Have you ever stained a deck? Yeah… a deck… a wooden one… have you ever stained one? No? Well, me neither. I was absent the day the Big Guy upstairs handed out “handyman” skills. Anyway, when I lived in New Jersey I had this really nice cedar and Trex deck installed overlooking my backyard of about a 1/4 acre. It kind of had this mid-western feel to it… really nice.
If you’re not familiar with Trex, it’s sort of like a tough plastic that doesn’t require any maintenance, and is sometimes used as decking. Perfect for a ‘home repair challenged’ guy like myself. The only maintenance it did require was an annual application of the cedar stain on the cedar. Of course, I had to call our handy man in each year to do it for me, but nevertheless, it got done. I think we paid him around $400 or so to restain all of the cedar which was fine by me and good for him. What amazed me, though, was that every year when it was time to have the deck restained again, if I didn’t call the handyman to come back he would never call me. And, because of that, there were many years where I didn’t end up calling the handyman back for well over a year and a half, if not more.
What the heck does my deck and lack of maintenance skills have to do with your chiropractic practice? A heck of a lot! Here’s why: Most of your patients are just like me. No… not bad with tools… but… busy. Sometimes so busy, running around with tons on their personal To Do list that their chiropractic care falls by the wayside. In some cases, it falls by the wayside for so long that they either forget about it altogether or, more likely, they become uncomfortable calling your office to schedule a new appointment, embarrassed that it’s been so long. What happens then? They don’t call and don’t come back for care with you. And, the typical chiropractic office chalks them up as a former patient… a lost patient. Meanwhile, they’re not lost. They’re just what we would call INACTIVE. And, until you do something proactive to REACTIVATE them, they’re going to stay inactive.
The good news is that statistics show over 50% of your inactive patients would become active again in your office if you simply contacted them about getting started again. That’s 5 out of 10 inactive patients you’re currently not seeing right now, that would come back in to your office and start-up their care program again with you, if you simply contacted them. Contact them, how? Doesn’t matter. Postcard, letter, staff call, email, online video, audio postcard. The key is just letting them know you’re concerned about them, not angry or upset with them, and would love to get them back on the right track again. And, if you can contact them more than once, for the ones who don’t respond to your initial contact, even better. Most of the time 3 properly written contacts to a list of 10 inactive patients will turn into 4 to 6 reactivated patients for you. Really!
Now, because of the automation and ease that comes with email, and online audio and video, I’m personally partial to using the Internet to reactivate patients. But, again, you don’t have to use the Internet. However, with something online like the Chiropractic Dashboard you don’t have to worry about sending out letters or postcards or whether your staff is making the calls to your inactive patients at the correct time or not. Online, with something like the Chiropractic Dashboard, you can have the 3 contacts being done for you, with email, audio, and video, all on total autopilot without you ever having to think about it. You can experience it yourself by clicking on the link at the bottom of this article.
Regardless, though, remember… Don’t lose patients and cash flow just because they haven’t been into your office in a while. Even if it’s been months, it’s important to recognize, with some simple contacts executed at the correct time you could start bringing back half of your inactive patients. Think of the financial impact that would have on your practice and lifestyle. HUGE!
Sidebar: I wonder how much money our former handyman is losing ever year by not contacting former customers about having their decks restained. Probably THOUSANDS! With some simple contacts he could probably reclaim most of that. You too, in your practice.
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