Does this scenario sound familiar…
You’re investing money in physiotherapy marketing for your clinic but you’re currently struggling with getting more patients. Something just isn’t working.
You may think you’ve got a marketing problem. But after owning hundreds of clinics and mentoring dozens of clinic owners, in my experience I’ve found marketing is rarely the problem.
You see, your low new patient growth numbers are just a symptom of a much greater problem that’s a little harder to see – that’s the bad news.
But the good news is, these symptoms are a lot easier to fix, once you do become aware of them.
Let me give you an example of a clinic owner I have been mentoring for years now.
Jamie from Synergy Health in Victoria runs a multi million dollar clinic but he wanted to work with me because he needed help with getting more patients and more profit.
After listening to Jamie and his team share all their numbers with me, their pains and frustrations, and their ups and downs, I sat back in my chair and told them they were in luck.
“You don’t have a marketing problem,” I said.
“What are you talking about? I’m spending all this money on marketing and we don’t see a lift in our new patients or revenues,” Jamie said.
“Actually Jamie, the problem is internal. I have called your clinic numerous times and I’m either put on hold or it goes to voicemail. It’s no wonder your marketing isn’t working,” I said.
“I’ve also been to your clinic and sat in the reception area, and I can tell your team hasn’t had much phone training, training on what to say to convert new patients to book an appointment,” I continued.
Jamie sat there in shock, but I continued to help open his eyes to the reality of what was going on.
“This is what happens Jamie,” I said, “when a patient calls and says they will call you back, your staff just says okay. They don’t try to lock them into a tentative appointment time, or ask if they have questions, they just let them go. That’s a lost patient right there. One that’s probably just gone to see your competitor!”
Based on this conversation with Jamie, I now want to ask you: Can you see why your marketing is not working?
It’s not because of the marketing itself. It’s because your front desk staff has not been trained with phone scripts and empowered to book more patients over the phone.
Phone Answer Rates
So when I first started working with Jamie I wanted to know what his answer rates were. So I got a call tracking software program to randomly call Jamie’s clinic over a month so we could see how many calls he was really picking up – no guessing here, we wanted the cold, hard facts.
He was answering only 70% of calls!
Crazy thing though…. he always has 3 front desk staff working at one time, so the problem is clearly not because he is short staffed.
The problem is, he just never knew.
Being that I now run a company (CallHero) that helps clinic owners get real call tracking metrics, we have now tested hundreds of clinics and guess what?
The average clinic only answers 70% of calls!
That’s not great news and here’s why.
If Jamie’s clinic gets 1000 calls each month (or about 40 calls per day), he is not answering 300 calls PER MONTH!
Think about what that means to his clinic.
Around 10% of calls are from new patients. So out of 300 calls, you’re losing 30 new patient callers — to your competitors… Ouch!
And let me be crystal clear about one thing, I’m talking about a human picking up the call, not voicemail.
Do new patients leave voicemails? Of course not. They just move onto calling your competitor, never to be seen again.
Your Call Funnel
You may not be aware of it, but there is such a thing as a “patient call funnel.” And if you can understand this, you can train and empower your front desk to boost conversion rates from patients who are already calling you.
Out of 1000 calls, if you have an answer rate of 75%, you will book 105 new patients for the month.
NOW… what would happen if you increase your answer rates to 90% by keep your front desk accountable and by knowing when you are missing the calls?
Combine that with increasing your booking rates from 70% to 80%, simply by training your front desk on phone etiquette and sales scripts that really work – now let’s see what happens…
Suddenly you go from booking 105 new patients to 144 new patients.
And all you did was optimize your answer rate and booking rate on your patient call funnel
That’s an extra 39 new patients each month, without spending any extra money on marketing or figuring out social media, or hiring a healthcare marketing company – just training and empowering your staff!
For most clinic owners I know, this is worth an extra $15,000 per month!
Training and empowering your front desk teams
I have seen clinics have 10% booking rates and I have also seen clinics have booking rates of 90%. Most clinics are booking at about 63%.
This means for every 100 new patients that call, only 63 get booked.
The power of the call funnel is: if you know WHY patients are not booking with you, you can start training your front desk so they can effectively handle all the new patient objections.
For instance, what do your front desk team say to patients when:
- They say they will call you back?
- There is no room in your schedule?
- They ask if their treatments is covered with insurance?
- They want to know why you are more expensive than everybody else?
Have you actually trained your team to:
- Say specific phone scripts that work to convert people into booked customers?
- Or are you just letting them do their thing, leaving it to chance?
I bet I can guess it’s #2 – leaving it to chance!
Not exactly a great way to run a health business, right?
On the other hand, when you can measure staff performance and patient satisfaction over the phones, you can dramatically see your patient numbers and revenue growing.
Watch this quick video to see what Jamie shares about his experience.
Get Your Answer Rate Tested
The only way to know how your clinic is performing is to Get Your Answer Rate Tested!
By getting your answer rate tested, you can confirm your gut feeling – you’ll know with confidence whether your clinic is doing a good or bad job with answering the phones.
You’ll have a better understanding of the patient experience. Your answer rate is a powerful patient experience metric you can share with your team and use to give praise and feedback – staff always respond extremely well to feedback.
You can also use this test to measure the impact before and after making any staffing changes in your business. For instance, use the answer rate test as a new hire training tool, to evaluate your clinic’s performance during new hires or staff shortages.
Having real data is the only true way you can change the results you’re currently getting in your clinic, without spending one more penny on marketing!
Don’t just take my word for it. See how Ian from Calgary Core Physiotherapy got visibility of his phones with this answer test.
See how Ranah from Aquatic Physiotherapy confirmed her gut feeling about her clinic’s answer rate with this test.
ABOUT RICK LAU
Rick Lau is a seasoned healthcare entrepreneur who has successfully built 3 multi-million dollar healthcare companies over the past 15 years. Rick’s entrepreneurial journey started from humble beginnings. His first company, pt Health, began as a small business and transformed into a company that grew to a network of 100+ multi disciplinary clinics across Canada. Rick’s second company, CSC, is a one stop shop for clinics and is one of the largest e-commence healthcare suppliers in Canada. Rick’s third company, CallHero, a new front desk phone etiquette training & call metrics software company that trains and empowers front desk teams to book more patients over the phone.
