Customer service training and referral programs generate more patient referrals
Referrals. Every one loves them. So, why do so few of us ask for what we want?
Referrals cost less than non-referred enquiries to acquire, convert more often, buy more, convert faster, convert more easily, and often refer more people, than any other enquiry source. Simply, the more you get, the healthier your business will be.
Referrals are the bread and butter of most healthcare practice’s marketing mix. However, we find that referral generation methods range from the “hope and see” approach to executing highly effective referral programmes through customer service training, social media and email marketing.
While most enquiries come from other sources, more patients come from patient referrals
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that most patients (by volume) come from patient referrals. We took several clinics with widely different marketing strategies (some advertised 10 times more than others in the same group) and measured where their patients came from.
57% of the enquiries generated via patient referrals – became patients
We conducted a study to compare the conversion rates of different enquiry sources of over 5,881 enquiries across several clinics. You can read more about this marketing study, but in summary we found that, in general, 57% of referral enquiries become patients. This is a huge number, and you probably see a similar statistic in your healthcare business.
In some of the bigger chains we work with, we are very excited to see close rates of 20% or more (from enquiry to patient). Of course, purely referral-based, low volume practices can attest to higher conversion rates. But if you advertise in a high-volume setting, 20% is a very good ratio. However, in the study we conducted, only 22% of leads generated via advertising actually became patients.
The results of this study indicate that regardless of your clinic’s overall conversion rate, the leads and consultations that are recommended by other patients have almost three times the chance of converting and becoming patients than enquiries and consultations derived from advertising and PR, and twice the chance as enquiries derived from the internet. 46% of leads that came from professional referrals (other health practitioners) converted, but that’s just another form of word of mouth.
This information won’t be earth-shattering. Most people working in clinics agree that patient referrals convert more easily and faster than non-patient referrals. What’s shocking is that so few practices actively stimulate the referral lead engine…
Stimulate your practice with customer service training to generate low-cost, high-value patient referrals
Because you don’t (or rather, shouldn’t) pay for them, referral enquiry generation is considerably more cost effective than other forms of enquiry generation (advertising, internet, and even public relations – if you pay an agency to get you press).
Start-up clinics without large referral bases spend up to 20% of their income on marketing costs. Clinics that have large patients bases that refer actively can spend much less (e.g sometimes as low as 5% of sales on marketing costs).
Many clinics that we work with enjoy good rates of referrals. For example, one clinic we work with can boast that over 50% of their new patients come from referrals. In other words, every two patients of that clinic refers at least one patient. You may be surprised to find that this ratio isn’t actually that great.
In fact, it’s about average, with a customised patient referral program consisting of customer service training, social media and email marketing, you can expect much more.
It’s not a silver bullet
Of course, having good referral rates depends on you level of customer care and how active you are in pursuing referrals. Without an effective enquiry and appointment conversion system (e.g. telephone and consultation) and the staff trained to implement it, even referrals won’t close as high as they could.
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