Guest post by Rachel Cunningham
As a business owner, you spend valuable time and resources marketing your optometry practice both online and offline. However, those valuable investments can be wasted if you don’t plan ahead to maximize conversions. Maximizing conversions means turning phone calls and emails into new patient appointments.
Planning for Lead Conversions
The first place to start is by educating your staff. Hold monthly or weekly meetings to let your staff know about any website, social media, or direct mail specials you are running. Keep copies of the specials and redemption guidelines at the reception desk. Having a knowledgeable staff shows that your practice is professional and organized, which creates a great first impression.
Next, coach your staff for closings. Create formal or informal training to show your staff how to close phone call or email leads. For a formal training, create a script that they can follow while they are learning how to close a lead. Informal training can involve giving feedback after listening in to a phone call or allowing a receptionist to listen to a phone call that you handle. Your front office staff do not need to be sales people. In many cases, “closing” a lead simply entails asking for the appointment.
Example:
Caller: “Hello, I saw your website special about 20% off eye exams. Do you accept VSP insurance?”
Receptionist: “Yes, we do accept VSP. What time can I schedule you to come in for an eye exam?”
Be Accommodating & Available
Make it easy for your staff to get new patients in as soon as possible by being available. Set aside time on certain days for walk-ins, phone leads, and website leads. Advise your staff to give new patients priority (without negatively impacting loyal patients). Getting new patients in as soon as possible shows you are willing to go the extra mile for them and you appreciate their business.
Ensure that your staff responds to all new patient leads in a timely manner. Set expectations for responses, both voicemails and emails. For example, it is best to require that all emails and voicemails be handled same day or by end of day. Not responding in a timely manner could lose you potential business. Consumers often have a choice when it comes to optometrists and if it takes you two days to return a request for an appointment, they may have assumed you weren’t going to respond and scheduled with another optometrist.
Create a Great Experience
Create a great in-office experience for new patients to ensure they return. This includes everything from parking, to greeting, to completing forms, etc. When possible, allow new patients to complete paperwork from home or their office to reduce the amount of time they spend in your reception area. Advise staff to greet patients immediately or quickly after they arrive in the office. Ensure return visits by advising the front desk staff to schedule a patient’s next appointment when they are checking out.
General Phone & Email Etiquette
As an experienced doctor and business owner, professionalism is likely second nature to you. However, younger generations, like Millennials, are used to more relaxed and casual environments. You cannot expect that simply because an employee is qualified and skilled that they have the same perspective on professional etiquette that you maintain. In order to ensure you and your staff are like-minded regarding expectations and professionalism, create guidelines and spend time training your staff on phone and email etiquette. Be very clear in your expectations and emphasize that they are often the first point of contact a new patient has with your practice and let them know how you want the practice represented.
It is very common for businesses to spend money driving traffic to their website and generating new leads but overlook the conversion portion of the equation. As an optometrist and business owner, you want to spend your marketing budget efficiently. The best way to effectively control marketing spending is by focusing on ROI. Improve your ROI by providing training, communicating clearly, and checking in with your staff about new patient conversions. Continually ask your staff about the response to specials, ask questions about new patient experiences, and focus on retaining existing patients. Keeping communication open and clear regarding new patient generation will help your team to successfully increase lead conversions and increase new patient appointments.
Rachel Cunningham is a Marketing Content Writer at iMatrix, a provider of affordable web marketing solutions for small, practice based businesses. She earned a Master of Arts degree in English from CSU Long Beach and a Bachelor of Science from Boston College in General Management. Rachel is experienced in writing content optimized for search engines and users, creating engaging content for social media, and crafting articles about SEO and social media marketing for small businesses.
