Hello, and welcome back to ‘The Three Essential Skills Your Front Office Needs to Thrive’!
Building relationships is an essential skill
Have you ever wondered what happened to those patient referrals that never scheduled a visit?
Does it frustrate you when you invest in marketing and promotions that promise ‘more new patients’ and people call, but they aren’t scheduled?
Or even worse, they schedule an evaluation, but then they don’t arrive?
And what about all those people calling to ‘shop around’? Have you ever wondered if there was a secret to getting them scheduled?
If so, I understand where you’re coming from because I’ve felt that way before.
When Mike started investing in marketing and promotions, people started calling; but the number of scheduled and arriving new patients wasn’t rising consistently.
It caused me to take a closer look at what held people back, and this is what I found.
In today’s day and age, people are shopping around more and more.
They’re looking for the ‘best deal,’ but sometimes their definition of a good deal differs from what we would expect as providers.
Often we think of a good deal as lower cost when, in fact, it’s really about perceived value.
Perceived value is very personal, but there’s one common feature that most people will say when you ask what they value when looking for a good provider.
Sure, the provider’s skills are essential. But when looking for a provider, they’re mainly looking for a sense of family, belonging, and a place to call ‘home’.
People are interested in building relationships.
They want to feel like it’s a good fit before they commit to scheduling with you.
Now, consider the initial call with any potential new patient.
Better yet, consider the last time YOU called your doctor’s office. What did the receptionist sound like? How did that call go? How did YOU feel when speaking to the receptionist?
Did you feel they were interested in building relationships with you or other patients?
Now, consider that the person calling (your potential patient) has no concept of what you do or how you do it.
Maybe they had a negative experience somewhere else or with a different medical provider’s office. Perhaps they felt that other clinic was not interested in building relationships with their patients.
How could THAT experience affect their call with your front desk?
And how could that call keep someone from scheduling or even arriving?
In the video below, I will talk about the importance of building relationships with every potential or returning patient.
And how I created a training module and a system for your front desk to learn HOW to develop a relationship during that initial call.
Check out today’s video on BUILDING A RELATIONSHIP
If you’re tired of having a stack of unscheduled referrals, or if you’re spending money promoting your practice, the Front Office GURU Training Academy® will help your front office staff develop a relationship during the initial call.
Your front desk team will learn how to convert potential patient leads to scheduled and arriving new patients.
And the best part, you can get started today.
Don’t wait. Building relationships is crucial in converting leads into patients. A well-trained front desk team is just as important as highly trained providers.
