Customer Service is Marketing

I always say that marketing is "Everything you do to GET and KEEP patients." Jay Conrad Levinson said it best in his classic book: Guerrilla Marketing; I just said it more succinctly. So, following that idea, it just makes sense that customer service must be considered as part of your marketing effort. If you spend lots of great money on ads so that people will call and ask for your service, you must then follow through to be certain that the experience people have with your service is EXCEPTIONAL. EVERY TIME. (Sorry, I get carried away with the caps sometimes, but I want you to visualize how important this concept is.) If you have a great ad and you don't follow through when people call or when they come into your office for a first appointment, you not only have wasted your advertising dollars, you have cost your practice much more, because people tell others about their experiences.

Case in point: Our cat was having problems and we were going out of town last weekend. We needed him looked at by a veterinarian right away. My husband called the vet that someone had recommended. After "hello," he heard, "Please hold." And he waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, he pressed the "end" button and said, "I don't care how good Diane said they were; we won't be going there." We called another vet, got a friendly, helpful person on the phone, and we were able to bring the cat in immediately and be on our way.

See what I mean? Most professionals live on recommendations. That's the way it works. But if your front office people don't get it, you have a problem.

Marketers understand the psychology of the buying process. After someone makes a decision to "buy," they begin what's called "post-purchase behavior." That is, they begin to evaluate whether they made the right decision. So when they call the office to make that first appointment, and when they come in for that first visit, they are evaluating. This is especially true for chiropractic services, if they are unfamiliar with chiropractic.

Maximize your marketing dollars by creating a fantastic customer service system in your office:
1. Make sure each one of your staff members understands the importance of EXCEPTIONAL customer service.
2. Put in place specific protocols for phone service and first visit (and every other visit, for that matter), to be sure prospects and new patients are treated with courtesy.

Eternal vigilance.

The Secret for Entrepreneurs

I subscribe to way too many blogs, newslettes, and e-zines, but I always get great stuff from them.
Here is a post from the Solo Entrepreneur which discusses concepts from The Secret:

http://www.workingsolo.com/biztools/articles/secretforsoloists.html

If you want support, advice, encouragement in your work as a professional in practice, check out my weekly newsletter. Go to http://dcp4ps.com to subscribe.

Re-Invent Yourself

A dentist friend told me some time ago: You must re-invent yourself every six months or so.

This sounds like pretty short time frame, and it doesn't mean an "extreme make-over," but it should mean that every six months you sit back and ask, "What's working? What isn't?" and consider your marketing options.

Here are some examples :

Take a look at your web page. Does it need refreshed? Do you need to add new material?

What have you done lately to tell your patients that you appreciate them? Should you get a focus group together to get input from patients?

What have you done for your staff? Have they lost the excitement of working there? If you want them to stay, you might consider a fun day to plan some new activities or events or a new marketing look.

Do you run ads in a local "shopper" or the high school newspaper? If they have been running more than six months, they probably need re-freshed, since people stop looking after a while.

While you may still get new patients from referrals, if you don't do a "re-invention" every so often, I'll bet your patient numbers will gradually diminish as people lose interest. Think about it this way: If you don't care enough about your practice to keep things interesting, why should they keep coming back?

Find new advertising venues, find new places to present yourself to the public, new ways to excite your staff and your patients. Don't sit on the old; look toward the new.

Re-invent yourself!

For more ideas, check out this blog, and a great new marketing book: Beyond Niche Marketing
The author, Kathy Hendershot-Hurd, has many years of experience in marketing, and her book makes it easy to get energized.

chiropractic marketing - niche marketing?

Like everyone else, I try to keep up with the latest ideas and web sites. Here is the blog for a friend of mine who is a fantastic marketing wizard.
She has been doing marketing for over 20 years and she has lots of successes in helping businesses do marketing.
Her company is Virtual Impax. Her blog is
http://www.beyondnichemarketing.com./
No, she's not a chiropractor, but I think you'll find her ideas valuable. She has a new book "Beyond the Niche." I have ordered it, and I'll let you know more about it later.

For more information about setting up your marketing plan for your chiropractic practice, go to my website: dcpracticesuccess.com and order my book: Planning for Practice Success

I also have a weekly newsletter which you can subscribe to at dcp4ps.com

Paying Attention

The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention.
Kevin Kelly, in 'Wired'

Agree. Stephen Covey says (Habit #2) - First, seek to understand.

If you are not going to pay attention to and understand your patients, you won't have patients. What can you do to improve your attention skills?

1. Listen interactively - respond with a meaningful statement when you have heard what the person has to say.
2. Don't interrupt. Terrible habit. My husband accuses me of doing it; he's worse than I am. Pay attention and don't think about what you are going to say.
3. Remember important information about the person, like his/her name, children's names, pet names, spouse/significant other name, favorite food, last vacation etc. Take notes if you can't remember.

What are your comments? What can we do to pay attention to each other?

Jean

Read my weekly newsletter, now online at www.dcpracticesuccess.com

The Business of Marketing

A friend of mine is an expert marketer, and I would like to pass on some of her wisdom to you.

Check out her blog AttractionBiz.com for a great definition of Marketing:
http://attractionbiz.com/the-business-of-attraction/.

We are on Technorati

We now are indexed on Technorati:

Technorati Profile