Dentistry- one of the favorable areas for investment, but with high competition. There are dozens of dental centers in every city: from modest dental offices to large chain clinics. To stay afloat, you need to practice attracting patients to the dental clinic. And you need to do this regularly.

How to attract patients to the dental clinic: 6 effective ways

• Location To be a winner, it is not necessary to have an office in the city center. It is important that the hospital is conveniently accessible by public and private transport.
• Competence of doctors The professionalism, accuracy and cleanliness of the doctor are visible from the first minute of acquaintance. If he began to conduct an examination without gloves, and during the treatment he caused discomfort to the client, he is unlikely to make an appointment again. Patients can also be attracted by treating complex diseases, performing rare surgeries, and using experimental techniques.
• Offline and online advertising How to attract patients to a dentistry that has just opened? At first, only advertising on the Internet and on the street will help with this. Use any tools: flyers, banners, streamers, billboards, websites, social networks. In the future, the main flow will come by word of mouth.
• Marketing Campaigns Discounts, promotions and special offers have always been and will be an effective way to attract patients to dentistry. Reduced prices will help expand the audience among students and retirees.
• Feedback Doctors after the service should ask the clients if they liked everything. You can ask to leave a review on the website or on the company's page in social networks.
• Automated maintenance Making an appointment with a doctor through the registry is becoming less and less relevant - they use computers or phones. It is very convenient and saves time.

Attracting corporate clients to dentistry

Corporate clients for dentistry – Goldmine. One company can bring an average of 10-15 clients to the clinic. There are two ways to increase client flow to dentistry by offering:

• Corporate subscription for employees.
• Conclusion of a service contract at a discount.

In both cases, the dental clinic receives significant influx of customers and the head of the company demonstrates concern for his employees. You can contact the owners of companies by phone or e-mail, sending a commercial offer.

Benefits of working with YCLIENTS

Most of the ways to attract customers to dentistry allows you to keep them and make them regular customers. However, only simple, fast and convenient service will help to conquer them from the first second.
The cloud platform allows you to do this. YCLIENTS. It is tied to the site and allows you to solve numerous tasks for both visitors and clinic staff.

• Online appointment. Busy people don't have to take time off from work to go to the hospital to see a doctor, and introverts don't have to make phone calls. It will be possible to get to the dentist with a single click. You will only need to choose a doctor, date and convenient time, and then indicate the phone number and mail.
• Electronic journal. It is enough for a doctor to have a phone at hand to find out his schedule. YCLIENTS automatically records clients, which are then displayed to the clinic staff in a pivot table.
• SMS and email notifications. Set up automatic notifications to email client or phone a couple of days before the appointment. So the patient will definitely not miss a trip to the doctor, and you will not have windows in the schedule.
• Client base. This feature allows you to increase the customer focus of your dental clinic. You can easily track visit frequency. For regular customers, in this way, you can develop personal discounts and increase their loyalty. For those who have not been for a long time, organize a mailing list with an unobtrusive reminder of yourself. provide guaranteed attraction of primary patients to dentistry and turn them into regular customers of your clinic!

Khurshed Yakubov

Introduction

Having plunged into the industry of private medicine a few years ago, we noticed that small and medium-sized private clinics in the competition for the patient often advance “by touch”, relying on intuition. Decisions are made without proper assessment of their impact on financial condition business.

It became obvious that this segment needed expertise in management, marketing, finance and IT for "reasonable" money. The experience and education, and most importantly, the time the doctors themselves have to solve these problems is often simply not enough and, as a rule, these people focus mainly on medical problems.

After several successful cases, we organized ourselves into a project site and decided that, given our experience (in management, management accounting, finance, IT), we have something to offer these guys.

background

The development of the clinic followed a standard scenario: four years ago, a small clinic was opened within the Third Ring Road. The main flow of patients went to doctors, who by this time had gained a positive reputation in the market. The clinic turned out to be quite successful, which prompted the management to open a branch in the center of Moscow. The shareholders invested in a modern operating room with expensive equipment, which was supposed to be the main driver of the clinic's revenue growth. Based own experience, the management of the clinic decided to move to a higher price category, and focus on the price segment "middle and above average." After the launch of the second branch and the change in pricing policy, the expectations of the clinic management did not come true, there were not enough patients for two clinics, while the expenditure side increased sharply due to the cost of renting a room in the center of Moscow and additional staff costs.

The clinic had a negative experience of independent promotion of services on the Internet through contextual advertising"Yandex.Direct" and "Google.Adwords", search engine optimization of the site also did not bring the expected result, but at the same time, the management understood that the Internet should become the main source of attracting primary patients.

Formulation of the problem

The task was formulated simply for us: there are no calls sufficient to load two branches. At the same time, they emphasized that the operating room has the greatest potential for growth (recall that the clinic is an operating one). The clinic needs calls!

Task transformation

Even before meeting us, the clinic agreed with a fairly large advertising agency to launch a campaign on the Internet and even managed to sign an agreement. We were offered to work in conjunction with the agency, which we immediately refused, but offered to monitor the work of the agency together for 1 month, so that in case of success / failure we would have something to compare with.

The results of the agency were unsatisfactory: 5 calls, 2 primary patients per month. The cost of a call is 15,000 rubles. The cost of the primary patient is 30,000 rubles.

Management gave us the green light!

While the agency was working, we decided to audit the clinic (fortunately, there were medical data for this). information system(MIS), accounting and management accounting). We conducted a retrospective analysis of the data, analyzed the area and maximum capacity of the clinic in the main areas of activity: surgery and outpatient treatment, formed the age and sex structure of the patient, divided clients into classes depending on CLV, associated all this with diagnoses and treatment, analyzed the efficiency of doctors in the context of the CLV of clients who applied to the doctor, the ratio of repeated and primary appointments, etc.

It was important for us to answer the following questions:

1. What is the maximum capacity of the clinic (clinic capacity), the maximum number of outpatient appointments? What is the real potential of the operating room?
2. How price elastic is demand?
3. What is the patient profile (gender, age, diagnosis)
4. Average lifetime customer value (CLV)
5. What is the return rate of patients with different doctors

As a result, we reformulated the task and translated it into an economic plane: what needs to be done to fill the capacity of the clinic, maximize revenue and at the same time optimize costs?

Current position: the clinic is 40% loaded. The goal is to increase revenue by 2.5 times at a given level of costs.

Growth strategy

To achieve the goal, it was important for us to develop a development strategy and identify points of growth.

Client profile (customer base structure)

Analysis of the structure of the client base showed a low proportion of patients childhood(20%). Obviously, children were one of the main underused segments. Also, through the pediatric segment, it was possible to significantly increase the flow to the operating room of patients with indications for the removal of adenoids (a fairly common problem for pediatric patients).

Also, the distribution of revenue was in favor of one-time patients (low price segment) and surgical treatment (high price segment), although the situation with one-time patients began to change for the better, it was obvious that the revenue structure should be transformed in favor of patients who, in the case of medical indications, ready to undergo treatment.

Service structure: Outpatient treatment vs Surgical treatment

An analysis of client CLV in the context of treating doctors, as well as an analysis of operating room and hospital throughput, showed that

1. Surgery revenue is limited throughput hospital. The current load is 50%. Strategic goal - to fill the operating room by 100%
2. Outpatient treatment has the main growth potential. At the same time, parents for children prefer conservative treatment. This coincided with the goal of increasing the proportion of pediatric patients

Analysis of the competitive environment

Market analysis showed that the main competitors of the clinic were several private clinics, public clinics (with endless queues for ENT and surgery), as well as VHI clinics (whose policies usually do not include child care).

According to the composition of doctors (candidates of medical sciences, doctors the highest category, fairly well-known rhinosurgeons and otosurgeons), the composition of the equipment, the clinic surpassed most of the "competitors". The main task was to correctly present these competitive advantages to the target audience.

Pricing

The optimal pricing system for the services provided is the cornerstone of the sales system in the clinic. By lowering the cost of the initial appointment, you can move into the insolvent segment of the so-called. “one-time patients”, who are more driven by the desire to minimize their costs for treatment and will be limited to a single “cheap” appointment. A sharp increase in the cost of an initial appointment can, on the contrary, greatly reduce the overall flow of primary patients, while significantly increasing the patients' requirements for the quality of service, convenience of staying in the clinic and other comfort factors that often lie outside the scope of medical care as such.

The second is very important point- the sensitivity of patients to changes in the cost of primary admission. If you know that when the price of an appointment changes by, say, 500 rubles, the number of incoming calls increases by 30%, then you can accurately calculate the cost of attracting additional primary patients and compare this data with the cost of attracting patients through advertising, SEO and other sales channels.

Very often, an additional flow of patients received as a result of a change in the cost of an initial appointment costs significantly less than attracting this flow through the purchase of additional advertising traffic. Considering that approximately 2/3 of the client's income comes from repeated appointments and physiotherapy, this tool is extremely effective. However, once again, it is easy to go beyond the optimal price range for the initial appointment and get clients who initially do not intend to undergo full-fledged treatment in the clinic.

How we interpret the healthcare sales funnel

To monitor the progress of the project, it was important for us to determine key indicators efficiency for all stages of the sales funnel.

Clinic sales funnel structure

A potential patient, in the event of a problem, enters the Internet and begins to analyze the information received to select a clinic or doctor. At this stage, advertising, search engine optimization, lead generation (online booking systems, coupons, etc.) At the same time, the level of patient loyalty is neutral or wary. At this stage, it is important to create a sense of trust in the patient and convince him to call.

At the same stage, it is important to analyze the effectiveness of the sources of attraction and answer the question: what sources of promotion lead to a call and how much does this call cost?

To solve these problems, call tracking systems are used. We opted for Calltouch.

The reasons for choosing this system in our case were as follows:

• The service combines dynamic and static call tracking
• There is integration with Google Analytics with data transfer to Adwords
• All telephone conversations are recorded
• It is possible to mark calls (work with tags)
• It is possible to upload statistical data via API

Once the patient has called, it is important to maximize the number of appointments per initial appointment. This is the job of a call center operator/administrator. To ensure this result, a system for analyzing the effectiveness of the work of administrators is being created. Calltouch also came to the rescue here with the ability to listen and mark calls.

And here is the long-awaited patient in the clinic. Work with the patient goes to the doctor. From that

• How satisfied is the patient with the initial appointment?
• how much the doctor inspires confidence in the patient with his attentive, caring and professional attitude,
• how well the doctor did his job,

It depends on whether the patient will come for a second appointment and whether he will recommend the clinic/doctor to his friends. Those. what many chief doctors and clinic owners dream about will happen: word of mouth will start working and it will provide a flow of “free” patients. Until this moment, a potential patient goes through a difficult path of choosing a doctor / clinic. In order for a patient to come to your clinic, you need to do a lot of work to optimize all business processes.

You also need to understand that word of mouth only starts working at the last stage of the conversion, and the possibilities of this sales channel are usually very limited.

Collection and processing of analytical information

In order to maximize the chances of success, it is necessary to constantly test different hypotheses, evaluate their effectiveness, discard inefficient ideas and implement more effective ones.

This process is cyclic and repeats from iteration to iteration:
"hypothesis (planning)" - "control (statistics collection system)" - analysis and correction of the hypothesis.

The most important element of this process is the statistics collection system, without which the whole approach falls apart.

The following diagram shows the system for organizing the collection of analytical information on our project:

Scheme of organizing the collection of analytical information

Calltouch, through the substitution of numbers, captures the sources of referrals that led to the calls.

At the same time, Calltouch integrates with Yandex.Metrika and Google.Analytics statistics collection systems, and sends the “Call” event to Google.Analytics. Google.Analytics has a call event goal set up, which is passed to Google.Adwords as a conversion indicator for which optimization is configured.

Here it is very important to pay attention to what is usually considered a conversion:

1. Visiting some landing page
2. Filling out and submitting the form
3. Some action on the site

In our case, it was very important to understand where, how and from where clients call the clinic, since the share of calls in the structure of initial calls to the clinic exceeds 90%.

During the monitoring, it turned out that customers can make a call from absolutely any page of the site, depending on what information they find there.

Accurate identification of the source of the call is very important, as it allows you to understand:

1. Where did the client come from (advertising, search, external link, direct access, etc.)
2. Calculate the effectiveness of promoting a particular sales channel
3. Reallocate the budget from less efficient sales channels to more efficient ones

Separately, it is worth stopping at the system of fixing and listening to calls.

Calltouch allows you to label these calls. Then, using these tags, you can line up enough effective system control of the work of administrators, which we will discuss in more detail below.

In addition to the sources of calls, information about the quality of the work of administrators, it is very important to understand the internal performance indicators of the clinic:

1. Revenue by branches/services/doctors
2. Average CLV of clients by doctors
3. Gender and age structure of the customer base
4. Revenue structure by services sold
5. Revenue structure by client classes (using CLV)
6. Number of repeated appointments per primary patient by doctors
7. and much more

All this information can be obtained from MIS.

Other important information about the financial and economic activities of the clinic can be obtained from such financial and economic accounting systems as 1C Enterprise.

As a result, we have a very deep end-to-end analytics, a multi-factor model of the clinic, with the help of which you can clearly understand how a change in individual indicators of the clinic's performance ultimately affects revenue and profit.

Choosing the main promotion channel

Optimization of advertising costs

Initial figures are for December 2015, final figures are for December 2016.

Through the call tracking system, we received detailed information about the effectiveness of all advertising campaigns and redistributed the budget from less effective campaigns to more effective ones. It is also worth noting that it is impossible to achieve an increase in conversion to calls without high-quality content and analysis of the behavior of site visitors. This process is iterative and consists in the gradual selection of the most efficient form of material supply.

However, this sales channel has its drawbacks: high cost and limited capacity. It is impossible to constantly increase the advertising budget, proportionally increase the number of calls to the clinic. At some stage, each new ruble invested in contextual advertising brings fewer calls.

Search Engine Optimization - Long Term Strategy

We understood that there is a natural limitation of advertising opportunities, both in terms of the required amount of traffic that Google.Adwords and Yandex.Direct can provide, and in terms of the budgetary possibilities of the clinic. We were firmly committed to developing organic search.

It is worth noting that the traffic of the clinic's website before the start of the project was quite high, and the conversion was low.

The reasons for this state of affairs were as follows:

1. Low share of Moscow traffic. At the same time, the conversion of Moscow traffic was quite high. We set the task to significantly increase its share.
2. Non-selling site. The site design was not adapted to the mobile device
3. Non-selling content. The content on the site was not formatted properly.

What was done

• In 1 week, a new website was developed and launched from scratch on our own platform, adapted for mobile devices. (the share of mobile traffic on the project exceeds 60%)
• The old site was transferred without losing positions in the search results (a very important point when changing the design of the site)
• Reworked text content. The text has been adapted for ordinary people far from medicine and was of practical value to them. The features of the use of different approaches in outpatient treatment and surgical intervention were explained. The drugs and equipment used were described.
• Created from scratch photo / video content on the subject of surgical operations
• Conducted systematic work on search engine optimization

The results of the search engine optimization of the clinic website

Search traffic is expressed in unique visitors per month in Moscow. The graphs show unique calls to the clinic from December 2015 to December 2016 inclusive.

results

• Moscow traffic more than doubled
• Moscow traffic conversion increased by more than 40%
• The number of calls from search increased by almost 3 times
• Call cost decreased by 2 times
• The cost of the primary patient has decreased by more than 3 times

To estimate the cost of a call/patient from a search, the combined monthly costs of search engine optimization and content creation were used.

Improving the efficiency of administrators

Most clinics have faced a situation where serious efforts and costs for promotion and generation of calls rested on the quality of the work of administrators.

Lack of motivation, relatively low wages, low competencies, lack of tools for training and monitoring results, can nullify all advertising and other efforts to generate calls.

Different administrators had different conversion of calls to primary patients. At the same time, the total loss in revenue from the work of individual administrators could reach hundreds of thousands of rubles and exceeded their wages by dozens of times.

Efficiency of clinic administrators: conversion of calls to first patients

What was done

From the very beginning, after connecting calltouch, we have independently listened to about 2,000 calls and tagged them into various categories.

Subsequently, complete control and labeling of calls was completely transferred to the administration of the clinic.

We and the clinic management found out exactly how administrators talk to patients. Sometimes they can be rude, not know the services, prices, treatment methods, etc.

Everyone was convinced that at the stage of administrators there is a significant loss of patients. As the number of calls grew, the loss rate began to increase.

We collected statistics. With the help of marking calls, a whole system for evaluating the work of administrators was built

• Converting Unique Calls to Primary Patients
• Evaluation of work using tags (each phone conversation was rated)

Communication of the administrator by phone had to be standardized and transferred to a qualitatively new level. Bottom line: call scripts have been rewritten.

To increase efficiency and consolidate results, it was important to create a system of continuous training and improvement of the work of administrators. For this purpose, weekly work with cases was introduced. We uploaded records of good and bad telephone conversations (cases) - this is the basic calltouch functionality - and sent them for further joint analysis at administrators' meetings.

We insisted (difficult work with the customer) that doctors regularly train administrators on the specifics of services, treatment methods, equipment used in the clinic.

Also, based on the collected statistics and analysis of the results, a system of motivation for administrators was introduced.

results

The measures taken made it possible to increase the conversion of administrators by almost 35%, which, with an increase in the number of calls, made it possible to significantly increase the number of primary patients.

Results of work with clinic administrators

Doctors' efficiency

Moving on to the next stage - the work of doctors

Revenue per doctor is often used to measure the effectiveness of doctors. We believe that this indicator has many shortcomings.

The doctor's income is a controversial indicator, because. different doctors can work different number of shifts. The most important indicator in our opinion is the CLV (customer lifetime value) indicator.

A very important feature of the use of this indicator in the clinic is that the CLV of the client is very dependent on the doctor who received the primary patient. Therefore, it is better to consider the average indicators for CLV clients in the context of the doctors who performed the initial appointment. This creates a very good basis for comparative analysis.

Let's make a reservation right away, we applied a simplified approach in CLV calculations, where we take as a value the total cash flow that the client generates using the clinic's services.

It is very important to correctly evaluate the CLV score. At first glance, it might seem that the higher the score, the better. However, this is not quite true. A doctor with a highly elevated CLV may overprescribe or try to sell Additional services client that he doesn't really need. Therefore, in addition to a high CLV score, patient satisfaction must also be assessed. One dissatisfied patient leaving a negative review online can cause huge damage to a clinic's reputation and drastically reduce conversions.

The effectiveness of doctors. The patient's CLV.

In this example, conditional CLV indicators are shown

We set ourselves the task of bringing the CLV of doctors up to the level of the doctor with the most balanced CLV + patient satisfaction.

What was done

• Analyzed indicators for all doctors for the entire period of the clinic
• The flow was redistributed to doctors with the most balanced CLV:
  • Revised schedules of doctors
  • The composition of participants in the promotions has been optimized, depending on the effectiveness of the doctor
• Treatment standards revised
• Doctors trained

results

• Lagging doctors' CLVs have been raised by 50%
• Revenue increased by 2.5 times.
• Clinic capacity is 98% full

IMPORTANT: Revenue from operations increased by 100%.

Let's look at the factors that affect the clinic's revenue:

Factors affecting clinic revenue

On average, on our projects, other things being equal, 1/3 of the revenue is generated from the initial admission, 2/3 - from the second admission. Although for different clinics, this ratio may be different.

It must be understood that efforts must be made on all factors affecting the increase in revenue. It is also necessary to correctly assess the weight of individual factors in the potential for revenue growth and their limitations.

After the potential of some factors has been exhausted, other factors are included, the influence of which can be significantly higher than the previous ones.

By optimizing work at each stage of the sales funnel, maximizing revenue and filling the clinic’s capacity is achieved.

Optimization of clinic business processes

Conclusion

Let's summarize the results from the beginning of the project to the present day:

• The clinic's revenue grew almost every month,
• at the end of December, the growth was 150% (2.5 times) compared to December 2015,
• the clinic capacity is 98% full,
• operating room is full

By increasing efficiency at every stage of the sales funnel, we have achieved significant results. At the moment, a strategy for the further development of the clinic is being developed.

This result would not have been possible without the full participation of the clinic's management at all stages of optimizing business processes, full involvement in the process of ongoing changes and the enormous amount of methodological work done with the administrators and doctors of the clinic.

Separately, it is worth noting another important change - a significant increase in the current value of the business (clinic), which a year later began to be measured in millions of dollars. This opens up more opportunities for owners: from obtaining additional credit resources to attracting strategic investors to the business.

Today it is already trivial to think that a patient in paid dentistry acts in two forms: he is a recipient of medical care and a consumer of services. It is clear to everyone that the successful commerce and competitiveness of a clinic, firm or private dentist is decisively dependent on how medical and service personnel have mastered the psychology of interaction in the process of treatment and sale of services. To attract a patient, to retain, to pleasantly surprise, to make him permanent - these goals have become the companions of commercial success.

And, on the contrary, the concepts of “alert, disappoint, lose” the patient are perceived as synonyms. bad business. We emphasize that in the minds of the consumer of services in medicine there is a shift: he is more and more interested in personal qualities doctor - humanity, decency, kindness, responsiveness, and not just professionalism in the traditional sense. Impressions from the doctor's personality are usually transferred to the quality of his work - a good person and a good professional. However, what is within the framework of common sense is not always reflected in practice. That is why it is appropriate to express in the form of strict standards the cornerstone, in our opinion, provisions that should guide a dentist who is counting on the sustainable effects of his work: high earnings, strengthening relationships with patients, their constancy and voluntary performance of the function of distributors.

10 ways to attract and retain a patient

Method 1

During the consultation or appointment, at all stages of service, act in such a way that nothing reminds the patient of the bad and unpleasant from the practice of public medicine.
Work and win the trust of patients on the contrast of new and old! This provision applies to all aspects of the activities of a paid institution - this is information about services, compliance with security measures, interaction between medical and service personnel with patients, providing illustrations at the reception, booklets and forms, design of offices, halls and ancillary facilities. Everywhere the patients' minds must fix the thoughtfulness, even the smallest things, and the conclusion should be obvious: here they do not save on either treatment or service.

Method 2

At all stages of interaction with the patient, demonstrate cordiality, attention and willingness to cooperate with any patient, including not very kind, well-mannered, and even with problematic personality traits. We continue to develop the theme of contrasts, highlighting its psychological background. An ordinary citizen of our country was brought up in conditions of deprivation. Everywhere and in different forms he was deprived of attention and care - in the family, household and medical institutions, at the place of work and leisure. However, such a disappointing reality of the recent past can be used for the benefit of commerce and competition. Imagine that your patient is at the epicenter of sincere attention and care. Literally from the first to the last second of his stay in your institution, he feels the cordiality addressed to him personally, the willingness of the staff to cooperate. The task seems to be simple, but it is not easy to implement it in practice. It is difficult to maintain the style of "cordiality and courtesy" at all stages of interaction, with all patients, under all circumstances, and for all staff. We are very different - both those who serve and those who are served; everyone has their own principles, ideas about what should be, their own nervous system and character. In addition, cordiality and courtesy are very capacious concepts that include ethics, the ability to make contact and maintain it. It may take years for the employees of the firm to learn good manners. Start with the elementary. First of all, dear colleagues, learn how to properly meet a new patient who enters the office. This is stated in the following statement.

Method 3

Do your best to give the patient a positive first impression of yourself. As you know, the first impression of a person leaves a deep and long-term mark. It may not be as objective as it is psychologically significant, rich in information. Instantly and largely unconsciously, a holistic assessment of the partner’s image takes place: an impression is formed about whether he is pleasant or repulsive in some way, positive or negative associations with known types arise, an emotional-energetic consonance or dissonance is formed. At this moment, the patient's psyche operates in an extreme mode of "sorting impressions and prognosis": what can be expected from this doctor - is he a good or bad person, can he be trusted with his wallet and health? It is known from practice that, upon entering the office, patients at some point often lose their bearings, do not understand how to approach and sit in a chair, there is a bewildered smile or a tense grimace on their faces. Such states indicate that the brain is actively processing new information on a subconscious level, attention is focused and directed to signs of well-being and trouble, all other details are outside the field of active consciousness. After a while, conceptual thinking and logic begin to connect. Gradually, as contacts expand in one direction or another, the opinion about the doctor will be corrected, final conclusions about his personality will be formed. But this will happen later, and the first impression will nevertheless remain for a long time and will color all the facets of further relationships. That is why in the first moments one must especially try and show the best in oneself - benevolence, friendliness, responsiveness. The vast majority of doctors possess these qualities, but many have hidden them deeply and extract them in exceptional cases. Unfortunately, other doctors, being humane people, have developed a bureaucratic stereotype of interaction with patients - on-duty officiality, an ambiguous smile, an absent-minded look, and a neutral emotional tone. The mask stuck to the face. It should be recognized that this is an economical style of relations, but it is least of all suitable for the first moment of communication with patients, when it is necessary to easily and widely show readiness for frank and desired interaction, strengthening contacts.

In the first moments of communication with patients, any falsehood is very noticeable, an attempt to pretend to be someone you are not. Most people at the first contacts quickly notice when a partner plays someone else's role. Is it easy for a doctor to be cordial and amiable, to win over a patient from the first seconds of communication? Not easy. Fatigue affects, not all of his character traits and not every manner of communication is liked by everyone. The doctor also "calculates" the patient on the basis of the first impression, and associations and images of the past arise in his mind. A different patient does not at all dispose to open arms, but true professionalism lies in the fact that the humanistic essence of the doctor, communicative tolerance take precedence over unpleasant memories. There is a warning about this.

Method 4

Do not allow yourself to be guided by negative attitudes towards patients. Our observations show that prejudices and images of "bad patients" often outstrip the dentist's contacts with a particular patient. One doctor expressed his mindset, proud of his “sense of people,” in the following form: “At first sight I identify a patient who will be difficult and unpleasant in communication, and I immediately develop an appropriate attitude towards him.” Is this a sign of professionalism? On the contrary, as a result of such readiness, the doctor develops certain forms of defensive behavior - closeness in communication, unwillingness to explain in detail, explain what is required, emotional constraint, aggression, etc.

In other cases, the dentist and his assistant "calculate" the patient's solvency - we can or we can't make money on him, whether he stays for treatment or not. This is also where the emotional detachment and bureaucratic tone come from. The patient, as a rule, catches this, and two outcomes are probable here: if he is educated and sustained, he will not show an appearance, but will hold a grudge and speak badly about the staff; if he is uncultured, emotionally labile, or, even worse, with signs of mental abnormalities, he will give a reaction in the form of accusations, indignation, rudeness, etc. Without realizing it, the doctor sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind. As a result, he became even more entrenched in his opinion: “what a bad and capricious current patient, here before ...” And the patient made his conclusion: “Nothing has changed in paid dentistry, doctors have remained as they were.” Thus, mutual negative attitudes are capable of swaying the amplitude of negative impressions in the emotional and ethical circuit "doctor - patient". Forbid yourself, dear colleagues, to participate in this drama of communication.

Method 5

Act in such a way that each patient is convinced that you have received from him and properly assessed all the information necessary for the successful implementation of a complex of therapeutic measures - diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, prevention.

We are talking about the initial phase of mandatory professional communication (OPC) between a doctor and a patient, more precisely, about that part of it that is aimed at identifying the necessary information - complaints and wishes, general health and the state of the recipient of medical care at the time of admission. In conditions paid services the aspect of "detection" has some features in comparison with the scheme for collecting an anamnesis and examining images, which operates in a state budgetary institution. The main difference is that the doctor is not limited to dental tasks, he also has a psychological impact on the patient. The visitor should see and positively evaluate the doctor's professionalism, attention to health and efforts. Therefore, the doctor works in a dialogue mode and on the principle of "feedback", giving adequate information to the client: I see, hear and take into account everything, not a single important detail escapes me.

The doctor "reveals" based on the patient, for the patient, and not just for himself. Almost everything that the doctor "reveals" he brings to the consciousness of the patient. For this purpose, the influence of general health on the state of the dentoalveolar system is explained and, on the contrary, individual complaints and indications of the image are commented, and generalizations are made. Here, the principle “we write one, two in the mind” is unacceptable, according to which the doctor understood what is important for himself, caught the essence of the patient’s statements, determined his condition and silently proceeds further - makes decisions, makes conclusions. On the contrary, the doctor uses various techniques"feedback" so that the patient is already on this stage communication, I concluded: I came to a responsible, attentive, highly professional specialist.

Method 6

Provide the patient with all the necessary information in such a way that he feels like an active actor at different stages of interaction - getting to know the problem, developing a recommended treatment plan, choosing a solution, discussing costs and guarantees.

To do this, you continue to carry out the mandatory professional communication in full, argue clearly, clearly. Address the patient with questions, make sure that he understands you correctly. Let's have an opportunity to express wishes. Do not be embarrassed by the fact that another patient will say: "Do what and how you see fit." Compulsory communication is so named because it includes what needs to be brought to the patient's mind under any circumstances, mindful of the rights of the consumer and the complexities of human nature. However, one and the same thing can be expressed briefly or in detail, one or another accent can be placed, but the essential cannot be ignored - it will be more expensive for oneself.

In each case of treatment, in addition to “detection”, the following components of the HPF are performed:

• explanation - the patient is explained his problems, the content of the recommended treatment plan;
• coordination - the plan being implemented, the selected technologies, materials, cost, start and completion dates are agreed;
• clarification - explains the circumstances for determining the guarantees and the conditions for their compliance by the clinic, the content of informed voluntary consent (or several consents if there are parallel and consecutive interventions), the conditions for maintaining the effect of the treatment and actions in case of discomfort (best in writing after completion of treatment).

It would seem that there is nothing unexpected or difficult in the requirements for HPF for dentists, however, patient surveys show that not every doctor succeeds in implementing it in full, properly and in all cases. So, according to more than three thousand patients interviewed by us by phone after treatment at the Medi company, a detailed explanation of the problem takes place in the range of 52 to 97%, an explanation in case of complications - in the range of 28-99%, guarantees - 25- 91%. It should be noted that the shortcomings of HPS are different, for one reason or another, it does not reach the proper volume and quality, and, as our experience shows, it is difficult to correct even as a result of special trainings. Thus, one should not overestimate oneself in terms of OPO.

A typical mistake of dentists is that they get carried away with monologues, lecture the patient, and oversaturate information with special terms. In this form, they compensate for the lack of dialogue communication skills and the ability to persuade, taking their light literature for the art of professional communication.

Method 7

notice individual characteristics patient and build interaction with them in such a way as to achieve the best mutual understanding.

This position is well known to doctors and has become a truism. But this does not mean that it is at least satisfactorily performed at all stages of interaction with patients, as evidenced by our observations and special studies. First, doctors lack the knowledge and skills needed to quickly diagnose a patient's personality. Secondly, no one has ever taught them how to interact with patients of one type or another - communicative and non-communicative, extroverts and introverts, rational and emotional, labile and rigid, visual and auditory, suggestible and unsuggestible, showing their psychological characteristics within the normal range. and outside it, etc. Thirdly, most doctors do not follow the rules of reflection and therefore not only make elementary mistakes in interaction with the patient specific type, but also provokes conflicts and rejection of his personality and work style by his behavior.

At the first stage of self-learning and self-control, one must at least correctly set psychological tasks for oneself:

• to induce, or perhaps force oneself to respect the subjective reality of the patient, i.e. to his actual needs: on the one hand, as a living being, the desire for security, physical and psychological comfort, on the other hand, as a self-respecting person who defends his rights and interests, wants to be heard and seen, wants to prove himself "here and now";
• try at least in general terms to recognize the personality traits of the patient who came to the appointment that are most significant for choosing a relationship strategy - has a negative dental experience, is anxious, needs support, is easily vulnerable, suspicious, inattentive, weak-willed, insincere, emotionally labile, conflict, depends on an outside opinion, has problematic features ;
• “join” the individuality of the patient if he has variants of the norm of individual-typical properties;
• use adequate measures to neutralize tensions and conflicts if the patient has problematic personality traits.

Method 8

Do everything you can to ensure that the patient is convinced that the cost of your treatment is justified.

This provision concerns many aspects of the behavior of a doctor and an assistant - their ability to communicate, professional skills, attitudes towards their duties and even their personal philosophy, the principles that guide them in life. The patient's belief in the justification of the cost of treatment largely depends on the completeness and thoroughness of the RA. If the patient positively evaluates the verbal part of the professional's activity, this strengthens his conclusion about the justification of the cost, because it is clear what and how the doctor tries to explain, explain, and agree. It is equally important to show the patient in an accessible form the quality of the planned, and even better - the work performed. After all, many criteria and indicators of quality in dentistry are not directly visible and intangible. It is clear to you and me, dear colleagues, that highly professional treatment using latest materials, tools and technology can not be cheap. We are also aware that the cost depends on the level of service. However, these simple market dependencies require proof and illustrations for patients who are accustomed to reasoning by analogy with a state clinic or in a simplified way: “What's so difficult about putting a filling or removing a tooth? This is done in any dental clinic. And the service? Do they pay for it?"

The naive mindset of the patient (at least at this stage of paid dentistry) can devalue almost all your achievements in the field of service culture, treatment safety, individual approach, technological innovations and quality of treatment, measured by indicators unknown to many. For example, such indicators as the complete restoration of the anatomical shape and chewing function of the teeth, the passage of a complex canal, high refraction and light transmission in metal-free ceramics, etc. Much of what is a matter of professional pride for a doctor is a secret for an ordinary customer seven seals. But who wants to pay for an unknown and invisible quality? Even the most complex in terms of execution technology, highly aesthetic orthopedic construction, which, in fact, is the creation of a skilled craftsman, usually does not cause any special impressions in a person who is inexperienced in modern dentistry or is obsessed with the fact that he will certainly be “untwisted”.

That is why the doctor is entrusted with the task, as it were, in passing, unobtrusively and at the same time with verified strokes, to expose the quality of the work performed to the patient, sometimes simultaneously convincing, and sometimes enlightening him. Frankly, the task is not an easy one, requiring good communication skills from a specialist, the ability to appeal to reason and feelings, use arguments, and notice the individual characteristics of patients. For example, according to a telephone survey, the indicator "cost is justified" for doctors ranges from 14 to 60%. This means that some doctors are better, while others are worse at the designated commercial and psychological task. However, they are in the same technological conditions, work at identical rates and achieve enough High Quality, which is an indispensable condition for the employees of our company.

Method 9

Work with an assistant in such a way that the patient notices and positively evaluates your tandem.

Usually, the advantages of the “4 hands” treatment method come down to overcoming technological difficulties, convenience for the doctor and the quality of various manipulations. But it would be unfair and reckless to ignore the assistant as a participant in the interaction with the patient and not entrust him with some additional roles related to the sale of services. The goal is to make the assistant a significant figure in gaining the patient's trust. There are many possibilities for this. When meeting the patient in the lobby and escorting to the exit, the assistant can demonstrate a kind manner. In the process of treatment, she must anticipate physical and psychological discomfort, be interested in the patient's condition. By agreement with the doctor, she can give some explanations, and in appropriate cases, maintain a dialogue with the patient on various topics, for example, about the achievements of the clinic, caring for the teeth, maintaining the effect of treatment, etc. And, of course, the assistant and the doctor should equally be interested in demonstrating to the patient the coherence and refinement of actions, mutual understanding “without words”, business spirit. In this case, the patient feels a positive energy impact from the medical staff. As our studies show, patients usually notice the coherence or lack of coherence of the doctor-assistant pair.

In order to put into practice this method of attracting and retaining a patient, some of the doctors may need to reconsider their views on functional responsibilities assistant. Do it. According to the traditional concept of nursing, the assistant performed auxiliary functions that ensured the work of the doctor, behaved detachedly in relations with the patient and did not have the right to take initiative.

In terms of selling services, an assistant is a professional partner of a doctor, together with the doctor, carries out a subjective type of relationship in communicating with the patient, shows activity, independence, creativity (of course, within the framework of his duties and by agreement with the doctor).

Method 10

Carry out all interaction with the patient under the motto "Be our regular patient."

This motto should unite and direct the efforts of the entire team of the clinic, the company towards the achievement of a single goal. By and large, each patient appointment is a performance (in good sense words), which is played out with the participation of medical and service personnel in the name of gaining the trust of the patient and motivating his choice in favor of your medical institution. In a play called "A Visit to the Dentist" there should be commercial and psychological dramaturgy, the accents should be correctly placed, and the roles should be masterfully played. The doctor is the director and main performer of the action.

It determines the moral context of the reception, its information content, the energy of the dialogues. The mindset and output of an assistant, who can work to one degree or another clearly, responsibly, gracefully, and proactively, depend on him. The doctor plans and embodies in his actions the main goal of the patient's appeal - to be a one-time visitor or a regular recipient of medical care and a consumer of services.

Under what motto do you, dear colleagues, carry out your daily activities? Try to sincerely answer the question: do you and your assistant always do everything to make the patient prefer to be treated by you, and not by your competitor?

As you can see, the ways to attract and retain patients are diverse. Their implementation requires thorough training of doctors and assistants in the field of psychology. It is not as costly as the acquisition and implementation of new technologies, but laborious and requires patience. But how easy it is to disappoint the patient, to cause criticism and discontent, to provoke him into a conflict. There are many ways to do this, some of which are discussed below.

Literature

1. Boyko V.V. Volume I Clinic - turnkey, 1008 pages, St. Petersburg, 2009.
2. Boyko V.V. Psychology and management in dentistry. Volume II. Staff - team, 450 pages, St. Petersburg, 2013.
3. Boyko V.V. Psychology and management in dentistry. Volume III. doctor and patient, 580 pages, St. Petersburg, 2013.
4. Boyko V.V. Psychology and management in dentistry. Volume VI. Doctor, child, parent, 512 pages, St. Petersburg, 2013.
5. Boyko V.V. Psychology and management in dentistry. Volume VII. Service - for children, 200 pages, St. Petersburg, 2012.

Reading time: 16 minutes

We will send the material to you:

From this article you will learn:

• What are the features of attracting clients to the medical center
• How 4Rs affect the attraction of patients to the medical center
• Do discounts and phone calls help in attracting customers?
• What are the real ways to attract customers
• What new ways to attract to adopt
• Word of mouth among the clients of the medical center to attract new ones
• What profit to expect from attracting clients to the medical center

Private medical center - popular idea for business. Entrepreneurs are attracted to this market by the ease of entry and quick payback. But in the future, the owner of the institution will have to solve many complex issues related to the selection of personnel and ensuring the quality of services. Also, one of the most important tasks will be to attract customers to the medical center.

Features of attracting clients to the medical center

The marketing of the medical center is based on its concept. There are four main types medical institutions: a polyclinic, a hospital, a rehabilitation medical institution (for example, sanatoriums) and a highly specialized medical institution (antenatal clinic, dental clinic, laboratory).

These concepts existed back in the days of the Soviet Union, and modern patients also intuitively understand their specifics.

However, now not all medical institutions correspond to one of the traditional types. Since the owners of private clinics are focused on making a profit, they often combine several of the most profitable areas in their business.

For example, everywhere you can find establishments where dentists of various profiles, as well as gynecologists and urologists, are accepted. It is obvious that these areas themselves are poorly combined with each other, and each of them has its own methods of promotion. In this regard, attracting clients to a medical center of this type will be difficult and very costly.

For a medical institution, as for any other business, competent marketing is very important. However, one advertising in this area will not go far. For patients, quality medical care will always come first.

And even the most skilled marketers will not be able to ensure the success of the clinic if the doctors working in it are not professional or cannot find an approach to clients. The task of marketing is to attract people, but their retention is possible only thanks to the quality of services.

For example, in the early 2000s, Masterdent, a network of dental clinics known throughout the country, organized a large-scale advertising campaign, thanks to which many potential customers remembered her phone number. Then the need for promotion decreased, and it became much less, but the business continued to grow.

What can be said about the specifics of attracting clients to medical institutions? There are three features:

1. The appeal of clients to the clinic is forced.

Even the most wonderful institution will not interest a person if he does not have health problems.

1. Demand is inelastic.

Market Demand medical services does not change when the price fluctuates by 10–15%, both up and down.

1. Demand for the services of medical centers is primary and secondary.

The need for primary demand services is understood by the client himself. We are talking about contacting a specialist in connection with some complaints, including for emergency help. For example, when a person comes to an ophthalmologist because of visual impairment, to an ENT specialist because of a constant runny nose, or to a dentist-therapist because of a toothache.

Secondary demand is different in that in this case the patient does not realize the need for therapeutic measures until they are prescribed by a doctor. Accordingly, such services are provided as planned, and not urgently. This may be a stay in a hospital, testing, orthodontist services in dentistry.

These features of customer demand must be taken into account when building a marketing strategy. Further, when explaining various phenomena, we will still refer to the nuances mentioned above.

How 4Rs affect customer attraction to the medical center

• Place (place).

There is a belief that if an institution is in plain sight, on a busy street, it has a much better chance of success. As for medical centers, this rule only partially works here.

Of course, if the entrepreneur managed to find a profitable place, then this factor can be used to attract customers, while saving on other types of advertising. However, there are many examples where a clinic located on the outskirts of the city or in courtyards is working and prospering.

This is understandable if the institution is famous for its good doctors: in an effort to get to a trusted specialist, the patient does not think about his whereabouts. At the same time, the category of place can be considered from the other side, meaning the territory where the demand for certain services is actualized. And here the "presence" of the clinic in right place would be a big plus.

Suppose a person comes to an otolaryngologist, and he diagnoses him with sinusitis. The cause of this disease may be periodontitis, and this can be found out by the dentist. Therefore, it is important which dentistry the ENT will advise his patient.

Findings: a favorable location may help attract clients to the medical center, but does not guarantee success. Even if many people pass by the clinic every day, they will not come there just like that. Accordingly, the owners of institutions should direct their efforts to be recommended in places where problems are actualized.

• Price (price).

One of the well-known specialists in the promotion of medical organizations said: “ main feature medicine as a service sector is that the client does not understand what he is paying for. These words accurately reflect the specifics of the interaction of clinics with the audience, which lies in the inability to determine the fairness of the price-quality ratio.

Most of the clients of medical centers are not doctors and cannot confidently say how well care is provided. In this regard, they also cannot assess whether the prices set in the institution correspond to the quality of services.

Several conclusions can be drawn from this:

1. Clinics should not use a dumping strategy to attract patients. Clients will not agree to medical intervention, even free of charge, if they are not sure of the result.
2. Prices that are much higher than the average market level will have a negative impact on attracting people. The medical center simply cannot explain how its approach to treatment is fundamentally different from its competitors and why it is worth paying more. High prices can only take place with the right interaction with VIP patients.
3. It is best to adopt a pricing strategy with a focus on the average value in the market. In a situation where the cost of your services is no more and no less than others, customers will not ask questions.

Conclusion: the price of services in a medical center is an important factor, but it will not work to gain an advantage over competitors with its help.

• Product (product).

It seems that the main offer of the medical center is curative services. But the demand for them is not born just like that: it happens only in a certain situation with indications. Therefore, we can say that clinics do not sell individual services, but a treatment plan - a set of measures necessary for a particular disease.

The difficulty is that you can only make a plan during the examination of the patient by a specialist, and we are trying to figure out how to attract clients to the medical center. In this regard, the idea was born to sell standardized treatment plans, which is now done by many medical institutions.

We are talking about annual service programs like voluntary health insurance, comprehensive examination programs, etc. But even here everything is not so simple: for sale, it is necessary to find points of actualization of demand.

In fact, a large number of thriving clinics do not create and sell such products. The absence of such practice in the institution does not mean its insolvency.

Conclusion: It is not necessary for a medical center to have unified treatment or examination programs, but this can be an additional way to attract clients.

• Promotion (promotion).

It is this factor for medical institutions that is the key to attracting an audience. In promotion, there are many nuances that should be taken into account: this is the name of the clinic, and advertising, and the search for places to update demand, and events to create an image.

All this together provides an influx of customers and profit. Neither the location of the center, nor the pricing policy, nor the list of products can affect the success of the institution as well as promotion.

How advertising works in attracting customers to the medical center

Most clinic managers rely on effective advertising. It is impossible to argue with the fact that advertising is simply necessary to attract customers to a medical center. Moreover, it can be more or less intense at different stages of development. And it is very important to choose relevant methods and methods of promotion.

Even at the beginning of the last century, dentists offered their services in the capital's newspapers. There you could meet such a slogan: "We will cure your teeth qualitatively and inexpensively." And it is surprising that after so many years, many private clinics still use the same techniques, although the advertising industry is actively developing.

At the same time, entrepreneurs expect a quick and tangible effect from marketing. Sometimes, already at the beginning of the advertising campaign, the director of the medical center regularly asks the administrators about the influx of new customers.

Or an attempt is made to evaluate the effectiveness of promotion channels using a survey. To do this, at the reception, each visitor is asked the question: “How did you hear about our clinic?”.

Then the data obtained is analyzed, and it turns out that attracting patients with the help of a banner is more effective than advertising on the radio, and more people learned about the institution from the newspaper than from the TV report, etc.

Based on these findings, adjustments are made to the advertising campaign. Can this approach be called correct? Does such a survey really help to adequately assess the effectiveness of the advertising media used? Let's reason:

• Firstly, if a person saw an advertisement for a clinic, this does not mean that he will immediately call there. As already mentioned, customers seek medical services only when necessary, and if it is not there, marketing will not change this.
• Secondly, on present stage advertising is not unconditionally trusted. Suppose a person needed medical attention, and he knows for sure that necessary services provided by a particular clinic. Before going there, he will definitely read the reviews and ask his friends if they visited this center. If a person in recent times did not see the relevant advertisement, he will not look for it, but also turn to friends. Not surprisingly, about 50% of patients say they came to the facility on a recommendation.
• Thirdly, in most cases, several methods are used to attract clients to the medical center at the same time. And it is likely that the same person saw or heard about him from different sources. At the same time, in questionnaire, most likely, only one answer will be indicated.

If the data is collected by the administrator, he may forget to ask this question or make a mistake when filling it out. In general, it is not necessary to speak about the complete reliability of the information obtained during the survey.

In fact, there is not much need to evaluate this information for two reasons:

What medical center advertising is most effective in attracting customers

Obviously, the best way to attract customers is advertising, which is not similar to the promotion of similar institutions. You can achieve originality with the help of the following components:

Name of the medical center

First you need to correctly name your institution. Already at this stage, many clinic owners make a serious mistake by choosing an option that is similar to many existing ones.

So, most dentistry has such elements as “dent”, “stoma” and “tooth” in the name. Naturally, they are not remembered the first time.

At the same time, unusual signs, although they do not contain a hint of the field of activity (“Green Apple”, “White Rhino”, “Made by Hands”), help the clinic to stand out from the others. Due to this, attracting customers to the medical center is faster and easier.

Competitive advantages of the institution

Perhaps, to formulate the advantages of a particular clinic is one of the most difficult tasks.

In the advertising of each medical institution, you can hear the phrases: “We employ highly qualified specialists”, “The laboratory has high-precision equipment”, “Quality treatment at an affordable price”, etc. In such a situation, non-standard ideas are needed to attract the attention of the audience.

The solution to this problem was found by the leaders of the George Medical Center, which opened in 2007 in Ussuriysk. The clinic really had modern medical equipment, reasonable prices and professional doctors. But, as we have already understood, talking about this in advertising is not very effective.

The management relied on a unique product for that time - a certificate, the purchase of which guarantees free medical service during a year.

To attract clients to the medical center, only two banners were used, placed in places with high traffic, and five posters in shopping malls. The slogan on them accurately and briefly described the essence of the unique offer: "You pay once - you get treated for a year."

The audience was really interested in this advertisement, and the administrators at the clinic simply did not have time to answer the calls. As a result, several hundred annual service contracts were concluded.

Then, when interest in the product dwindled, it was taken off the market. However, an advertising campaign associated with an unusual service did its job: all residents of the city knew about the George institution. If nearby firms needed to explain their location, they used it as a guide.

In the same year, a clinic of the Central Committee (price-quality) appeared in Moscow. The creators of this promising project put a lot of effort into the implementation of an advertising campaign based on visual images. They were built on a double interpretation of the name: a good price-quality ratio and a reference to the fundamental concept of the "Central Committee (CPSU)".

The attraction of clients to the medical center was undoubtedly facilitated by the link to a significant period in history for many, when medicine in the country was at the highest level. Recognition of the clinic grew very quickly. Unfortunately, the project was closed for financial reasons, but the originality of its promotion strategy is really amazing.

Advertising of individual services of the medical center

Many clinics in their advertising focus on one of the services provided. Is this approach effective in attracting customers? To answer this question, let us recall the existence of medical services of primary and secondary demand.

If we are talking about, for example, inpatient treatment, it makes no sense to advertise it separately, because a person cannot diagnose himself and come to an institution to purchase this service with confidence. Treatment in a hospital is a doctor's recommendation, which can only be received at an appointment.

Dental clinics often advertise dental implants lately. Thanks to the materials placed in the media, the trust and interest of the audience in this service increases. As a result, the likelihood increases that when contacting an institution, the patient will agree to this type of care on the advice of a doctor, or even ask about this possibility himself.

Of course, in such advertising there is not only positive, but also negative side: instead of attracting customers to a particular clinic, there is a formation of demand for a service that is provided, among other things, by competing firms. Accordingly, advertising for specific treatments is appropriate only when they are unique to the market.

Attracting customers to the medical center through discounts

During a certain period of marketing development, discounts were the main tool for attracting customers. Now such information is less often heard in advertising, but there are still quite a lot of such messages. And clinic owners want to know the answer to the question of whether it is possible to increase the flow of patients with the help of discounts.

It is worth noting that consumers rarely react emotionally to a discount for several reasons:

• an abundance of such proposals;
• the inability to understand what the price of the product is made up of (this is especially true for the treatment plan, because it is developed only when communicating with the doctor).

There is one illustrative example illustrating that it is inefficient to use the discount as a tool for promoting medical services. All this took place in one medical center of a popular chain, where a whole staff of experienced marketers is engaged in attracting customers. One of the patients came to the clinic at the appointed time to do an ultrasound of the kidneys. The cost of this service was 500 rubles, but the administrator gave the client change - 100 rubles. The visitor was surprised and heard the explanation that his reception fell on " Happy hours when all services are 20% off. And the same thing happened with all the patients who came to the clinic at that time.

When planning such a seemingly useful action, several mistakes were made:

• Firstly, most of the center's clients learned about the price reduction only at the time of payment for the service.
• Secondly, the reaction to this was almost always neutral: “Well, I see.”
• Thirdly, the workload of the clinic was such that in-demand services (for example, ultrasound) were provided throughout the day, and not only during Happy Hours.

The moral is quite simple: the institution lost 20% of all revenue in certain hours, while attracting customers did not occur. The action did not cause delight among patients and did not seriously affect the image of the organization.

It is worth saying a few words about whether it is possible to attract clients to the medical center with the help of discount coupons. In many areas of business, supply greatly exceeds demand, so companies are trying their best to sell their services, even if at a big discount. As for entertainment-related services (dinner at a cafe, going to the cinema, etc.), coupons are very popular here. If we talk about medicine, there are several reasons why this method marketing in this area is practically not used:

• Firstly, only those services that are understandable to patients and do not require a doctor's prescription (professional teeth cleaning, preventive examination, STD testing, etc.) can be promoted in this way.
• Secondly, according to statistics in the field of medicine, demand is lower than in other industries.
• Thirdly, experience shows that a person who has received this or that service with a coupon almost never becomes a regular client of the clinic.

We can say that the group of consumers who are used to receiving all possible services at a reduced price is showing the greatest interest in such promotions. Obviously, it is not very useful for an institution to attract patients who are treated only with coupons.

Attracting clients to the medical center by phone

On the Internet, you can often find requests related to attracting clients to the medical center by calling. At the same time, many heads of medical institutions do not understand the essence of this service.

Companies offer to call all residents of the city using the phone book in exchange for a percentage of the check amount. Most of these requests come from entrepreneurs from Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In fact, such calls are completely useless, and not a single self-respecting advertising agency does not use this method of attracting customers.

Let's say the case takes place in Moscow, where 15 million people live. Without any calculations, it is obvious: to call such a number of people, a huge amount of resources will be required. But still, let's calculate how much money will need to be invested in order to attract at least 10 patients using this method.

Cold calling conversion rates range from 1% to 3%. This means that in order to attract 10 patients to the medical center, it will be necessary to make from 300 to 500 calls. If a competent telemarketing manager works in a company, the duration of one call does not exceed two minutes. At the same time, each minute of a telephone conversation will cost the company two rubles.

The cost of an hour of the company's work is 1,400 rubles. The number of calls during this hour, with the right approach, does not exceed 30 (the manager in the eyes of clients is an employee of the clinic, and he must leave a positive impression of himself).

If a specialist works eight hours a day with a lunch break, he will make 210 calls. Given the percentage of conversion, this will lead to the clinic from two to four patients. Marketing firm you will have to spend 11,620 rubles.

People who are interested in the manager's offer will sign up for an initial consultation. The profit from them will be from 2,000 to 10,000 rubles. The clinic will have to give 10% of this amount (that is, 200–1,000 rubles) to the call center. The institution will not transfer a percentage of further profits, even if the client becomes a permanent one.

Now you understand why cold calling as a method of attracting visitors to a medical institution is practically not used. Not only is this method ineffective, but calls to advertise products without the permission of a person are prohibited by law.

And finally, many people are simply irritated by such conversations. Instead of getting customers interested in your services, you are more likely to ruin your image. Imagine how a person feels when a representative of an unfamiliar clinic suddenly calls him and invites him to an appointment with a doctor.

New and well-tested old ways to attract patients to the medical center

Post directly to social media

Booking over the Internet is not only a highly demanded opportunity in the salon business, but also a plus for medical institutions. There are a number of services for which this function will be most relevant, and it is also often used by regular customers of the center.

The most convenient option is when the registration form can be opened through the clinic page in social network. It is not difficult to do this, the main thing is to correctly set up the online recording itself, and then install a special application.

The ability to enroll online is important for attracting customers because it allows you to choose comfortable watch reception, and you can use it at any time and from any device.

Contact points

How to attract clients to the medical center? To do this, it is desirable to be different from other similar institutions. Insignificant details will work in your favor, which together provide a comfortable interaction between the patient and the clinic. These points of contact include:

• Outdoor advertising: signs, banners, screens. If the office is located in a business center, make signs so that your visitors do not get lost. There are cases when it is impossible to advertise directly on the building: then interchangeable signs on the windows will come to your aid.
• Sign at the entrance to the medical center, where its name and operating time are indicated.
• Entrance to the premises, decorated with visual and sound accompaniment.
• Hall where there should be a pleasant relaxing atmosphere. With a medical smell that can cause negative sensations, the aromatization system will help to cope. Design the hall so that customers do not experience unnecessary stress while in it.

• Administration/Reception. To decorate this zone, it is good to use various interior details that are memorable and pleasing to the eye. There might be an aquarium or a beautiful sculpture, a vase with colorful shoe covers, etc. Ideas that reduce stress help to attract customers. For example, if you put a table with bubble wrap in front of the dentist's office, which you can burst. In the waiting area there should be sofas with soft pillows, anti-stress pillows are also suitable.
• The doctor's office should be equipped with a hanger or a hook for clothes and a shelf for a bag. Also ensure good soundproofing.

graffiti on the wall

Nowadays, original ways to attract customers are especially in demand. For example, advertising a clinic using graffiti has the following advantages:

• attracts attention and is well remembered;
• non-standard communication channel;
• unexpected location;
• wide opportunities for creativity;
• positive character.

Today, graffiti is a popular art form that can be successfully used in advertising. High-quality and interesting drawings are often photographed, so you can evaluate the effectiveness of hashtags. When the activity of publications falls, the graffiti and the tag can be changed.

It is impossible to name a specific "lifetime" of graffiti: it is determined situationally depending on the interest of the audience. It is necessary to place drawings in the marketing area of ​​the medical center, taking into account the patency of the streets. In the best scenario, the effect will be the same as if you hung a full-fledged billboard.

The cost of such images is about 1,000 rubles per sq.m. Additional difficulties may arise with obtaining permission to post graffiti. If you have chosen a residential building as your "canvas", you will need to general meeting tenants to obtain their consent.

Also, the proposed image must be seen and approved by the district administration. Indicate if the drawing has a social character - this will be a plus. If graffiti is supposed to include the names of services and their cost, it will be classified as advertising, and in addition to approval, you will need to obtain special permission.

Geolocation

The location service can determine where any phone is located. The most widely used service is Foursquare, or 4sq. Of course, the number of users here is less than in popular social networks, but they are distinguished by their activity.

This site can be used to attract customers to the medical center. To do this, you need to create a point on the map corresponding to the location of the clinic, and indicate all possible contacts: phone, website, Twitter, etc.

Then you will need to get the right to manage the point. This is done free of charge for three weeks, but if you don't want to wait, you can get it right away for one dollar.

When the right is confirmed, you will be able to use all the features of the service to attract patients: visual highlighting of companies with special offers and news, announcements of events, partnership programs etc. Also in 4sq you can, for example, make lists with recommendations for clients (for example, five effective procedures for losing weight).

Geolocation networks can perfectly complement the existing strategy for promoting a medical center.

Working with beauty bloggers and trendsetters

Collaboration with popular bloggers is a modern and highly effective way to attract clients to the clinic. Their publications about the experience of visiting the institution increase its credibility and form a positive image. However, it is important to responsibly approach the choice of a suitable blogger (for this, you can study toprussianbloggers.ru).

Every social network has pages with large quantity subscribers who place ads for a certain price. Discuss the terms of cooperation with the blogger in detail: how much money you pay and what publications you receive, what advantages of your clinic should be emphasized.

Sometimes it becomes possible to get advertising for free: if a person really visits your medical center, and the quality of services and care completely satisfies him. In such a situation, it is important to ensure that there is no negativity in the interaction.

Non-commercial collaboration with media personalities can be an exchange: a person receives a favor, and then talks about his impressions to subscribers.

If we are talking about inexpensive manipulations (cosmetic procedures, piercing, massage), they are provided free of charge. Also, a blogger can sign up for an expensive service (for example, plastic surgery). In this case, you can offer him big discount for feedback.

And yet, service remains the most important criterion in attracting customers to the medical center. It can be assessed using several questions:

1. Is it possible to make an appointment with a specialist remotely? Do you see patients on a first come, first served basis or at prearranged times? Do clients always get to the doctor exactly at the time for which they are booked, or do they often have to wait?
2. Does your clinic have a quota for medical policy holders? Is there a system for informing patients about it, or do special conditions work only for those who ask about it themselves? What is the policy of the medical center in this matter?
3. Do employees themselves violate the appointment schedule for personal reasons? Timeliness is very important to attract clients, as many of them take time off from work for a specific time to get to the doctor.
4. Does the administrator of the medical center have the appropriate education? Can he recommend the right specialist to the patient, correctly interpret the referral, ask the necessary questions?
5. Are you introducing extended business hours to ensure visitors can get service at a time that suits them?
6. Does the clinic set up calling clients with a reminder of an appointment? Do administrators tell you what documents to take with you and how to prepare for the procedures?
7. When drawing blood from a vein, are you limited to cotton wool or do you use a medical tape that ensures there is no discomfort?
8. Do employees monitor the replenishment of consumables (paper, soap, towels) in the restrooms? Are the rooms equipped with hooks for bags and clothes?

Attracting clients to the medical center is possible only with careful attention to them. If the clinic takes into account all the little things related to the convenience of patients, this always contributes to the retention of visitors and the emergence of new ones.

24 tips on how to start word of mouth among medical center clients

What do you need to do to get your clients to recommend you? Follow the tips below.

1. Be polite and friendly to everyone:

• to customers and to those who come with them;
• to clinic staff
• to sellers;
• to technical staff etc.

Remember what people say when they recommend an organization? "Refer to them, they are all very kind and pleasant."

2. Make sure that at the entrance to the clinic there are always:

• shoe covers;
• cane;
• wheelchair, etc.

3. If the medical center is located in a large building, a special employee is needed to meet clients and accompany them to the reception.

4. Sometimes it's worth making phone calls to attract patients who have already visited your clinic. During a call, the administrator must:

• learn about the health status of the client;
• remind about your institution;
• offer to be tested.

After that, about 10% of the respondents will come to you in a week, and within two months another 20% will catch up.

5. Ensure your presence in places where your target audience spends time:

• Beauty Salons;
• business centers;
• pharmacies;
• medical equipment stores;
• sports centers, nursing homes or kindergartens.

Lay out your brochures in these places, after agreeing this with the management.

You can also leave a few glossy magazines in the waiting area, and with them your promotional materials.

6. Offer regular customers the opportunity to call a doctor at home.

7. Attracting visitors at an unpopular time (evenings on weekends), perhaps with the help of serious discounts.

8. Arrange for one of your specialists to be interviewed by a local TV or radio station. Let an experienced doctor of your clinic conduct a live consultation or talk about an urgent medical problem.

9. A good marketing ploy to attract patients would be to visit the leaders:

• private educational institution;
• paid university or college.

To organize a preventive examination of students at the dentist or the passage of a medical commission.

10. Become an active participant in discussions on forums and medical websites: follow the reviews, give users useful advice.

11. It is also worth concluding an agreement with the bank in order to provide customers with the opportunity to:

• carry out complex operations;
• receive expensive services;
• undergo serious examinations in installments.

12. Suggest large organizations your city to hold regular medical examinations employees on special terms. Design a system for interacting with corporate clients to ensure that employees seek treatment from you.

13. Create an opportunity in the clinic to treat serious diseases that require the use of modern techniques or complex surgical intervention. In order to attract patients, ensure that information about your endeavors is spread.

14. Make a website that would become your business card. Carefully monitor the quality of the content: it should be only unique and interesting materials on medical topics. Collaborate with other media and online resources to promote the site.

15. Attracting clients to the medical center is possible with the help of blogs and social networks.

An example of a blog of our client - the medical center for beauty and health Veronica Herba

Cover topics relevant to your target audience in your posts. Don't forget to fix feedback or the possibility of online consultations.

16. Initiate medical discussions where you are. Tell us about unusual situations that you have encountered in your work. Try to create the impression of an experienced specialist.

17. Inform potential clients about the possibility of vaccination. Encourage regular patients to have seasonal vaccinations.

18. Implement on the site the possibility of obtaining a doctor's consultation.

Let regular visitors know about this feature using an email newsletter. Set a time limit for the consultation.

19. Come up with a system where staff from other agencies can benefit from referring clients to your clinic. This will happen much more often if you motivate doctors from third-party centers to cooperate with you.

20. After the reception, ask the visitors about their impressions. You will be able to detect problems in time, as well as receive positive feedback.

21. Bedside patients should be visited at least twice a day.

22. Track the mood of employees. You need to know:

• Are employees satisfied with working conditions?
• whether patients are satisfied with the attitude of specialists;
• if there are any problems, how could they be fixed.

23. In the design of the clinic, use details related to the theme of a healthy lifestyle and disease prevention. For example, in the waiting area there should be no fashion magazines or music broadcasts on the screen (it is better that there is no music at all).

Instead, lay out medical magazines on the tables and have your center's health promotion or image videos on the screen. Decorate the walls with medical posters, hang schedules for preventive examinations, etc. So your room will look not like an ordinary office, but like a serious medical institution.

However, in an effort to create an appropriate design, do not forget that patients in the clinic should be cozy and comfortable. In attracting clients to the medical center of his appearance plays an important role: it can create both a positive and a negative impression on visitors.

24. Greet guests with a smile. This sets a positive tone for communication from the very beginning.

Profit from attracting clients to the medical center

Concluding the story about how to attract customers to the medical center, it is worth noting how marketing activities can affect the organization's profits. We know that about half of all patients choose a clinic based on a recommendation. Accordingly, half of the institution's income depends on its reputation in the market.

However, during the initial visit, the client usually receives only about 20% necessary assistance. Whether he will visit the clinic further depends on many factors, including the professionalism of the staff, the level of service, pricing policy, the list of services and much more.

This means that marketing provides from 5 to 10% of the revenue of a medical institution. Naturally, active promotion is necessary to attract customers when the business is just starting to develop. Further, marketing efforts can be reduced, but the quality of service delivery must always be maintained at a high level.

Array ( => 27 [~ID] => 27 => 11/19/2019 20:53:56 [~TIMESTAMP_X] => 11/19/2019 20:53:56 => 1 [~MODIFIED_BY] => 1 => 11/19. 2019 20:53:56 [~DATE_CREATE] => 11/19/2019 20:53:56 => 1 [~CREATED_BY] => 1 => 6 [~IBLOCK_ID] => 6 => [~IBLOCK_SECTION_ID] => => Y [~ACTIVE] => Y => Y [~GLOBAL_ACTIVE] => Y => 500 [~SORT] => 500 => Articles by Maria Plechikova [~NAME] => Articles by Maria Plechikova => 12516 [~PICTURE] = > 12516 => 11 [~LEFT_MARGIN] => 11 => 12 [~RIGHT_MARGIN] => 12 => 1 [~DEPTH_LEVEL] => 1 => Maria Plechikova [~DESCRIPTION] => Maria Plechikova => text [~DESCRIPTION_TYPE ] => text => Articles by Maria Plechikovoy Maria Plechikovoy [~SEARCHABLE_CONTENT] => Articles by Maria Plechikovoy Maria Plechikovoy => stati-marii-plechikovoy [~CODE] => stati-marii-plechikovoy => [~XML_ID] => => [~TMP_ID] => => [~DETAIL_PICTURE] => => [~SOCNET_GROUP_ID] => => /blog/index.php?ID=6 [~LIST_PAGE_URL] => /blog/index.php?ID=6 => /blog/list.php?SECTION_ID=27 [~S ECTION_PAGE_URL] => /blog/list.php?SECTION_ID=27 => blog [~IBLOCK_TYPE_ID] => blog => blog [~IBLOCK_CODE] => blog => [~IBLOCK_EXTERNAL_ID] => => [~EXTERNAL_ID] => )

SHAREROV

The other day a client came to me who has his own dental clinic. He had no idea how to attract customers, scale the business and make big profits. Increasing the profits of dentistry is easy using a few tricks from this article. Read on.

Today I will tell you about the difficulties faced by “young” dentist entrepreneurs, as well as those who have been in this business for a long time, but for some reason are still stuck in a dead center.

In this article, for example private dentistry we will consider the following questions:

• Why is it hard to start a business?
• 5 principles that will sink your business.
• How to increase the flow of customers by 30%?
• Businessman or self-employed, who are you?
• What will help you create a “delicious” USP?
• Increase the profits of dentistry. Where to begin?

Start over.

The collapse of the hopes of a novice businessman

What does a novice entrepreneur expect when he opens his own business, in our example, his dentistry.

The first, of course, is freedom. How long can you work for your "uncle" when you have tremendous experience, professionalism and little capital. You can fulfill your dream and make a profit ...

Dream. Many aspire to it. Each to their own, based on their experience. And a professional in his field, takes and leaves a hired job, opens his own business and begins to do what he used to do, only for himself.

The problem is that he is often not ready for this, simply because there are no such skills. Yes, he is a professional, an excellent dentist, but not a businessman.

And those mistakes that he begins to make inevitably lead to problems in his business.

Let's take a look at some of the mistakes my client made in his field. I note that business processes are in many ways similar and differ only in the specifics of the field of activity, so not only dentists should be aware of these errors.

5 principles of "grandfather" marketing for dentistry or why you will not have 300 thousand customers)

What are the principles that many self-employed businessmen, as well as novice entrepreneurs, still work on, what mistakes they encounter and what this leads to, we will consider later in the article.

1. If you want it to be good, do it yourself.

Undoubtedly, an entrepreneur must understand many aspects of his business. However, doing everything on your own takes an enormous amount of time and effort to learn and implement all those technologies, or at least them. a small part that are currently on the market.

“Do it yourself” is the principle of owning your own work. It is inherent in dentists, lawyers, lawyers, accountants and other professions involved in private practice.

This is what distinguishes a business from self-employment. This is the principle that does not allow these people to become the owner of a business and jump above their heads.

It is clear that there are 24 hours in a day. During this time, it is impossible for one person to serve an infinite number of patients, and even more so to manage, develop and scale his business.

Classics of the genre, Robert Kiyosaki, Quadrant cash flow". Businessmen value their time, they know that it cannot be returned. Therefore, they buy the time of others and then their day becomes no longer 24 hours. With the wrong hands, they can do much more.

The ability to delegate is one of the key skills that distinguishes a businessman from a self-employed worker. The owner of his business is not limited to one clinic, he is building a network of clinics.

2. Advertising is the engine of trade.

It is IMPORTANT for any entrepreneur, including the owner of a dental clinic, to understand that advertising does NOT increase your sales! As strange as it may sound, it is a fact.

Advertising only allows you to increase the number of visits to the clinic. But the administrator who received this call Yes! In many ways, it depends on him whether the client will reach us or go to someone else, more polite, for example.

3. The habit of paying twice.

There are some things you shouldn't skimp on. This is marketing and qualified personnel. I explain why.

First, marketing is a system that attracts and retains customers in our company. Without attracting customers, there will be no profit. Without customer retention, there will be no business stability.

According to statistics, attracting a new client is 5-7 times more energy-labor-money-costly than selling a product or service to an already “old one”. Yes! Many dentists make this mistake! They treat their client as a “disposable”, not knowing or forgetting that the customer base is the golden asset of any business.

Secondly, the generated flow of potential customers must be converted into real ones. I wrote about this above in the "advertisement". And for this, you need a competent manager or administrator who will be able not only to competently tell about the services, but also competently close the sale, so that the client does not even have a doubt about choosing which clinic to go to.

Thirdly, the dentist himself and his colleagues must be professionals. Otherwise, “good marketing” will simply “kill” the business of an incompetent doctor. Why?

Because the created good marketing"an army of customers, dissatisfied and embittered with the quality of services, will spread" the glory of the great feats of the dentist. And this is in the most favorable outcome. But there may also be courts, and compensation ...

Therefore, it is important to be a professional in your field and take the same professionals as you or better!

The desire to save money, where it is not worth it, can be very EXPENSIVE in the future.

4. Lack of understanding of your own business.

The lack of knowledge and skills does not allow you to create a viable business model, although it is with an understanding of the business processes that will take place in your clinic that everything should begin.

5. Disposable clients.

As practice shows, about 45% of dental clinics treat their clients as "disposable", that is, they served, made a profit and that's it.

This is one of the biggest mistakes. The customer base is your golden asset. Loyal customers are the people who make your business sustainable.

Repeat sales, according to statistics, are 5 times less expensive than finding new customers and building relationships with them.

What is important to know for a novice entrepreneur and will help those who are "treading water." We will talk about this further.

6 rules to increase the profit of dentistry

There are things painfully familiar, however, they still remain in in large numbers those who do not use them, especially in offline business.

1. Determine who your target audience (target audience) is.

Of course. Where will we move if we do not understand who our client is? Who do we feed with bait, for whom do we write texts, shoot commercials, create banners, headlines, describe values, press on calluses…

Trite, but a clear understanding of your target audience allows you to accurately shoot at customers and hit right on target, rather than when we have a general blurry idea and fire from the tsar cannon at sparrows.

2. Create your USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

Knowing who our client is, you can create a unique selling proposition for him. Or for them, if there are several such groups. Again, the gray masses of an infinite number of clinics begin to get lost against the background of the number, no matter how good they are.

How do you choose where to go in this case? Help the client, make your own unique offer, so that against the background of competitors it would be the most delicious! And what is needed for this?

Yes, it is worth noting here that in many respects these 2 and subsequent points depend on what level your dentistry is: an economy cabinet, an average option or an elite clinic.

3. Use benchmarking.

Study your competitors, look at their features: how do they attract customers, generate leads, what features do they use offline and online? Analyze, maybe even use their service to know your friend from the inside. Take the best they have and apply it to your clinic or your business.

In addition, identify obvious shortcomings and weaknesses of competitors and make them yours. strengths. Then, when choosing between you and someone, they will stop at you.

Having analyzed your main competitors in this way, you will have a picture of their strengths and weaknesses. You will see what they offer, what is their USP, what are their pros and cons.

Take all the best, remove weaknesses and create your own beautiful, bright, "delicious" USP, which your client "eats" with pleasure. And you will be happy.))

After all, customers are becoming smarter and do not go to the first dentist or hairdresser with a bright picture in advertising. They analyze what is good and what is bad and where for the same money is even better.

Finding weak sides your competitors and making them your strengths, you will compare favorably with your fellow drillers.

4. Create trust - the source of sales.

What impression the client will have about your clinic depends on his further visit to you, and not to your competitors.

And here there are no trifles. In the literal sense, everything affects the client, from the sign above the entrance and the smile of the administrator, to the cleanliness of the toilet and the presence of soap next to the washbasin.

And of course, the main thing is the professionalism of the dentist himself. Because it is one thing when you are treated by a "soulless" uncle with a stone expression in his eyes, and quite another, an open, good-natured, calming person.

Going to the dentist is stressful, unpleasant, and often painful. That is why we go to him so “often”, usually when we are already unbearable. Scheduled preventive visits to the dentist have not yet become part of our culture.

In order for the client to feel comfortable and well, it is important to create trust from the moment the client crosses the threshold of your clinic.

A grateful client will come back to you again and again.

5. Use smart cross-sell.

One of the well-known methods of raising profits is cross-selling.
After quality work with the patient, his satisfied, grateful eyes, you can offer him to purchase related products.

Of course, it doesn't have to feel like a push-pull for a new super trendy floss that goes even where others can't.

Your clinic showcases may have good toothpastes, brushes, mouthwashes and other oral products that will really benefit the client and bring you additional profit.

Without this, neither customers, nor profits, nor businesses can be seen as their teeth. And vice versa, from practice, introducing these simple rules in your business, you can increase the number of customers by 30% in 1-2 months.

6. Money is nothing, REPUTATION is Everything!

One serious joint and your reputation will be completely crushed!

People choose a dentist once and for life. This is of course conditional, but in fact, I would rather go to the other end of the city to my trusted specialist than go down to the next entrance to the newly opened dental clinic.

Therefore, how quality or poor quality you serve your new patient depends on whether he will become yours for centuries!?) Thus, as a professional in your field, you personally influence your reputation.

word of mouth, as a result of your service, the word of the miracle dentist will spread throughout the area. And what this message will be and how it will affect your reputation depends on how satisfied your client is.

Yes, and of course, it is important to collect positive reviews patients of your clinic, because the principle of social proof has not yet been canceled. The best review is a video review!

Reputation marketing is about building and maintaining reputation. It is impossible to track everything on your own. And the bigger you get, the more and better you need to track everything that customers, competitors, media, blogs, social media say about you. networks, etc.

Often there are envious well-wishers who, for a number of reasons, from psychological to black PR, in one way or another try to move you off the podium of your impeccable reputation.

Reputation is a clean, transparent glass ball, once dropped, the pieces cannot be collected. And even if it is collected and glued together, the reputation will never be the same. Therefore, treat it with care and do not let anyone break it.

That's what reputation marketing is for.

Ask yourself questions:

• Do you know your target audience?
• Do you have a USP that sets you apart from the rest?
• Do you know who your main competitors are and what marketing methods they use?
• Are you building trusting relationships with your clients?
• Do you sell related products?
• Do you care about your reputation as a good specialist?

If there is at least one NO, it's time to think about your marketing!

Finally

Let me summarize.

What is dentistry? This is business. The same business as others, with the same laws, only with its own specifics.

Like any other business, in order to competently manage it, you need to have the necessary knowledge, skills and experience. Often, in small clinics and private offices, the dentist himself acts as a businessman.

Being a good dentist and being a businessman are two big differences and, as a rule, one excludes the other.

Not for nothing, in the most successful network clinics, the owners are not dentists. They create this profitable business, open clinics, hire staff, build networks. The ability to manage one's own and other people's time, to delegate authority is one of the key skills that distinguish a business owner from the owner of his work.

And you have a choice. If you want to develop your business, you can start doing it yourself by implementing the rules that I wrote about. This will allow you to attract new clients to your clinic. However, remember that this stream will always be limited by your time.

Or hire experts in this field, let them do it, and you continue to do what you love.