Back Office Marketing - an Essential Ingredient

Sunday, May 12, 2002 | 0

Professional services marketing is unique in the marketing circles because what is being marketed is the service ability of a particular person - highly personal services that can have a significant impact on another's life or livelihood.

Yet, marketing the professional doesn't stop with handing out brochures, going to trade shows and setting up dinner meetings or speaking engagements. The bulk of all professional business comes from referrals. Referrals occur because the recipient of the professional service was happy with that service - the professional made the person feel comfortable that they were the sole focus of the professional's attention during the time of service receipt.

This personal attention needs to come not only from the professional, but every person in the professional's office, from the receptionist, to the nurse, to the bill processor, and yes to the professional him or herself. This is the "back office" marketing that is essential to a successful marketing campaign, and indeed, must continue beyond any campaign as a part of the regular practice of the professional to ensure the continued vitality of the professional's business.

Here are some common sense checks to see if your practice is sending the correct marketing message to your clients, patients or customers:

How long are people waiting? Not just in the lobby or reception area, but on the phone, in the examination room, for a report, or a return telephone call. Keep someone waiting too long, and you've lost a referral. Just as a professional views time as a precious commodity, so too does everyone else in our time limited society!

Don't let patients wait in the lobby more than 5 or 10 minutes - a nurse or other staff member should be interacting with the patient periodically whether to get vital stats, case history, or just converse.

Reports should not take any longer than 20 days to issue. Procedures need to be in place to ensure timely dictation and trascription.

Return telephone calls. Surveys indicate that simply returning telephone calls the day they are received, even if the answer to the topic of the call is not known, is the number one service feature of import.

Is your staff friendly, courteous, and knowledgeable? Staff members should always be dressed professionally, and be courteous to patients and others. Your staff projects the quality of service you deliver - let it be a quality projection!

In future articles we will explore specific steps you can take to improve your back office marketing. Remember it's one thing to get a new patient in the door, it's a completely different task to keep patients returning.

Author Lynn Hartzell is the owner of Lynn Hartzell & Associates, and specializes in marketing physicians to the workers' compensation community. She can be reached at 626-331-7027, or by e-mail at lynn_hartzell@workcompcentral.com.