Practice Management
How Call Tracking Services Can Convert More Patient Calls
Jul 28th
Join us for a complimentary webinar, “Assessing Your Office Staff” on Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 1 p.m. (EST) to learn more about the benefits of call tracking and ways to train your office staff to increase patient satisfaction.
Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/287312147
The way your office staff handles inbound calls plays an important role in the number of consultations and treatment appointments you book on a daily basis. Have you ever wondered what type of conversation takes place between a prospective patient and your office on any given day? Call tracking can provide some insight on how your staff handles inbound calls.
When a prospective patient calls your office to find out more about a particular service or is interested in setting up a consultation, it’s imperative that your office staff knows how to handle the call and bring the patient into the office as soon as possible. Call tracking systems also allow you to monitor all calls coming into the office and ensure that your staff is handling each call effectively.
Many doctors and medical professionals also use call tracking systems to as a training tool, because staff members are able to record and review their conversations. Supervisors can review each call to make sure it meets quality standards, and change scripts or provide more training to staff members to ensure that most inbound calls turn into an appointment for a consultation or treatment.
When you set up a call tracking system in your office, you will be assigned a unique toll-free number that makes it very simple to track the effects of all of your marketing campaigns. As you promote this phone number on your website, profile page and other marketing materials, you will be able to see exactly where your leads are coming from. This can help you tweak and streamline your marketing campaigns so that you generate more inquiries or requests for consultations on a regular basis.
Call tracking is very simple to set up and provides valuable data about your lead, including the time of day the prospective patient called, the duration of the call, and how the call was handled by the staff member. Take the guesswork out of your advertising campaigns with a call tracking system that is easy to manage and provides a high ROI.
Tips for Generating More Referrals for Your Practice
Jun 30th
There are several ways to generate more referrals for your practice, and some of them don’t involve any direct marketing. Here are a few simple strategies that will help to keep your appointment books full season after season:
Improve Your Search Engine Rankings
When patients are looking for specific procedures online, they are more likely to find you when you are at the top of Google search page results. When a coworker or friend mentions your practice name or doctor names, it’s important that you can be easily found after a simple search. Make sure you are investing your marketing resources towards higher search engine placement so that your customer referrals can find you easily after a simple online search.
Focus on the Patient
Make sure your patients feel welcome and comfortable in your office, and take the time to decorate your waiting room so that the patient feels right at home. Showing concern and care for each and every patient builds rapport, and may just encourage a referral. Running a successful medical practice is just like running any other business — keeping your clients happy is a top priority!
Market Your Specialties and Strengths
Define what you do best, and emphasize the key services and procedures your practice offers in all of your marketing materials. Think of ways that a prospective customer would describe you when introducing you to their friends or associates. What makes you stand apart from other doctors in your niche? How convenient is it for patients to schedule an appointment with you, or to find your office? Focus on marketing some key details about your practice so that anyone else can highlight these benefits when sharing information with others.
Become Active in Your Community
Make yourself more visible in the community, either by joining a local Chamber of Commerce, participating in local social events, or even sponsoring community events. Highlight your activities and involvement in the community on your website or blog. Prospective clients may be more likely to refer you simply because you’re at ‘top of mind’ by being visible online, and offline.
More Tools for Monitoring Your Practice’s Brand Reputation Online
Jun 23rd
Last week, we discussed the importance of managing your brand reputation online, and some effective ways to intercept negative comments or posts about you and your practice.
As more and more patients turn to the Internet to share their experience about their office visit, procedure or treatment, it’s imperative that you have a brand reputation monitoring strategy in place so that you can protect your brand identity and address concerns as quickly as possible.
In addition to using free tools such as Google Alerts, BackType and BoardTrackers.com, there are a few other great tools that will help you better monitor your practice’s brand reputation online.
Technorati is a blog search engine that indexes thousands of blog posts every hour. You can sign up for an account with Technorati and link to your blog or website so that it can be ranked based on authority and popularity.
If you’re using Twitter on a regular basis, you can monitor the popularity of certain keywords in your industry, and also track links that people are retweeting using free services such as TweetBeep or Monitter.
Another simple way to manage your brand on Twitter is to simply run a basic Twitter search on your practice name or primary doctor names.
When you’re fairly active with posting blog comments, participating in social media sites such as Digg Twitter and other microblogging tools, you may benefit from running a search on sites such as Social Mention. This social media search engine provides search results only of blogs and social media tools, giving you an ‘at a glance’ view of any mentions of your practice and doctor names in real time.
Monitoring the effects of your social media activities and keeping up with comments and reviews about your practice is easier when you have an arsenal of tools by your side. Consider using some of these tools as part of your brand reputation monitoring strategy.
Free Tools for Monitoring Your Practice’s Brand Reputation Online
Jun 16th
Years ago, the only way you would know if one of your patients or clients was satisfied with a treatment, or had a complaint about a recent visit was if they contacted you directly via a letter, phone call or email.
Today, many patients turn to the Internet to share their opinions and comments with friends, family members and the world at large. Review sites and blogs have made it incredibly easy for anyone to publicly post their experience with you and your office within minutes.
Last week, we discussed ways to handle negative comments about your practice, and outlined some specific strategies that can help you continue to attract and retain clients. Since many online conversations happen without your consent, you also need a brand reputation monitoring strategy so that you can respond as quickly as possible.
One of the easiest ways to monitor reviews or posts about your practice is to set up a Google Alert on your company name, physicians and other medical practitioners. Google Alerts provide you with email updates on the latest Google search results based on the keywords you request. You can set up alerts that are delivered to you as they appear, once a day, or once a week. The alert goes straight to your inbox, and can make it easier for you and your office to keep tabs on what is being posted online at any given time.
Patients who maintain a blog, or individuals that post on other people’s blogs regularly may be leaving comments about their experience at your practice, or sharing information about a particular procedure. Backtype is a free service for monitoring blog comments. You can track where and how people are linking to your website, and follow those links to post a response when needed.
Services like BoardTrackers.com also allow you set up alerts on certain words and phrases, except this search is a little more comprehensive and keeps track of mentions across forums and discussion groups.
Again, keeping up with these posts puts you in a more powerful position because it gives you the chance to provide a professional response.
Next week, we’ll discuss some other tools and services that can help you monitor your brand reputation online…
How to Handle Negative Reviews About Your Practice Online
Jun 9th
The social media landscape now encompasses hundreds of blogs, social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and user-generated sites that allow your patients to post reviews and experiences after visiting your practice or office.
While a glowing review of a treatment or procedure can help to bring in more clients, a negative review can damage your reputation.
How can you effectively handle bad reviews and insure yourself against negative comments and feedback from clients?
One of the most important things to keep in mind is that a single bad review won’t destroy your business or reputation — as long as there are a number of positive reviews posted on the same site. Most patients will take the time to read at least four or five reviews, both positive and negative, before making a decision.
If you think the review is unjustified, or that it is particularly vindictive and not based on an actual patient experience or visit, you may be able to have the comment or post removed by the site administrator. Another option is to post a professional response to the site so that other patients can see that you have acknowledged the post, and have an explanation. The key is to take action as soon as possible, and support any unjust negative reviews with a professional and positive response.
In a situation where you can identify the patient, you may be able to resolve the issue and address the negative feedback offline. Some patients may be willing to remove their review or edit their comment after you have approached them in a professional manner and express concern about their experience. In many cases, the patient simply wants to be heard — you can be the first to listen to their situation and take steps to remedy the situation, if possible. Find a way to e-mail or call the patient directly so that you can address their review or comment privately.
Handling negative reviews about your practice and patient experiences can be challenging, so it’s important that you have a plan in place to acknowledge the review and can take steps to improve the situation.
Stay tuned for next week’s blog post with more tips about monitoring your reputation online.
5 Ways to Cultivate Referrals for Your Practice
May 12th
While conventional marketing materials such as brochures, postcards and newsletters will help you improve brand awareness and encourage more patient visits, there are many more effective ways to keep your appointment books full each quarter.
When you make cultivating referrals a priority, you can maintain a steady flow of patients and clients — even when you?re not executing a direct marketing campaign.
Here are just five simple strategies for cultivating referrals for your practice:
1. Host a seminar or event. Build relationships with your Chamber of Commerce, local radio and TV stations, and complementary businesses, and host an event, workshop or seminar to generate interest from local patients. Personally invite your existing clients to the event, and encourage them to bring a friend. This is a prime opportunity for you to market your services to prospective patients.
2. Encourage patients to send your email newsletter to a friend. Make it easy for existing clients to ‘pass along’ your marketing message by posting a referral link within your email newsletter, or by providing a gentle reminder to “Send this email to a friend”. Many patients simply need the prompt to forward your message along to a prospect. More >
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