00:00:04:09 – 00:00:55:23
Jay Shorr
Welcome to Shorr Solutions: The Podcast. I’m your host, Jay Shorr. I’m the CEO and founder of Shorr Solutions, a national and award-winning consulting firm, assisting aesthetic and surgical practices with their operational, administrative and financial success. I have an amazing team of practice management experts and clients across the U.S. and as an industry expert with firsthand experience owning a multi-million-dollar cosmetic dermatology and plastic surgery practice. Listen in as I lend you my expertise and best tips to successfully manage and grow your aesthetic practice. I will also be bringing in guests along the way, so get ready to be equipped to operate your aesthetic practice strategically and profitably. Welcome to Shorr Solutions: The Podcast.
00:00:56:01 – 00:02:58:07
Welcome to another episode of Shorr Solutions: The Podcast episode number 113. And I’m your host, Jay Shorr. Today we’re going to be speaking about top ways to improve your consults and upgrade your patient experience. That’s always important in every practice.
Let’s start off with first impressions matter because when a patient comes into your office, you only get a one time, just a one time opportunity to give a first impression. And that’s important. So what are the main things that are included? First of all, maintain a clean practice. After all, it is a medical facility, right? So people want to come in. They want to see that it’s not necessarily sterile, but it’s clean. And there’s not a mess on the floor when they walk into an exam room. There’s not gauze or there’s not cotton balls or anything on the floor, or there’s not bloody Bandaids coming out of the trash can. When somebody first walks into your facility, don’t be sitting in the chair and let them come up to you. They’re a guest in your home. Stand up and greet them and welcome them. For example, dermatology, plastic surgery. Oh my goodness. Mr. Joe, Mrs. Joe, welcome to our family and the name of your practice. But ensure the staff is always friendly. Do you ever look at somebody and you say, hey, how are you doing today? And they say, okay, my expression is, why don’t you tell your face? Your face doesn’t look happy. Believe me, a patient will spot that in a second. When a patient’s getting ready to leave, escort them out of the door. Thank them for being a part of your family today. Don’t just let them pay and leave. How unfriendly is that, really?
00:02:58:09 – 00:03:50:07
Create a welcoming environment. First, ensure that you have comfortable seating. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been into a doctor’s office. Or I visit a doctor’s locations, and the seats are so hard and they’re so uncomfortable. I can’t even wait till I’m out of there. It’s so uncomfortable. But at this way, if I can sit in a chair that’s comfortable. It kind of cuts the unhappiness of the longer wait. Choose seating colors to decorate with that have a palette to your theme and fill the air with pleasant aromas. Did you ever go into the Wynn Hotel by five star hotels? And it kind of smells like a vanilla, or it smells like a cinnamon or something like that? Very, very pleasant aroma. And it’s like, wow, this really smells good. I always say to my wife, why don’t we find out where that is? And we’ll put that and spray the filters in the air conditioning system.
00:03:50:12 – 00:05:09:13
Now make the initial consult count, build trust, and set the stage for a positive journey. Because. First impressions are lasting impressions. More importantly, listen and engage. I always used the expression God gave us two ears and one mouth. The reason for that is so that we listen. Ask your patient what are your concerns today? Don’t allow a patient to say, hey, what do you think I need? Because truly, if you share that with them, what you think they need. It could be very insulting. And don’t rush through the consult. Make them feel that they’re not interrupting your day. Because you’re never an interruption of somebody’s time when you have something important to say. And believe me when I tell you that a consult is very, very important. Steve Jobs always said people don’t know what they want until you show it to them. So they might think that that’s what they want, but when you show it to them, it gives them a better understanding. And remember, you have to listen to people listening to them and just don’t give your canned spiel, you know, canned answers. I call it a spiel.
00:05:09:15 – 00:06:11:01
Don’t give technical terms that somebody is like listening to you and they have no understanding of what you’re saying. You’re talking about the smaze and you’re talking about the nasal labial fold, the mezcal labial fold, and the glabella. Oh my goodness. You know, how about the frown lines? The crow’s all right. And the lines on your forehead. Use terms. Speak to a listener in a language that they understand. It’s very important in that consult because you don’t know who else they may have seen. Really simplify complex medical information. Use visual aids and analogies to enhance a patient’s understanding of satisfaction. Try not to use medical terminology. It might make you sound important. It may make you sound like you know what you’re talking about. That’s okay. When we’re lecturing at a conference. But these are normal, regular people that are coming in, and we don’t want to have to educate them with things they really don’t understand.
00:06:11:03 – 00:08:40:14
We need to pay attention to what a patient needs, for example, hand-holding. And I don’t mean physically holding their hand, but I’m saying guiding them through the journey. Concerns need addressing. So when a patient tells you what their concerns are, address them. Don’t try to oversell them. That could be done later. Share with them that the issue that makes them feel uncomfortable if it is correctable is easily correctable. And this is how we’re going to do it. And with your expertise, we’ll be able to give you the results that we want. And more importantly, what you want. Now sometimes you should have unconventional hours, you know, before the office opens or closes. And that has to be done to be able to fit the needs of people who work or people who travel. I always used to have special hours for people before afters, even in my consulting business, when I have specific days, even on weekends, even on holidays before I’m ready to start. Because we offer East Coast and West Coast hours. Then I’ll make it whatever’s comfortable for you. And that’s what separates you from your competition or urgency and a region to act now. Even if you’re already booked and a patient comes in and they want it now and they’re willing to spend the money right now, I sometimes move my appointments around to satisfy the needs of the patient who is willing to spend the money now versus letting them go elsewhere. Why? Because I’m not necessarily always just worried about what it is that you’re going to do today. I’m really interested in the future life cycle of the patient, plus the referrals, because if I let them get away because somebody else did what I didn’t want to do, they may not come back and listen before you start talking and let the patient lead the conversation. You’ll get them to open up. I know if any of you know Doctor Castellano, we call him the Smile Doctor. All right? He has a smile factor. Happiness factor. And I’ve always said he’s very leery about somebody who doesn’t want to smile or won’t smile. He says, you know, sometimes I don’t want to operate on them because they may not be happy with anything and I mean anything that I do.
00:08:40:16 – 00:10:08:19
Yes. We’re going to take a quick break and a slight intermission. I’d like to take a moment to tell you about our conversion cascade online course. With this self-guided and powerful course, you and your team will be able to master acquiring and retaining more patients as a step by step sales funnel training.
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00:10:08:21 – 00:11:43:06
So what we show patients we need to show patients testimonials before and after photos of your patients where consents have been given. Present them with patient financing options before they ask and have your quotes ready. No, I’ve heard people say no, I don’t want to do the financing because I’m in a very wealthy neighborhood, and financing, if I mention it, would diminish the integrity and the value of what I say. I say hogwash. No matter what you say, and I only share why. With today’s economy nonpolitical political politics side, everybody likes to get a good deal. Me included. We offer financing to our patients. We offer financing to our clients. And if somebody offers me a free way to do business where I don’t have to pay interest, and I can invest that money elsewhere, however I want. I’m going to take you up on the offer. If you think that Danny DeVito said other people’s money was original. No, everybody’s been working with other people’s money. So we’ll offer financing before people ask this way you ask, and you mentioned to the patient we offer cash, credit cards, checks if you accept it, and patient financing. And then you say, are any of those options available to you or interesting to you? This way, if financing is interesting to them, they’ll take you up on the offer, and they don’t have to feel embarrassed about asking.
0:11:43:08 – 00:12:37:10
So now we have the good, the better, the best patient consultation options. We have them for surgical, non-surgical, integrative health and wellness and skincare products, whether they’re prescriptive or over-the-counter, surgical being actual surgery, taking them to a procedure room or an OR whether it’s under a local sedation or conscious sedation or general anesthesia. The non-surgical is similar to an RF oral laser fillers or neurotoxins. And then we have integrative health and wellness, which might be diet, nutrition, weight loss, IV therapy and then all of the skincare products once again, which are prescriptive and over-the-counter. They have to have good, better and best offer everything to the patient.
00:12:37:12 – 00:14:23:14
So what are the objections that we hear over and over again, and how do we turn them into positives? Well, the first question we always have to ask the magical consult closing questions, I call them. You ask a patient, how long have you been thinking about having this procedure? Because what you really want to know is to get the excitement out of them. The longer they’ve been thinking about it, the more excited they are. Once they’ve reached your office next, how does the thought of this procedure make you feel? And then you wait. Try to get that smile. Oh, man. If I were able to have this procedure, I would feel so much better about myself. And that’s true. Think about this for a second. When you get a new car, don’t you enjoy driving more? When you wash your car. Doesn’t it drive better? So the idea of how the procedure make you feel. You’re looking for that smile factor so that when you go to sell and you try to tell them how much better they’re going to feel after you do your amazing results. That’s a closer. Next. How soon are you looking to have this procedure? I always liked asking this question to our patients and my former practice, because if they’re telling you, oh, I’m just thinking about it a year or two, that gives you a clue. But if they tell you I’m looking the almost right away, then you present them a little bit further into the consult with what available time slots you have in your schedule or in the O.R.. And the last question is, well, what’s stopping you from booking your procedure today? If you don’t ask, you’re not going to find out the magical answers to your magical questions.
00:14:23:16 – 00:15:03:13
So now, after the console welcome book, Danno, remember that expression. Book them before they leave your office. Don’t let a patient leave your office without booking their follow up appointment. Who’s great at this? OB GYNs dental to get. And I always when I go to my dentist, I always have my six month follow up. I have my teeth cleaning right then and there. My wife goes to her gyn told for an obstetrician, but goes to the gyn and before they leave, they’re scheduling our next pap smear already. That’s the way to guarantee recurring business for yourself.
00:15:03:15 – 00:16:57:11
Now let’s talk about maintaining communication. It’s very important that we maintain communication with our patients, because you have to keep them in your email marketing, whatever that database that you have of all those emails that you’ve collected. Put them to good use. Whether you segregate them by surgical, non-surgical. I believe that we should try to reach everybody because somebody knows somebody who wants something, even though you may not. That’s a good case for a referral. So keep those people in your email marketing and target them when you’re ready to send them out. Encourage them to follow the practice on social media, whether it is Instagram or Facebook, least of all LinkedIn. That’s usually a business to business versus business to consumer. And keep them in your event list. So if you want to invite them to an event, you’re having both virtual and in person, you’ve got these names. It’s easy. Just create the blast. Whether your provider does it, whether it’s MailChimp, whether it’s constant contact. And you’ve got to constantly have communication with your patient. And you know what else? When you have a new procedure in your office, have one of your treating providers or your PCC patient care coordinator has dealt with these patients before. Call your patients and your past patients to let them know that you have something else. I will share with you that my wife ends up going to some of the dressmakers, or going to the department stores, high end department stores when she gets some of the garments for different events and those same people in the store get to know who she is and what’s important about knowing who she is, that when something else comes in that’s new, they call her and they say, hey, we have something new. We’d love to invite you in because we think you’re going to love it. It’s not any different in our medical practice.
00:16:57:13 – 00:18:51:18
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for spending the last 15 to 20 minutes with me going over, ways to improve your consults and upgrade your patient experience. I look forward to having you visit us for episode 114. Coming up. Thanks. Good luck. God bless.
So that wraps up today’s episode of Shorr Solutions: The podcast. If we mentioned any website links, you can find them in our show notes to work directly with me and our award-winning team of consultants to increase efficiency, increase revenue and decrease costs in your aesthetic practice, schedule a free consult with us today.
We will help you establish and refine your aesthetic practice’s protocols for maximum efficiency and productivity, decrease your expenses and increase your profitability with an expert financial analysis of your business. Attract more patients, convert calls to consults, convert consults to treatments and keep patients coming back for more. With our sales training, coaching and complimentary access to our conversion cascade online course.
Recruit, hire and train new team members and manage any staff turnover with our human resource expertise plus more, head over to our show notes and click on the link to schedule a free 30-minute consult with us today.
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