The average business loses around 20% of its patients annually simply by failing to attend to patient relationships. In some industries this leakage is as high as 80%. In cosmetic medicine it is estimated that around 50% of patients never return to the clinic after their first appointment. The cost is staggering, but few businesses truly understand the implications.
Imagine two cosmetic medicine businesses, one that retains 60% of its patients, the other retaining 50%. If both add new patients at the rate of 50% per year, the first will have a 10% net growth in patients per year, while the other will have none. Over seven years, the first firm will virtually double, while the second will have no real growth. Everything else being equal, that 10% advantage in patient retention will result in a doubling of patients every seven years without doing anything else.
The consequences of patient retention also compound over time, and in sometimes unexpected ways. Even a tiny change in patient retention can cascade through a business system and multiply over time. The resulting effect on long-term profit and growth shouldn’t be underestimated.
Consentz can introduce you to a number of simple patient retention strategies that will cost you little or nothing to implement. Behind each technique listed here there is an in-depth step-by-step process that will increase your patient retention significantly once implemented, and will have a massive impact on your business.
- Reducing Attrition
Virtually every business loses some patients, but few ever measure or recognise how many of their patients become inactive. Most clinics, ironically, invest an enormous amount of time, effort and expense building that initial patient relationship. Then they let that relationship go unattended, in some cases even losing interest as soon as the sale been made, or even worse, they abandon the patient as soon as an easily remedied problem occurs, only to have to spend another small fortune to replace that patient. The easiest way to grow your business is not to lose your patients. Once you stop the leakage, it’s often possible to double or triple your growth rate because you’re no longer forced to make up lost ground just to stand still.
- Sell and then Sell Again
So many people do an excellent job of making the initial consultation and carrying out the first treatment, then drop the ball and get complacent, ignoring the patient, while they chase more business. Your service has actually only just begun when someone has the first treatment with you because virtually everyone is susceptible to buyer’s remorse. To lock in that patient, and all of the referrals and repeat business that will flow from it, you need to strike while the iron is hot to allay your patients’ concerns and demonstrate by your actions that you really care. You should thank them and remind them again why they’ve made the right decision to be treated by you … and put a system in place to get in touch with them again, encourage them to contact you with any concerns they have, and constantly proving that they made the right decision.
- Bring Back the “Lost Sheep”
There’s little point in dedicating massive resources to generating new patients when 25-60% of your dormant patients will be receptive to your attempts to regenerate their business if you approach them the right way, with the right offer. Reactivating patients who already know you and your product is one of the easiest, quickest ways to increase your revenues. Re-contacting and reminding them of your existence, finding out why they’re no longer buying, overcoming their concerns and demonstrating that you still value and respect them will usually result in a tremendous bounty of opportunities and drastically increased revenues in a matter of days … and will lead to some of your best and most loyal patients.
- Frequent Communications Calendar
Avoid losing your patients by building relationships and keeping in touch using a rolling calendar of communications. This is a programmed sequence of letters, events, phone calls, “thank you’s”, special offers, follow-ups, magic moments, and cards or notes with a personal touch etc. that occur constantly and automatically at defined points in the pre-sales, sales and post-sales process. People not only respond to this positively, they really appreciate it because they feel valued and important. It acknowledges them, keeps them informed, offsets post-purchase doubts, reinforces the reason they’re doing business with you and makes them feel part of your business so that they want to come back again and again.
- Extraordinary Patient Service
The never-ending pursuit of excellence to keep patients so satisfied that they tell others how well they were treated when doing business with you. Moving the service you deliver into the realm of the extraordinary by delivering higher than expected levels of service to each and every patient. Key facets include: dedication to patient satisfaction by every employee; providing immediate response to questions; no buck passing; going above and beyond the call of duty; delivering what you promise; and recruiting outstanding people to deliver your patient service. Extraordinary service builds fortunes in repeat patients, whereas poor service will drive your patients to your competition.
- Courtesy System
A powerful system that improves the interpersonal skills of your team and changes the spirit of your organisation. It involves speaking to colleagues politely and pleasantly, without sarcasm or parody, and treating them at least as well as you would want them to treat your patients. This will help your team to feel worthwhile and important, which makes for pleasant social contacts at work. It also motivates them to provide extraordinary service, encourages them to be consistently pleasant in all of their dealings and to relate to patients in a warm, human and natural manner. This results in better, warmer, stronger, more trusting relationships and longer term bonds with your patients.
- Service Integrity
Long-term success and patient retention belongs to those who do not take ethical shortcuts. There must always be total consistency between what you say and do and what your patients experience. Your service must be of the standard your patients want, need and expect. Service integrity is also demonstrated by the way you handle the small things, as well as the large. Patients will be attracted to you if you are open and honest with them, care for them, take a genuine interest in them, don’t let them down and practice what you preach … and they will avoid you if you don’t.
- Measure Lifetime Value
There’s a vast difference between the one-off profit you might make on an average sale, which ignores the bigger picture, and the total aggregate profit your average patient represents over the lifetime of their business relationship with you. Once you recognise how much combined profit a patient represents to your clinic when they purchase from you again and again, over the months, years or decades, you’ll realise the critical importance of taking good care of your patients. And because you’ll understand just how much time, effort and expense you can afford to invest in retaining that patient, you’ll be in control of your marketing expenditure.
- A Complaint is a Gift
96 percent of dissatisfied patients don’t complain. They just walk away, and you’ll never know why. That’s because they often don’t know how to complain, or can’t be bothered, or are too frightened, or don’t believe it’ll make any difference. Whilst they may not tell you what’s wrong, they will certainly tell plenty of others. A system for unearthing complaints can therefore be the lifeblood of your business, because patients who complain are giving you a gift, they’re still talking to you, they’re giving you another opportunity to return them to a state of satisfaction and delight them and the manner in which you respond gives you another chance to show what you’re made of and create even greater patient loyalty.