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 Grow Your Cosmetic Practice without Spending a Fortune
Volume:2 Issue:3 - July 2007
Allergan Canada recently invited me to speak at a seminar on the topic of developing a cosmetic practice with limited resources. I want to share here some of the tips and principles that I covered at the seminar.
Successful cosmetic practices across the country are showing us that a sustainable increase in cosmetic services revenue has to come from within the practice. In short, evaluate your performance in five major areas within your practice:
1. Effectiveness of your marketing activities
2. Your ability to convert phone calls into consultation appointments
3. Your ability to convert consultation into treatments
4. Your ability to create return business
5. Your ability to get feedback from patients once their experience is complete
The skill with which you manage these five dimensions dictates your
level of success and, more importantly, the number of headaches, in
your practice. I’ll briefly describe and highlight each step in terms
of the actions necessary to grow your cosmetic practice.
1. Marketing
The primary points to consider in this stage are:
Branding - All your marketing material should be
branded. This means it must have a particular and consistent look
and feel. This also means that you should have a logo that separates
you from your competitors (please contact KCMC for a quote if you
are interested in our branding services).
Marketing Message - Create a unique marketing message
that describes your practice philosophy in one simple statement. Enact
this philosophy always and communicate it through all your marketing
activities. Creating this message is an important part of branding
you.
Exposure - Your marketing activities' success also
depends on the level of exposure you attain. This means that any type
of marketing activity you engage in must be long-term and well thought
out.
2. Recruiting
This step refers to your ability to convince patients to come in for a consultation once they have initiated contact based on your marketing efforts. The most important tasks to remember are to credential the physician and to ask for the booking. Second, each receptionist needs to track all phone calls and walk-in inquiries that potential customers make. Collecting and appropriately storing the right information will make the difference in improving your performance. Tabulating the right metrics will allow you to benchmark and maximize your consultation booking rate.
3. Consultation
Consistently follow up on every consultation that doesn't book a procedure within the sales "high opportunity window." KCMC provides a simple and effective follow-up tool that you can implement in your office for this purpose. Prepare a script to use when making follow-up calls. Ask again at the end of your conversation if the patient would like to book the procedure.
4. Retention
Retention refers to asking your patients to return
for a follow-up treatment. Whether or not you like to conduct these
follow-ups, successful practices demonstrate that follow-up visits
make a difference in bringing patients back to your practice for additional
treatments. Be prepared to address patients' concerns thoroughly.
The challenge again is to consistently bring patients back for follow
ups. How do you ensure that every patient is contacted after treatment?
We can implement simple retention tools in your practice that allow
you to track patients that are due for a post-treatment visit.
5. Feedback
Create surveys that measure effectiveness of your service in the eyes of
your patients. Your surveys should measure your performance in five
categories:
1. Tangibles
2. Reliability
3. Responsiveness
4. Assurance
5. Empathy
Create one to three questions addressing each category and have patients grade you in each category based on:
1. How important each category is to them
2. Their perceptions of how you measure up in each category
This will give you a clear understanding of:
a) what items are important to your patients
b) how you rank in each category in the eyes of your patients
This will allow you to focus on what is important to your patients
(customers). Be sure to specifically ask unhappy patients to fill
out a feedback form by assuring them that documenting their concerns
will help you to effectively address their individual issues.
Please click
here to email or contact me by phone at 647-438-5959 if
you have any questions regarding the implementation of these tools
in your practice. |
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