When working with chiropractors, one of the first questions I often ask is “What are you selling in your clinic?”
The initial response is something like “chiropractic care,” “the best care in town,” or even more commonly it is “well… so far chiropractic, vitamins, cold laser, massage,…”
I have to date never had a chiropractor give me the answer I was looking for without a little prodding on my part.
As you can probably guess, the answer is definitely not chiropractic or any other ‘treatment’ or ‘product’ you sell.
Your patients can get a comparable adjustment down the road. “No way!” you say?
Well between the incredible healing power that even a bad adjustment can have the population’s limited knowledge and understanding of chiropractic, I’m going to go out on a limb and say “Yes way.”
So if you’re not selling an adjustment, massage, weight loss or rehab care then what are you selling?
The answer is you are selling an experience.
Kind of anticlimactic for all that build up, huh? But yes the answer is an experience. Now, notice I didn’t say Your Experience as a seasoned chiropractic veteran but rather An Experience for the customer.
That is no different than what a restaurant or salon is selling. It’s still an experience. And just as the food quality is part of the restaurant experience and the skill of the cut or color is part of the salon experience, the adjustment is part of the chiropractic experience. However, none of these is the most important part of the experience for their respective industries.
There are other factors that weigh more heavily by a landslide in creating the experience that keeps a patient loyal to your business, begets referrals and stimulates growth; number one of which is your SERVICE.
From the way your staff answers the phone to the flow of the patient through the clinic from entrance to exit, the service your patient experiences is one of the top influences on their long term (or short-term if it’s bad enough) patronage.
Want to find out how well your service is holding up? Ask patients through a survey. You can do anything from sending out an online survey link via email to hiring an outside company to do it independently. Of course doing it online, on paper or in some other way on your own will have minimal cost associated with it verses hiring an outside party (Side Note: If you care to learn how to do surveys and send email blasts out to your patient list yourself verses paying someone to do it, check out our Email Marketing product at this website. It will teach you or a staff member how to do it).
However you conduct the survey, as long as you structure it so responses are anonymous, you will be shocked at the information you can gather that will help you expose weaknesses and determine exactly what people love about their experience in your practice.
Outstanding service does not mean you never make mistakes. Rather it is how you recover from mistakes that keeps you in good customer service graces with your patients. By rectifying an error quickly and then following up with the patient a minimum of twice to ensure they are satisfied, you will never inadvertently give a patient the impression that you care about anything more than them.
One of the most important concepts you can teach your staff and internalize yourself is that every single act performed in your clinic is a marketing act. By understanding how and why this is true, your staff will see their own actions differently. Couple that with training and role playing on the most important to seemingly menial daily tasks and your service will shine brighter than a brand new quarter.
Start today by asking yourself ‘what is the experience my patients have in my practice?’ With honest answers you will have your starting place in making your clinic a customer service machine that markets itself all day long.
