At Juvonno, we are committed to helping clinics grow better. Stay tuned for the release of a highly anticipated new feature designed to keep your clients engaged. An announcement is just around the corner!
Top performing clinics aren’t leaving their Client Experience up to chance. They’re using a proven strategy. When you develop processes for short-cycle, closed-loop feedback, learning, recovery, and action with your clients, you get results.
NPS is a framework for this and the building blocks are in your hands.
