Nine Ways to Avoid the Average Practice’s Pitfalls in Refractive Call Handling.

Many Doctor’s and Refractive Coordinators are so swamped with the details of doing their job. The daily level of office activity leads to the false assumption that their phones must have been answered properly to have generated such a huge volume of work. Time and again, when real calls are recorded and reviewed, we see that Administrator’s and Doctor’s preconception of these calls does not necessarily match their reality.

We recently made over 1000 secret shop calls to practices nationally. During this time, we were able to reach a counselor directly only 66% of the time! The other 33% of calls were either transferred to voicemail, or asked to leave a message. Of the counselors reached directly, just under 1/3 of them, or in total about 18% of the calls, resulted in any effort to keep us as an active lead. We were amazed that in this economy so little attention to call handling is being made.

Many practices boast a 90% phone inquiry to consult conversion, but don’t actually capture every lead. In effect they only convert 50-60% of their inquiries into consultations because the only calls documented are those where the caller is willing to commit to a consultation easily and now. Everyone else became a lost lead. Talk about missed opportunity!

Here’s the “Monarch Note Version”… and the first few ways to improve your refractive calls and avoid the average practice’s pitfalls.

1. Ensure that your staff is kind and correct on every call.
2. Call your own office as a patient to experience and improve upon your own front office
3. Research your competition and improve upon their style
4. Allow your staff to answer refractive calls uninterrupted

The stakes are high when each incoming call represents upwards of $5000 a pair of eyes. If the initial caller does not enter your financial funnel, most likely they will find another. Our point, lead capture is essential when in today’s market and economy every call counts. It’s about quality over quantity. It’s the same reason that Circuit City is out while Best Buy survives. Extra credit if you can tell which one had better customer care. The ACE program’s crux is lead capture and cultivation, but that’s not all. There is much more involved in maximizing your potential along with bettering your potential client’s experience.

Treating LASIK and IOL callers as if they were regular ophthalmology patients calling for the first time is one of the biggest mistakes that practices make. Answering refractive calls like this……“Can you please hold? ,” or, “ The price? Oh it’s $2600 per eye. Is that all?, “ Ok then, bye now.” …are more common than you can imagine and have a grave effect on the bottom line. Remember, these folks do not consider themselves to be patients of yours yet, nor do they have the time or patience to deal with poor service.

In actuality, phones are often answered by unprepared, uninformed, unenthused and often uncaring staff. Most of us experience poor customer service in some form every day, but when delivered over the phone it is most frustrating. When poorly treated, the customer’s choice is to deal with it or go elsewhere. “Can you please hold?” Most people don’t want to!

Our goal as a leader in the ophthalmology industry should be to always stand out as exceptional. There are no second chances to make a first impression. A bad first impression in the competitive LASIK and IOL market, simply leads to your potential customer finding someone else. It’s hard to imagine how disposable your premium IOL and LASIK services really are. On recorded calls from practices across the country, we often hear the same potential client shopping price at competing practices. We’re here to tell you from experience, you are disposable until the caller has decided that you are the right place for them. The defining factor inevitably is call handling.

But how do you make the consumer realize that you are the best choice? The answer is to match your perception to your reality, and to become as excellent as you think you can be.

With our ACE program, we have the ability to listen to real patient calls for practices, we monitor every call. On average, before the ACE program is implemented, most practices were losing 30% of their new lasik leads by not capturing any information from the patient before ending the call. With a few changes we start with a goal to eliminate “lost leads”.

We’ve proven them a thing of the past for most practices that positively implement our ideals. Alright already…here’s the rest of our tips;

5. Capture every lead routinely
6. Ensure that calls follow a format that maximizes the potential of gaining new business
7. Assign informed and well educated counselor’s to handle your LASIK and IOL calls
8. Script your refractive calls in advance so you can dependably predict the outcome
9. Prepare to make mistakes and accept that they will be made. The key is to learn from them while maintaining morale which ultimately reflects on your call quality.

Imagine if every call were handled as if the caller had reached the most knowledgeable and kindest person in your office, every time, without interruptions or unnecessary holds. That’s our perception. It’s up to you to match our perception to what could be your own reality. We are here to empower you to do so. You may soon be busier than you ever imagined.

About the author of this article: Bill Mercier is the president and CEO of OptiCall, Inc, a provider of consumer communications solutions for the refractive industry which increases conversion rates of prospective callers into viable patient consultations.

Headed to ASCRS?

This has been an exciting year for Opticall! We have expanded our services into several patient service venues within ophthalmology.

Since inception, our specialty has been managing patient communication calls for new refractive inquiries, either on a full or part-time basis, and converting those inquiries to consults for our clients.

Our team is now strategically aligned with many health care service organizations with an emphasis on delivering business tactical solutions to your practice.
Hoya Surgical Optics is hosting a Business Tactics Experience Room at the upcoming ASCRS. There are several "invitation only" seminars that we believe can provide great value and insight for all ophthalmology practices.

We would like to recommend that you review the following seminars and let us know which of these may interest you. Each addresses:
• Enhancing the overall quality of care for your existing patient base
• Adding health care benefits as a service to your patients
• Maximize profits from existing patient services you may now be offering
• Adding additional services that provide revenues from today's patients
• Optimize staff time and your time, resulting in greater patient care and efficiencies

Saturday, April 10, 2010:
• Business Tactics for the Eye Care Industry 8:45 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
• Dual Sensory Loss: Vision and Hearing 12:30 p.m. - 1:15 p.m.
• Adding Hearing to Your Practice 4:15 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Sunday, April 11, 2010:
• Maximizing Profits with Premier OptiCal Services 8:45 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
• Adding Hearing to Your Practice 1:15 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
• Benchmarking your Practice 2:45 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
• Business Tactics for the Eye Care Industry 4:15 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Monday, April 12, 2010:
• Dual Sensory Loss: Vision and Hearing 3:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
• Maximizing Profits with Premier Optical Services 4:15 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Click here to register for the sessions

Upon hearing back from you, we will place you on the seminar schedule and will also personally confirm your attendance once we are all in Boston.
We look forward to seeing you in Beantown! You can learn more at booth #2550.

Recording to "Elective Surgery Phone Trends And Tips On How To Improve Conversions"

Thank you to all that attended Wednesday’s webinar “Elective Surgery Phone Trends and Tips on How to Improve Conversions”.

Here is a link to the recording of the event: http://www.box.net/shared/552ev4i5jn

You can also get the slides at www.slideshare.net/opticall.

Here are the stats from the live polls on the call:

How does your practice handle elective surgery calls?

74% Dedicated staff member/surgical coordinator

19% Multiple staff members/anyone available

0% Surgeon takes them

7% Answering service

How do you track phone leads at your practice?

4% Paper form

31% Excel spreadsheet

42% CRM (i.e. Goldmine or ACT)

19% No formal system

4% Not sure

Recording of RefracTRAK Innovations Webinar

We have made some improvements to the OptiTRAK/RefracTRAK program. Please check out the recording of the presentation from last week: http://www.box.net/shared/mml4d3p8sm

Competitor Practice Phone Analysis

Oftentimes, we are asked what other competing practices are experiencing and how they might compare. By definition, competition is a business relation in which two or more parties compete to gain customers. Given the number of inquiries, we thought, "Why don't we find out?"

We are now offering a “Competitor Analysis” which will enable you to learn what specials your competitors are currently offering, compare prices, customer service skills, and much more ($349 per report or $35 per call).

Learn firsthand what your competitors are doing so that you can provide an advantage to gain more customers.

Using Social Media To Attract More Patients

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple years you’ve probably heard about social websites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Originally developed as methods for people to stay in touch and share information with each other, these sites have now taken on a new identity in the business world. As the prevalence of social media continues to expand at an alarmingly rapid rate, many practices have identified ways to leverage these social media channels to effectively reach their target audience.

This is what we call social media marketing, and when used correctly, it can be tremendously effective.

If your practice is not currently engaged in any viral marketing efforts, chances are you probably fall into one of three categories:

a) You don’t know much about social media in general, nor care to.

b) You are interested in it, but unsure about where to start and skeptical of its value.

c) You thought you tried to participate in social media marketing by setting up a profile on a site such as MySpace or Facebook, but did nothing to try and drive traffic to the site and therefore did not see results.

Despite all these concerns, in reality social media marketing is a very inexpensive, easy and manageable strategy to effectively increase your patient base.

The biggest opportunity that social media provides is the ability to actually build a relationship with your potential patients. This is because social media marketing is not overt advertising. If you’re too intrusive and users start to experience you as pushing a product, they are very likely to shut you out. The goal of social media is to show yourself as an authority over the service that you provide, and then establish an area (which is the social online network) to communicate back and forth with your past and potential patients in an unobtrusive fashion.

A successful social media marketing strategy will lead to more talk about your practice online, because when your message relates to the users, they will spread it between their own networks virally.

So now the big question: How does social media help your practice make money?

The bad news is - it doesn’t. However, the main source of new business for an elective surgery practice is referrals from past patients. Every practice that wants to grow needs their supporters to be willing to make purchases and recommend your service to others. Your network needs to continue to expand within itself.

The more supporters you have, the faster word spreads about your service. Social media allows us to stay connected to infinitely larger networks of people. By having a presence in this communication line, you have now given your supporters a more efficient and rapid method for sharing of information and referrals about your practice.

Still not convinced? Let’s look at a few more benefits of social media:

Increased Visibility – Think of the Internet as the ocean, and your prospects fish. You want to cast the largest net possible in order to harvest the most fish. By creating alternative sources of information about your practice, and leveraging social media’s ability to spread information, you will effectively increase the size of your net.

Better Targeting – The very nature of social media is based upon having something in common. These sites exist for people who share friends and interests to stay connected. Therefore, the people exposed to your network will either have an interest in your service or an interest in those people who have experienced your service.

SEO Enhancement – Social media marketing can dramatically increase the amount of general search traffic directed to your website. Why? Because links to your website = better search engine rankings. Most of the backlinks from your social media efforts will be recognized as natural and trustworthy, therefore boosting your organic SEO ranking in the eyes of the Googles and Yahoos of the world.

Great Return on Investment –The effectiveness of traditional forms of advertising and PPC (pay per click) advertising are decreasing at an alarming rate. Minus the time it takes to initiate and maintain social media efforts (which is a consideration), social media marketing is essentially free. There is also little technical skill required, only good communication skill.

It’s Complimentary - Social media marketing is contained within your network. Therefore, it doesn’t interfere with any other advertising or marketing campaigns you might run. In fact, it only enhances these alternative methods because now you have a much larger net to try and catch residual traffic from your general tier 1 advertising efforts.

Bottom line: If social media marketing is not a part of your overall marketing strategy, then you’re missing the boat.

Now I know I’ve talked a lot about the generalities of social marketing, touting its benefits. Noting specifics on how to implement it in your practice. Well, the good news is that will start our next blog post. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I will share with you some do’s and don’ts, and specific ways you can effectively introduce social media into your practice, along with case studies and results.

-Conor Dixon, Trinity Level Marketing

Check out the upcoming webinar:

How to use Social Media Marketing for your practice.

When: Dec. 15th at 4 pm EST

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/464278618