Category Archives: extra ordinary service

Have You Mapped Your Patient’s Health Journey?

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woman mapping out patient flow for chiropractic office

Improving Your Chiropractic Patient’s Experience

Advertising has peaked. We are awash in ads coming at us from every possible source. We are hit with anywhere from 4000 to 10,000 ads per day.* With AI and ultra-sophisticated forms of targeting, it’s almost totalitarian.

The new marketing is customer service or Service Marketing.

Advertising has its place, of course, if it is to the right market, with the right message, and the right offer. But with all ads, the low-hanging fruit gets picked quickly, and new ones are needed.

There are other avenues of marketing your chiropractic services, but the importance of world-class service and outcomes is more vital than ever.

You’ve seen the stats:

  • 40% of customers began purchasing from a competitive brand because of its reputation for good customer service.
  • 55% are willing to recommend a company due to outstanding service, more so than price.
  • 85% would pay up to 25 percent more to ensure a superior customer service experience.*

Nothing is radically new about these numbers, but it helps to see them again.

And Service Marketing is not really new. But I believe it is and will be the dominant feature that distinguishes you from comparable providers. This is because content marketing has flooded the market. Therefore, call it service marketing or relationship marketing, turning each of your patients into raving fans who become salespeople for you is an intelligent marketing strategy.

But you must deliver the WOW!

CUSTOMER AND PATIENT JOURNEY MAPPING

Customer Journey Mapping is a relatively new term that has been hatched over the last 10 or 15 years in marketing. While the term is new, the concept is not.

Customer Journey Mapping is a procedure used to visualize and analyze customers’ end-to-end experience as they interact with, in this case, your practice.

It is essentially a flow chart.

It starts with a prospective patient’s first call to make an appointment. What do they see when they drive up to your office, walk through the door, and are greeted? It involves mapping out every encounter and even the likely emotion your patient experiences through Day 1, Day 2, Day 12, and so on.

And how far do you take your patient? Is it 8 visits and done? Do you take them through Acute Care, Corrective and Strengthening, to Supportive and Wellness? Do you have a map for your patients and do they know it? What are the milestones along the way? Are your patients excited about reaching them?

IMPROVING YOUR CHIROPRACTIC AND HEALTHCARE SERVICE

One of the exercises I covered in my book The Goal Driven Business, which has always been useful, is a complete Day 1 and Day 2 walk-through. It is rehearsing your flow chart or patient map.

Everyone watches while someone acts as a patient. I have often done this and acted as a patient. I will notice things that everyone has taken for granted — the old poster from 1989 still on the wall with the Muppets, a dead plant in the corner, a dead smile on the front desk, no explanation when I am dumped off on a therapy unit. Staff start noticing things as well. Redundancies show up, so do poor handoffs between the front desk and the doctor or from the doctor to patient accounts.

Zeroing in on how the phone is answered, an exam is done, or a report of findings is presented, you can find many small improvements that make a big difference on how your patients experience your office.

(Want me to set this up for you? Schedule a time and give me a call.)

Creating your patient’s experience is your most important marketing activity. Mapping it and practicing will help you create raving fans — that will generate even more fans.

Keep improving,

Ed

*The average American encounters around 6,000 to 10,000 ads or brand exposures per day. Source: “MIT Technology Review” article by Michael Schrage (Aug 7, 2017)

*Customer service stats. X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, by Brian Solis

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The Phone Experience and Your New Patients

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I just read about a new study sponsored by a tech company (Invoca.com*) that sought to understand the buying habits of consumers better.

It revealed that as inflation increases, the expectations of customers do as well.

It pointed out that inflation has consumers rethinking their more expensive purchases, including health care. However, almost two-thirds (63%) report that they’re still willing to pay more to get better customer service.

While consumer shopping is based on price, they’re also demanding better experiences. The survey found that more than three-quarters of respondents (76%) said they would stop doing business with a company after just one bad experience.

When respondents ranked the possible reasons why they would stop doing business with a company, a bad phone experience was second only to high prices.

Another interesting fact I noted was that most consumers ranked the phone as their preferred channel when they needed help regarding a purchase. They may go to your website, but the vital moment occurs on the phone. Not texting, emailing, or even visiting the office in person, but the phone call is the preferred method of contacting you.

And the preferred use of the phone in the 2022 survey was up 8% since 2021.

How your patients and potential patients are treated on the phone has an enormous impact on your weekly practice numbers. I would estimate that up to 20% of your volume could fluctuate based upon the great experience or poor experience someone has with your front desk.

The ebullient nature of the staff person you have plays a key role, but so is that staff member’s experience while working in your office. For example, I have seen visits go up when a new happy-to-be-hired front desk staff member takes over the front desk, only to see the numbers dip after they become discouraged a few months later.

The front desk is the most demanding role you have in your office. They need to always be “on,” eager, and interested in phone calls while at the same time checking people in, collecting money, and chatting with patients as they can.

I have spent occasions rehearsing with the front desk on answering the phone. It is simple, but done correctly, it is an art.

Even if your front desk team are pros, positively rehearse with them now and then – tell them even the experts practice daily!

Constant improvement is the road to excellence, and excellent service is needed in our post-Covid world.

And in the end, all this study points to is that common courtesy, genuine interest in and care for each other, being authentic, and kindness are more valuable than ever.

Ed

*https://experience.invoca.com/2022-invoca-buyer-experience-report/p/1

How to Deliver Goal Driven Extra-Ordinary Customer Service (Part 2 of 2)

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“Our future will be our results.”     Clarence Gonstead, D.C.

How do we overcome these barriers to extra-ordinary service?

Let’s first define “service.” Service in a professional service firm or professional practice includes two categories:

A. Outcomes. These are the results from the provider.
B. Customer experience. This comes from what the customer experiences as they move along their pathway through your business.

Let’s begin with your goals.

1. Define and Commit to Your Highest Goals.

To create world class outcomes and service, you first need to review your most senior goals. Then, you have to ensure everyone understands them, agrees to them, and commits to doing everything possible to achieve them.

Setting purposeful goals over a lunch meeting does not take into account the sacrifice and effort that will be necessary to achieve them. You may commit to your own goals, but like New Year’s resolutions to go to the gym, you get distracted and discontinue after a few weeks. Some of your team may say they understand the goals – even agree to them – but in fact are only passengers along for the ride.

So, you should review and recommit to your goals each week. Be insistent, allowing for shortfalls now and then, but not compromising in the long run. Be true to your goals or make new ones. Spend time on these three:

a) Mission
This is the purpose of your office. It should be short and to the point and should include something about excellent service and outcomes and helping as many as possible.
b) Core Values
These are the standards for professional behavior and performance. List what values you consider most important in providing health care.
c) Patient Outcomes
Define where you are taking your patients. Relief care only? Or are you taking them further to better health and wellness?

Be true to your goals.

2. Outstanding Outcomes Come from Expertise

Because of your clinical skill, you can produce wonderful outcomes. But can you do even better? Here are some masters in their field as examples of professionals that never stopped improving their craft:

Music: Pablo Casals

Pablo Casals was a cellist – regarded as the best that ever lived. He was born in 1876 in Catalonia, Spain. In 1963 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President John F Kennedy, and in 1971, two months before his 95th birthday, he performed for the United Nations and accepted the U.N. Peace medal.

Casals was talented, but he practiced daily. There is a story about Casals and his training regimen:

He [Casals] agreed to have Robert Snyder make a movie short, “A Day in the Life of Pablo Casals.” Snyder asked Casals, the world’s foremost cellist, why he continues to practice four and five hours a day.

Casals answered: “Because I think I am making progress.”

Food Preparation: Chef Jiro Ono

If you want and value good sushi, Chef Jiro Ono is your guy. He was 92 at the time of this writing. He still works in his small restaurant in Tokyo that holds only 20 people at a time. The waiting list can be over a year. Still, at his age, he works on perfecting every aspect of the sushi, from selecting the exact right fish early at the fish market, to the exact texture of the rice. And every night he considers how he can improve on that day’s production. He is considered the foremost sushi chef in the world. (Jiro Dreams of Sushi, David Gelb 2011 documentary, Wikipedia)

“Once you decide on your occupation… you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That’s the secret of success…… Even though I’m eighty-five years old, I don’t feel like retiring.” Jiro Ono (Jiro dreams of sushi, 2011)

Health Care: Clarence Gonstead

Clarence Gonstead was a chiropractor, born in 1898 and grew up in Wisconsin. In 1923, Dr. Gonstead graduated from Palmer Chiropractic College and began practicing. In 1939, he built a new chiropractic office in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin.

Because of the growth of his practice, a new Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic was completed 1964. It was a two-level facility with 29,000 square feet. In 1965, adjacent to the new clinic, a full-service motel was built. Gonstead’s reputation as a remarkable chiropractor had spread beyond the United States and he had patients flying in from all over the world. To assist these patients, he set up a limousine service between the Madison, Wisconsin, airport and the Gonstead clinic about 30 miles away. Patients with their own private planes could fly in and land at Gonstead’s personal airport located next to his home on the outskirts of Mount Horeb.

With no marketing, his practice grew so that that he was seeing over 250 patients per day, working six-and-a-half days a week. He often treated his last patient at 2:30 in the morning.

Gonstead studied and improved his craft. He was not, as a founder of a chiropractic college would later say, a “commercial chiropractor.” He was focused on results and said: “Our future will be our results.”

Eventually, he began teaching others his system which is now recognized around the planet as one of the most effective and popular forms of chiropractic technique. He encouraged other chiropractors to study and to “Practice. Practice. Practice. Never stop.”

So, be like Jiro, Pablo, or Clarence! Use “deliberate practice” and look to see how you can improve your skills and methods so that your customers can achieve their goals faster and better.

Never stop improving your craftsmanship.

3. Delegate Administrative Duties to a Goal Driven Team

It is almost impossible to focus on excellent patient outcomes and run a growing business at the same time. You need a strong support infrastructure. This means professional team members that are trained and motivated to apply procedures that are both simple and effective.

Chiropractic works. Not having a smooth-running support structure is the primary element that is in your way from developing your practice to its full potential.

This has been the major focus of our work over the last 30 plus years. We have found that the better the support, the better the outcomes and the happier the doctor and staff.

Improve your people and systems.

4. Create an Upbeat and Supportive Work Environment

“If you go into any organization that’s customer-facing, you can tell in five minutes when the employees are feeling abused. They retaliate on the customers.”   Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor at Stanford University

The way the employees are treated directly affects the service that they will provide to the customer.

Sure, work can be stressful at times. Maybe someone snaps at someone else. This happens in any high-performance activity. But as long as we all share the same mission and values, we can address our personal slights to each other and move on.

It is everyone’s responsibility to create a cheerful work environment for each other. If you are having fun, so will our patients.

Smile more — and make work fun!

5. Give Your Patients Information. Educate Them!

“If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’.” Henry Ford.

Of course, you give people want they want – what they consider urgent and important.

But people didn’t want a faster horse, they just wanted faster transportation. Horse, car, airplane… they wanted to get to where they wanted to go – faster. They just didn’t know about how simple, fast, and easy a Model-T was.

You must show them through education that you have what they want and need.

Most offices provide relief. That is what the patient is aware of and willing to pay for. But since you are providing a product that is not tangible using procedures that are invisible, your customer may have a difficult time understanding anything beyond the “quick fix.”

They may know they want more but lack the understanding of what is available.

I know I need to pay my taxes, but what I really want is to pay as little as possible. I also would like to contribute to my children’s education. With some education, my accountant could make me aware of different strategies that would take me to my full goal.

“Customers are thirsty for more information and knowledge,” according to studies by ThinkJar, a customer strategy consultancy.

To deliver your best and complete outcomes, you need your patient’s motivation to do so. It is a path and a partnership that you travel together.

The better that they understand their condition and your unique remedy, the easier it will be for you to help them achieve the best outcome possible.

The more they know — the further they’ll go!

6. Making the Patient’s Experience Extra-Ordinary

Making the patient experience “WOW” takes a team effort.

If studies show that customers discontinue a service mostly because of a lack of interest on the part of the service provider — and your own personal experience validates this fact, then the solution is simple. Just be genuine and interested in your patients. Be empathetic. Take the time to be totally present, in the “now,” and have “present time consciousness.” You only have 1 patient, and that is the one you are with, or about to see.

Then, when you practice with your team at team meetings, focus on this: the level of honest interest, curiosity, and care.

Practicing scrapes off the “barnacles” that attach to us all as we soldier through our work days. Here are some training tips for working on improving customer service with your team:

a) Review the Customer’s Journey

Lay out the pathway to and through your services. Do this with your team.

This begins even before your patients contact you. Who are they? Mom’s, seniors, kids? What brings them to you? What other solutions have they tried before they came to you? Get to know them and empathize with their condition.

b) Flow Chart

Then, list the sequence of actions, or a flow chart of what occurs from first contact through their first service and leaving. Drawing this out with your team will expose many areas for improvement.

c) The Walk-Through

Against this flow chart, you and your team can now look at where you can add more benefits for your customers.

I have found that practicing a “walk-through” reveals many hidden plusses – and embarrassing weaknesses, in service. The doctor or a team member takes on the role of a customer. They then travel some portion of the patient pathway with the usual team in their roles, acting as if they are dealing with an actual patient.

You are guaranteed to find areas where service can be improved.

d) Add More Value

Bain Consulting, an international management company, identified 30 different elements of value relative to consumer needs in an extensive study. They categorized these customer values into four categories:

    • Functional values, such as quality, variety, time efficient, simplicity, reduces effort, and reduces cost.
    • Emotional values, which included entertainment and fun, aesthetics, rewards, and attractiveness.
    • Life Changing values which included affiliations, community, and greater purpose.
    • Social Impact. An industry example was Tom’s shoes, a shoe company that donates a pair of shoes to underprivileged for every pair purchased by a customer.

In their research, Bain noticed that the companies that had the highest ratings on the most values had more loyal customers than the rest. They also found that these companies had faster revenue growth than others.

Good service pays. Great services pay even better!

With this in mind, look again at your flow chart and notice where you can add more value to your services. Start with the direct service to your customer, the “functional” areas of your business. For example, how could your customers receive their services:

  • Faster
  • More conveniently
  • Less expensively
  • With less effort
  • With greater simplicity
  • Receive child care while in the office
  • And also acquire a understanding their condition and their care program

In the next category that Bain used, what kind of “emotional” values could you add, including:

  • Fun and entertainment
  • Rewards
  • Design/Aesthetics
  • Attractiveness
  • Reduced Anxiety

The next two categories relate to higher purposes. “Life changing” and “Self-transcendence,” including:

  • Affiliation/belonging – Create a wellness or health club, have patient barbeques and get togethers.
  • Social Impact – Schedule yearly events to help the less fortunate, clean-up drives, and health and environmental causes.

In the years to come, Customer Service will take the lead in all your marketing efforts and will be the factor that sets you apart from comparable alternatives.

Edward Petty

Thank You Linda Skiles for 15 Years of Dedicated, Caring, and Purposeful Service to Petty Michel and Chiropractic Offices Everywhere

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Linda Skiles

Linda Skiles

15 years!

 

Actually, seems much longer as our relationship goes back to the great and honorable Dr. Gaylord Culp of Lake Geneva. And what a grand privilege that was – he was a master Chiropractor.

And then I bumped into you again as the office manager at the renown Wheelock Clinic in Burlington. WI. A dynamic multiple-doctor office that is still going strong.

You certainly had good experiences with solid chiropractic with these doctors and at these offices so there was no doubt in my mind as to your credentials.  You were Chiropractic Assistant of the Year here in Wisconsin too… back a few years it was!

A person can have credentials and training but these are minor compared to the exceptional and outstanding qualities of character that you have demonstrated.  It is too rare to find people who have the personal ethics and courage and selflessness to continue to provide support services through thick and thin, day and night, when needed, as needed, year after year.

In a quiet corner of the world your industriousness has been unflagging…and directly and indirectly because of you and your work, hundreds if not thousands of people are living better lives through better chiropractic offices.

You are always ready to provide us consultants, our clients, and our company with fast service any time.

We don’t say this enough, but your continued support has made a difference to all of us and so many others. But here it is, on your 15th Anniversary:

Thank You Linda. We love you.

🙂

“Ichi-go Ichi-e:” The Springtime Secret to Improving Your Chiropractic Practice

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The best chiropractic businesses excel at the basics.  Too often we can take the fundamentals of practice excellence for granted and go off to chase the “shiny” things, forsaking the powerful potentials right in front of us.

So here is an organic reminder that you, and all of us, can immediately put to use to help us keep growing and groovin’.

Most of us enjoy spring…flowers blooming, birds singing. It is new. It is creative. It is a beginning.

Life goes in cycles – everything has a beginning, a progression, and an ending. Some cycles are longer – every twelve months the tulips come through the winter mud. Some are shorter – each day the sun comes up and we have a new cup of coffee. But nature endures through cycles.

Unfortunately, we don’t always follow nature in our offices.

If you are like most of us, you don’t really start your day.  It sort of happens and you just go along.  You walk into the office a see what the appointment book offers you. Based upon the urgencies of the morning, you make your way through to the afternoon until you can leave to go home in the evening.  But do you really end your day or does it linger with you as you go home, or even stay with you till the next morning?

Most of us are stuck in the blur of stretched out cycles that are blended one moment to the next so that there is never any real beginning or never any real ending. One phone call in the middle of a busy afternoon is very similar to the one you had in the morning…everyday for the last three years.  This adjustment to this patient is just too similar to the one you gave…3,000 times before. One moment blurs to the next.

Jim Parker, of Parker Seminars, used to talk about “PTC”, Present Time Consciousness, as a key element to practice success.  A practice can suffer because, over time, our consciousness gets stuck in past moments, strung out so that we have less consciousness in the here and now. When you greet your patient, you are not as “here” or as conscious in the present as you might have been the first month you were in practice, or the first week you were on the job.  And your patients know it, at least on a subliminal level. They can have a sense that you are disinterested in them and so end up leaving and looking for a doctor who is.

Each encounter with each patient should be new. It should be its own cycle. Each phone call, each adjustment should be unique, separate, as if it has never happened before.

The Japanese have a name for this: “Ichi-go Ichi-e.” Roughly, It means “one time, one meeting” — that this one time will never happen again. It is its own time. It is special.

What would happen to your practice if each day – today – was brand new?  Like spring. If this week was the first week you were finally able to see patients after years of preparation?

First of all, you wouldn’t be bored. You wouldn’t be burned out, worried, or angry. Why? Because you are just starting and you have a chance to create the practice anyway you want.

So, what causes us to lose our “PTC” and fall into doldrums? How can we stay in the “now” and be creative each moment we are with our patients, each other, and our loved ones outside of practice?

First, watch out for the backlogs. They are energy dumps. Try to complete your work when you are doing it. Patient notes, insurance reports, filing…try to get it all done as soon as possible. You see, when you start to put your consciousness into a cycle you don’t really get all of it back until you complete that cycle. So, every pile of paperwork and partially completed job that is lying around the office will gradually draw your attention into the past.

Spend a weekend applying the 4 D’s:  With each task: Get it DONE, or DELEGATE it, or DUMP it in the trash can. Not all jobs can be completed now, and so some can be DELAYED with a time noted to complete it.

Here are some other steps to make each moment new:

  1. Early to Rise. Begin your day a little earlier… with a walk or a book, some music, meditation or prayer.
  2. Morning Group Planning. Begin your day in the office with a case management meeting, reviewing who is coming in, what special actions need to be coordinated. Maybe add a joke to keep things from getting serious.
  3. End Each Encounter. After each patient contact, end the meeting in your mind.
  4. Interest. With each new patient contact, genuinely find something interesting and new about them – their appearance, their week, something about their story.
  5. Business Coach. Meet with your business coach and review your business and make plans for the next month.
  6. Get Away. Get away on a vacation with your spouse, or a sabbatical and seminar for yourself. ( I’m heading out to Cal Jam this week. Hope to see you there!)
  7. Un-Serious. Do things in your office that are different, fresh, and new. One office has a “fruity Friday” and offers fruit to the patients.   Avoid the deadly disease of “seriousness.” Tell a joke, be silly.
  8. The Four D’s (again): Do it, Dump it, Delegate it, Delay it. Avoid backlogs.

Some of this takes discipline and creating rituals to help ensure these actions take place

But you are part of nature and spring is already in your heart. You just have to let it out, like a song that is ready to be sung or a jig ready to be danced. You already have the creative spark of newness inside you.

So just breathe.. and let your spring happen today and each day.   And help others to do the same.

Carpe Diem and Happy Spring!

–Ed

Patient Retention in Chiropractic and Delivering Happiness

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In our webinar on chiropractic patient retention, we reviewed some basic procedures that can be used to decrease patient drop outs.

More significantly, we looked at a new paradigm for patient retention that many businesses are using successfully.

If your visit average is less than 60, then you can benefit from the material we covered.

The webinar also included a short presentation on an effective patient recall system used many years by Linda Skiles, former Chiropractic Assistant of the year in WI. The forms discussed in the webinar are located on our PM&A members site.

We discussed why patients drop out of care – the basic reasons, and ten strategies you can put into place to improve your visit average .

One of the last strategies examined a company called Zappos. This is an online shoe selling company that began in 1999 and ten years later was selling a billion dollars worth of shoes.  We looked at a couple of key features on how it did this.

Under the strategy of “Take Care of Each Other”, we reviewed their ten core principles.  According to the founder and CEO ,Tony Hsieh, employees are hired in part based upon these core values. He discusses this in his book, Delivering Happiness.

These are the ten core values that Zappos employees live by:

  1. Deliver WOW Through Service
  2. Embrace and Drive Change
  3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
  4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
  5. Pursue Growth and Learning
  6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
  7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
  8. Do More With Less
  9. Be Passionate and Determined
  10. Be Humble

What are the core values of your office? Have you defined them? Should you? Does each team member live by them?

Below are two links to two short videos that illustrate how Zappos applies these core values. The first is a music video put together by Zappos and their employees. Just fun – and maybe even inspirational.

Then, watch as Rachel Ray anonymously calls in to place an order on Zappos and see how she is treated.

Zappos illustrates the strategy we call: “Taking Care of Each Other” and “Creating a Community.”  Both of these are effective strategies that can help increase patient retention.

You can use these videos at a staff training meeting and discuss how it could apply to your team.

If you are an active client, you can also watch the webinar on our members site.

Your patients may come to you for health and relief, but they stay because of friendship and how you make them feel as people. By hiring the right team members and helping each other stay true to patient centered core values as exemplified by Zappos, your patients will want to come back and see you again and again.

If you are having trouble viewing the video above, please click this link:

http://youtu.be/4gHlEBU_NSg

If you are having trouble viewing the video above, please click this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td-nVat6cLY&feature=colike

Finding the Right Mix for Your Chiropractic Promotions

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THE PROMOTIONAL RIVER

I sometimes receive emails and calls from chiropractors requesting a quick fix for their lack of new patients.   I often wonder if they ever got the idea of symptomatic care versus corrective and wellness care.

Effective marketing requires more than just a killer advertisement or long copy reactivation letter or a spinal screening.   It has been said that good marketing doesn’t depend on one promotion to get 50 new patients, but rather 50 promotions each generating one new patient.

Generating a high volume of new patients in your chiropractic office requires multiple channels of communication.   Consider how a river grows – through lots of tributaries. The Mississippi starts out like a creek, but then other creeks run into it and it grows and grows.

We call this the promotional mix – the blend of different approaches you use to communicate the benefits of your services.

On the following page, we have listed just a few important categories of effective promotions for your office.  Of course, there are others, but we have found that these work well and can act as a good foundation.

Mississippi

FOUNDATIONS OF PROMOTION

Effective promotion starts with individual and team motivation. It then should be entwined with all of your basic routines each day, from the way the phone is answered to the consultation and patient examination.

Beyond this, you can schedule specific health topics months in advance and offer them as workshops or “Awareness Weeks” where you provide a free screening exam and info.

Occasional special promotions should be scheduled, such as “Kid’s Day”, and community services should also be scheduled, such as screenings, relationship building with external referrals sources, and workshops.

Your presence on the Internet has to be constantly added to.

These are some of the main categories of your promotions, though advertising and public relations events can also occur now and then.

PromoMix(larger image)

KEY PROMOTIONS   

1.   Motivation.  You and your team’s desire to promote the benefits of your services create the energy to make your marketing work. Constantly nurture this.  Start with WHY?

2.   Basic Service and Chiropractic Care Procedures.   This is your foundation. Marketing is embedded in the heart of all the basic duties you do every day.  You should constantly review and try to improve on the marketing aspect of your procedures.  Be ever more cheerful, more genuine, more caring, and giving of extra-ordinary care and service.  Have “Present Time Consciousness.” It is helpful to have a checklist of these procedures to review.  Little things can slip aside and go unnoticed and a checklist helps flush everything out for inspection.  Work on a procedure or two every month so that you are constantly improving.

3.   Special Promotions. These are promotional events that can be internal, external, or both. For example, flowers to women on Mother’s Day, a Kid’s Day, Community Appreciation Day, Anniversary Day, etc.  They can be tied in with holidays, community days, parades, donation drives, etc. Most have an offer for a free service, but not all. These are IN ADDITION to the monthly education themes. Schedule these every other month or so. Promote these on the Internet and in newsletters.

4.   Community Education Program  (Monthly Health Themes) We have found that this program gradually builds momentum and if managed well, brings in more patient referrals, external new patients, and returning patients directly and indirectly. Here are some steps to make it successful.

a.    Select monthly themes around a condition or healthful topic. Can include headaches, kid’s health, motherhood, nutrition, cooking class, exercise, golf clinic, etc.
b.    Schedule a workshop time or “Awareness Week” (free screening exam last week of the month)  at the end of each month.
c.    Customize a poster. Samples on our Members site or make up your own.
d.    Do a YouTube video on the subject the month before. Post on Facebook, web site, YouTube channel and embed in your email
e.    Send out an email notice promoting the event, with a link to the video Health Tip, testimonial, etc.
f.    Send a hard copy newsletter with testimonials mailed to some of your patient files now and then (3 months) and all files every 6 months.
g.    Posters distributed locally and as statement stuffers.
h.    Press releases can be sent to local papers/electronic calendars.
i.    Ads are an option.

5.   Community Services. These are scheduled each month and include screenings, workshops and external referrals source development (MDs, businesses, DDS, auto body shops, etc.)

6.    Keep The Conversation Going: Internet And Newsletter.  Update your Internet presence and post new info regularly. Set a goal of how many hours it gets worked on each month, eg.  1 hr a week.  You could also use a checklist (we have one on our PM&A Members site). This would include Facebook postings, YouTube, directory sites (Yelp, Healthgrades.com. etc.), and search engines (Google, Bing, etc.).  And, of course, your website/blog.  Add patient testimonials, photos, and health tips. Keep posting – but keep most of the info local and “newsy,” just short of gossipy.  Also, send out electronic and hard copy newsletters with similar newsy content and notices for upcoming promotions, talks.

7.   Public Relations and Advertising.  Radio ads and print ads promoting specials events can be helpful now and then. Public relations such as press releases and donation drives can add long term good will and should be done a few times a year

3 Month Marketing Planner [Link]

Chiropractic Practice Management, Marketing, and Leadership Recorded Training Webinars

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This is a list of our practice development recorded webinars.

Each is a recording of a slide show driven lecture, each filled with an abundance of practice information derived from in the field work – and plenty of slides!

Currently, you have to be active on a PM&A program. By this summer, these will be available on and individual basis for a small fee.

 Chiropractic CEO Webinars

 Creating your Dream Team Summary and VideoA virtual “live” interview with the doctor and staff of a true chiropractic dream team. Find out what they do to achieve high numbers, profit, and fun.

 The Fast Flow Practice CEO  -55 minutes webinar video and summary.
One of the biggest challenges in running and growing your business is the time it takes you away from seeing patients and from your family.  We have solved this with what we call the Fast Flow Practice CEO System.   A new system derived from old principles.
Management by the Numbers: 44 minutes – Summary and Video
Management is a subject that has techniques to help you go from where you are to where you want to be.  Management By the Numbers (MBN)  can be faster and more accurate than other forms of management, and help build staff morale and make it more self directed.

Capacity Constraints : 33 minutes – Summary and Video
Do you work hard but you just don’t get as far as you should? The reason may be that you are running into unseen bottlenecks that are choking off your production and suffocating your growth. This is the subject of Capacity Constraints.

How to Be an Effective Practice CEO  Video
If you are struggling with the ups and downs of a stressful practice, or have finally “settled” into a comfort zone producing much lower than you know you are capable of, this program is for you.

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Chiropractic Office Manager Webinars

 Chiropractic Manager Webinar – Roles and Goals  Summary, Video and Study Guide
What Are The Key Roles In Your Office? A hidden barrier in many offices has to do with confusing roles and job duties. Clear these up and see how much smoother patients and paper flow, and happier the team becomes.  Small office or big health business, clarify these 8 roles and the numbers will go up.
 

Chiropractic Manager Webinar – Job and Performance Reviews    Video
Employee reviews are often neglected, or are dreaded by employee and doctor. This webinar covers the basic steps to make them effective and positive for both doctor and employee.  Approx 37 minutes.

Chiropractic Manager Webinar – Motivating Your Staff – Video  Ms. Phyllis Frase shares 5 secrets to keeping yourself and your staff motivated.

 Chiropractic Manager Webinar – Team Meetings   Summary, Video and Study Guide. This is an overview of 8 essential actions to help you improve your meetings and make them faster, more fun, and more effective. Plus, different types of short meetings that your team can grow.

 Chiropractic Manager Webinar –  The Office Manager Job Description  Summary, Video and Study Guide. This class covers 17 essential duties of the office manager. Both the doctor and the office manager should watch and discuss these duties.
 

Chiropractic Manager Webinar-  How to Best to Train Your Staff  Summary, Video and Study Guide This webinar covers eight tips  to improve the performance of your team.  Training plays a big part in team building.
 

Chiropractic Manager Webinar– How to Hire the Right Team Member   Summary, Video and Study Guide.
This webinar  covers eight priniciples for hiring the right team member from knowing when to hire, who to hire and how to hire.
 

Office Manager Webinar – It’s All About the Patient, the Doctor and the MISSION [Summary, Video and Study Guide]
There are procedures to help the patients and procedures that help the doctor help the patient and then there is Everything Else.  Tips on how to deal with Everything Else. (30 minutes)

Office Manager Webinar- Part II – Tips and Tricks to make the office more efficient[Summary, Video]
Part II reveals tips and tricks of what an office manager can actually do in the office on a day to day basis to make things run smoother and  significantly improve the volume and quality of services. (55 minutes)

 Office Manager Webinar- Part I – Fundamentals of Practice Management [Summary, Video]
Part I covers the fundamentals of Practice Management (55 minutes)

 

Chiropractic Marketing Webinars

Innate Marketing  (55 minutes) – Webinar plus Summary.
There are stories that float around every now and then about how some offices can simply “think”  “New Patients” and they come in.
Are these stories an urban legend? A myth, or a fact? Can staff or doctors “concept” new patients in the door. Is this true? If so, how can you do this?  10 steps to help you generate more patient visits through “concepting.”

Chiropractic Special Promotions  (55 minutes) – Webinar plus Summary.
This webinar covers different promotions by month. You will learn 2-4 different practical promotions for each month of the year. More importantly, you will learn how to organize them so that they are time effective and productive.

Patient Retention – Summary and Video
If you understand the underlying basics of patient retention your appointment book should always be full.  Covered in this webinar is: Patient retention should be based on Principles – not gimmicks. Where are we you taking your patients? Why they quit?  The cost of not getting them there.

 Chiropractic Patient Education – Summary and Video (45 min)
We go over 7 basic strategies that cover the entire horizon of patient education and explain why it is so necessary to educate your patients if you want them to be healthier.

 Infomercials. – Summary and Video .
Whatever happened to Infomercials? They’re still around and they still work. And you can do them very inexpensively. You just need to know how. This webinar will give you practical examples and include forms for you to use in producing your own amateur and informational marketing that can help you create more new patients and keep the ones you have.

 Internet Marketing and Social Media. – Summary and Video . This webinar covers some fundamentals regarding social media, Facebook, and general Internet marketing. (35 minutes) (not yet posted)

 The Art of Spinal Screenings. – Summary and Video . Spinal Screenings – The Queen of External Marketing.  Everyone has done at least a few  spinal screenings. You have probably had some success with them. But how much better could you do if you knew the fundamentals of this time tested external marketing activity?  This is a three part series on spinal screenings. This session we will review the most fundamental principles of screenings. Get these, and all else will follow.(45 minutes)

 Scheduling Screenings and other External Events – Summary and Video .  How to Schedule External Events And Create External Referral Sources.  Types of events, Outcomes, Purpose. How to plan the events and get them scheduled.(30 minutes)

Marketing Tips: Earth Day, Spring Promotions, and other Tips – Summary and Video This webinar covers: Powerful internal marketing script, Report of findings referral procedure,  upcoming spring promotions, with special attention to utilizing Earth Day as an opportunity to promote your services.

Short Overview of Chiropractic Marketing Management with Some Marketing Tips – Summary and Video   This is a short version of marketing management and some tips for the upcoming months. What are the three levels of marketing?  What part does communication have in your marketing?  How to engage your patients in your marketing efforts.  Upcoming special promotions. (30 minutes)

Marketing Management, Part I and Part II – This is the longer version of how to manage your marketing, and why.

Chiropractic Marketing Management – Session I – Summary and Video The Why, What and How of Marketing. Getting your Marketing off the Ground. (55 minutes)

Chiropractic Marketing Management – Session II – Summary and Video  Specific Marketing Manager Duties – Your Job Description.  General Overview of the Most Effective Marketing Procedures in Each of the 11 Marketing Categories (55 minutes)

 

Improving Team Performance and Developing Community Services for a Chiropractic Office

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This month we cover a couple of import topics, both of which can bring you more income if managed correctly: Chiropractic Staff Performance and Community Relations Marketing.

TEAM PERFORMANCE

How well does your staff perform their duties?

Studies show that there are 3 primary methods to improve performance:

  • Deliberate Practice
  • Expert Coaching
  • Family and social support.

Natural talent is a factor, but is never enough by itself and is often overrated.

So, how well does each member of your team perform?  Are they experts? Are they ready to teach their own seminars?

And how about your how team? How well do all of you work as a team? Will they go to the Super Bowl or World Series this year?

Your office responds to training like any athletic team or musical group. If the scoreboard shows that the numbers aren’t where they should be, then individual performance or team performance is a likely reason why.

What is the fast and economical solution? Training. Coaching.  This is something you and your office manager, and each team member can learn.

Team training is not done by just one person; it is done by the team. One member helps the other member, and back and forth until both improve.

Our webinar this week covers just this topic.

 10 Tips on How to Be An Effective Team Trainer

Tools and Tips for Fast Team Training That Pay Off

Thursday, March 8th, 12:30 CT

Don’t miss it. Excellent for Clinic Owners (CEO’s) and Office Managers.

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 COMMUNITY SERVICES: External Marketing

We all live in caves.

We live in a cave house. Then we get into our cave car and drive to our cave office and stay in our cave rooms.

Meanwhile, there is a whole world out there with thousands of people that need your care, but don’t know it.  And the main thing you have to do is to just … SHOW UP and do something.

What’s so hard about that?

You all have done screenings and you all have done some kind of external events: workshops, school presentations, visiting medical offices. The hard part is not the presentation. The most difficult (and it is not difficult) is getting these events scheduled.

Ideally, you should have your community services calendar scheduled with a few external events of one kind or another every month.

This is the subject of our next marketing webinar.

 Scheduling Effective External Events and Generating External Referrals

Learn how to schedule effective events in this short webinar.

Thursday, March 15th, 12:30 Central Time.

 

How to Register

For guests, you may register for all  of these webinars, plus full access to our extensive practice building library for one low introductory fee of $250/mo for all classes.

Guest Registration Form

For all active PMA clients register immediately for these classes at: Active Client Registration.  (Register for each webinar separately. You will automatically receive your special log-in access number where you can participate via computer, or by telephone only.)

If you’d like more information visit our website HERE, or contact Linda via email at Linda@pmaworks.com, or call her at: 888-762-8808

You can also download a calendar for upcoming webinars: LINK

Your Chiropractic Root System and Patient Retention, Referrals, and ROI

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Updated: April 2016

When people go to the grocery store for produce they are mostly just interested in their plump cucumbers, zucchinis, or other vegetables.  They don’t much care about the garden that actually produced these nutritious wonders of nature.

But a lot of work goes into a well managed garden. If you don’t take good care of your garden, you won’t have its fruits and vegetables.  It’s that simple. And a good part of a garden takes place underground in a network of roots.  Roots provide water and minerals to the plant, and keep it in place when the wind blows.  The top part of the plant, its stem, can get mowed under by a lawn mower (I have done this) and the plant comes back to life – because of its strong root structure.

Your office is kind of like a garden.

It produces healthier people. You take care of your team, polish up your systems, do some training, and you will continue to have a productive “health garden” that produces healthier people.

And the roots? 

In this analogy, the root system is the loyalty and good will of your patients. Here’s how:

Many offices struggle to get new patients.  Even offices that have been in business for years and years.

Why?  No roots.

If some doctors spent the same time and attention – and money, on giving extra care and service to their existing patients as they did on trying to hustle up new patients, they would have more patient visits than they would know what to do with.

Why?  First, because the service and care was SO extraordinary, patients would refer their family and acquaintances because they would want them to receive similar treatment as they had.

But more obviously, existing patients would never drop out of care. (Some would, of course.) They would continue to come back for wellness visits. How busy would your office be now if all the new patients you ever started still came in for services? You couldn’t handle…there would just be too many patients!

Over the years, there have been many studies to support the fact that it is more expensive to chase after new patients than it is to keep the ones you have.

 “A common rule of thumb is that the marketing costs of landing a new customer runs three to five times the costs of retaining an old one.” (Total Customer Service, Davidow)

Some articles talk about it costing 10 times the amount to get a new customer as to keep the ones you have.

I am all for getting new patients, but do you also keep your existing patients? And do they refer family and friends and work associates? And why do your patients leave? An interesting survey pointed out that most companies believed it was because of price, or that the needs of the customer changed. However, from the point of view of the customer, they left because of poor service. (The Loyalty Connection: Secrets To Customer Retention And Increased Profits By Bob Thompson, CEO, CustomerThink Corporation Founder, CRMGuru.com, March 2005)

 

There are a number of procedures to improve your services to patients – to help generate stronger and more productive “roots”, or healthy patient relationships. Let’s focus on the most fundamental: Communication.  To put it more accurately, let’s call it “conversation.”

BEGINNING THE CONVERSATION

A conversation is a dialogue, a giving and receiving of communication back and forth. It is an interactive exchange of thoughts. It shows that you respect the other person and that you are interested in them and what they have to say.

Many patient conversations are one-way, from the staff and doctor to the patient. They are also rote, robotic, and too scripted to be genuine.  Do an audio recording of how the front desk answers the phone or how you do a consultation and you might be able to see room for improvement.

The conversation usually starts with the first phone call. Does the prospective patient feel that the front desk is listening – really? Is she interested, or just reading her script and trying to get to her next task and hang up the phone?  Does she introduce herself and show interest and even gratitude for the call?

It is these little things that make such a big difference.  Think about how you like to be treated when you contact a business…

In the consultation, do you really listen and seek to understand the patient, even though it is like the 5 millionth time you heard about someone’s low back pain?

In your report, do you have a conversation with the patient, or do you just rehearse your script to the patient while they are nodding in appeasement?

You see so many patients… and have so many tasks… that real conversations are too often sidelined.  You don’t have much time, usually. But in the time that you do have, you have to be present. You have to be THERE, with all of your attention on the patient, and not on your next task.  That moment with that one patient will never happen again. It is its own time that just you and that person share.  The Japanese have a saying for this: “Ichego Iche.”  One time, one moment. This is a plaque that is often found in tea rooms in Japan.

You have started to create a relationship.  Now, you have to continue to nurture it. This is done by continuing the conversation – and of course, great clinical and administrative service and care.

With each patient encounter, you have to be interested, attempting to understand and then get understood. Improve this and you are well on your way to better patient retention and referrals.

CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION

But when your patients are not with you, you have to find ways to continue the conversation.

How?

Your Newsletter.
You can easily set up an email newsletter with an a provider such as Constant Contact or Mailchimp. Send these out monthly or even twice per month. The most important aspect of these letters is to keep them real, personal, as if you were writing to a friend.  It could simply be a few paragraphs from the doctor relating a recent case success, or a home health tip. You can also include patient testimonials and a review of a recipe.

But we are inundated each day with hundreds of emails so keep in mind that old fashion snail mail still works, and in fact, works better.  It does cost, of course, but the return on investment makes it worth it.  A hard copy newsletter will have “shelf life,” and can be read and reread.  Most emails are overlooked -there are just too many of them.  Send out a hard copy newsletter every 4-6 months.  It can even just be a one page foldover, self-mailer.

Other Mail.
Cards are very considerate. Just think about the few you receive. You may still have them! A system can be set up to send out birthday cards, welcome cards, humorous reactivation cards, bereavement cards, and congratulation on starting your “wellness program” cards, as well as other cards each month.  These all help keep the conversation going.

Social Media.
Facebook is your primary social media with your patients. This can be similar to your newsletter.  Like email, it has become glutted with ads and “content” information.   Ask your patients to “LIKE” your page so that they can stay in touch with the office and receive new information about health and upcoming office events.  Some offices even hold special contests only for their Facebook “friends.”  Then, post regularly fun and education information. For example:

 “Our patient, Burt, just got accepted back into his hockey league thanks to chiropractic. Here is a photo of Burt and Dr. Smith and his new puppy eating apple pie made by Rose, a long time patient who can’t stop bringing us apple pies!” (Of course always get patient approval to post their picture.)

 

Upload patient testimonials, in writing or even videos. If they are interesting, other patients can comment, or even share.  And if anyone does comment, make sure that you comment back.

Delegate these types of communication to your team, but you have to be the one to ensure that the conversation continues.

If you have good roots, there is nothing to fear.  Insurance reimbursement can decrease even more, the economy can decline, staff changes can occur, but if you have taken good care of your patients, they will take good care of you.  Conversations with your patients will help nurture a strong “root system” that will keep your office productive, no matter the storms that may come.

SUMMARY – TAKE AWAY:

 When the patient is on the phone or in the office:

  • Be present and attentive.  (Present Time Consciousness “PTC” as Jimmy Parker would say.) Be genuinely interested.
  • Seek to understand the patient.
  • Get your point understood and have a conversation.

When the patient is out of the office – continue the conversation:

  • Snail mail real newsletters and cards mailed.
  • Emailed newsletters.
  • Get Facebook “fans” and post local/personal news.