Turn Callers into Patients
Ad-Generated Calls Need Special Care 

You may already have a patient referral program in place to keep generating business from patient-referred calls to your practice. However, an integrated marketing plan means you'll also generate calls and new patients from other promotional programs.

Joe Klein, director of marketing for POS, estimates that a revenue stream of $34,375 can be expected over a five-year period from patients generated by a one-time direct mail campaign of 5,000 pieces. This is based on ADA national statistics that show that an average patient spends about $550 a year, and on a patient retention rate of just 50 percent. (25 initial patients x 50 percent x $550/year x five years). 

However, poor phone skills in the front office can lose all this revenue if your promotion-generated calls aren’t fielded properly. But in many practices, untrained staffers dislike these calls because they interrupt the traditional office routine. So what do you do if you think you might have a problem?

Get a Check-Up
One idea is to invite a few acquaintances to call the office as "secret PPs" (prospective patients). Have them rate their experiences in areas such as the courtesy of treatment they received. Did the staff person properly identify the practice? Did they sound friendly? How knowledgeably did they answer questions? Did they encourage an appointment without being pushy? The trend in their answers should reveal if you have a problem or not. If you do, it's time to fix it.     

Landing Patients on the Phone

1. Hire Wisely
When you hire new staff, keep the phone skills of candidates in mind. Make sure that friendliness, verbal and listening skills, sales ability and phone manner are key considerations in your decision. And don't compromise in your quest for talent. Understand that if you don't pay for it, you definitely won't get the talent you need. 
 
2. Make Sure the Right Person Answers
Remember that the people answering your phones are also your frontline public relations representatives - which means they directly affect your bottom line. When you hire wisely, you know that you have a "people person" answering your phone on a regular basis. But everyone takes a vacation, gets sick or goes to lunch, so make sure you have a chain of back-up phone staff who are equally as trained as primary phone staff.

3. Institute Phone Skills Training
In many cases, phone scripts, role-playing and simple practice sessions go a long way toward bringing new patients into the office. And this can make a significant difference in the satisfaction levels of current patients as well.

Remember, an effective phone script need not be a restrictive device. It can be as simple as a list of "best answers" to frequently asked questions. Have staff members participate in the script development process and schedule training sessions and periodic refreshers at least twice a year to make proper phone techniques an automatic procedure in your practice.

Track Your Promotional Efforts
"The only way to determine your return on investment from any external marketing is to diligently track where all new patients come from," says Klein. He recommends the POS NEW PATIENTS tracking form for this purpose, or your personally tailored form. "Tracking new patients and the results of each promotional effort takes work, but it really pays off in the long run," says Klein.