Episode Transcript
Key Takeaways
- The primary job of staff handling calls is to secure bookings, not just provide information.
- Recording calls is crucial for understanding and improving phone handling practices.
- Empathy and active listening are essential for building rapport with prospective patients.
- Credentialing the physician, practice, and procedure should be done naturally and with permission.
- Qualifying questions help ensure time is spent with patients ready for surgery.
Introduction
Welcome to Practice Perfect, the podcast for medical professionals and anybody running a professional services business as opposed to a bricks and mortar store. Thanks for joining me again. On today’s episode, we’re going to talk about how to handle incoming phone calls.
The Importance of Phone Calls
This is a recurring topic that we see in our own business when we work with clients. It’s one of the areas where you can lose the most amount of money out of anything that you do. And I’m going to explain why in just a second. Phone calls are usually the first point of contact between a prospective patient and your staff.
Phone calls are what people remember. Phone calls are what they use to make a decision about coming in.
Treating Calls Like Gold
You have to treat that phone call like gold. You have to staff it with some of the best people, the friendliest people that you can hire and compensate them enough so that they care and make sure that you build a culture around them so that they do a great job on the incoming calls and they build that rapport with people.
Recording Calls
The first thing I want to talk to you about is even before we get into the phone handling, I need to ask you if you’re recording your incoming calls. The answer to this typically is no. And if your answer is no, that’s okay. Point of leverage. You’ve got something to work on.
If you’re not recording, you don’t really know what’s happening. You don’t know what’s going on in your practice.
Understanding Patient Needs
You need to understand their hopes, their desires, their fears, their dreams. And if you start recording those calls, even if you start listening in the evening on the way to work, load them up onto your phone, load them up in the car, and just listen to them.
Mystery Shopping
If something’s prohibiting you from recording the calls, if you have a law that you need to comply with in your state or province or country, or if you just feel that it is prohibitive technologically, your staff is afraid, they’re fundamentally opposed to it, the first thing I would say is get new staff because you’re paying people to help you.
Handling Incoming Calls
The first step in handling incoming calls is understanding what your receptionist’s real job is and having her understand what her job is. Oftentimes when I speak to staff at medical practices, they feel that their job is to inform the patient, inform the caller and give them all the information that they need so that they can make the decision.
How well you do at informing the customer is not going to translate to sales.
Key Objectives and Control
The number one job, and I want you to note this down, because their number one job is to get the booking, right? Nothing else really matters on their call. Their job is to book that patient. We’re going to get into how to do that in a second, but it’s a real mindset shift when you understand that their job is not to inform, it’s to book.
Empathy and Listening
Understand that when a patient calls your practice, they’re in a vulnerable state. They’re in a state of uncertainty. They’re in a state of having dealt with their problem for years and not knowing what to do about it, and they’re in a state of finally being hopeful that they have recourse, that they have somewhere to turn for help, and that place will be you.
Credentialing and Qualifying
One of the key things that your staff has to understand is that they need to show empathy. They need to show sympathy, empathy, and understanding, and there’s only one real way to do that, and that’s to let the person talk by asking them the right questions.
Conclusion
I hope that’s been helpful. That wraps up this episode. I hope you take this information and you immediately go and implement in your practice. I hope you take it and make a ton of money with it. I hope you found this extremely helpful and useful. And the best way that I can think of to appreciate information like this is to take action on it. Good luck with your calls and good luck with the staff. And I hope that you implement this immediately.
I’m Nick Dimitro. I will see you on the next podcast.