Follow Up on Plastic Surgery Leads

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Follow Up on Plastic Surgery Leads

If you want to grow your cosmetic revenues, you must fix your follow up on leads that are NOT converting.

It costs you time, money and effort to attract these patient leads to you, so you can’t afford to waste any more time or money on marketing if you are not converting these leads….

It’s too competitive, crowded and expensive NOT to do everything within your control to convert these Internet leads into paid procedures.

Follow Up Stats

As you can see from the following stats, it’s very common for staff to ignore/forget about leads that came in but did not convert right away.

  • 48% NEVER Follow Up
  • Average First Follow Up is 72 Hours Later
  • Only 25% of practices make 2 contact attempts
  • 64% of practices do not have an organized way to follow up on a lead

But then how frustrating is it for the plastic surgeon to spend a ton of money, staff time and resources on internet marketing for new cosmetic patient leads only to have those very leads come in as prospective patients and leave as prospective patients….STILL.

You might as well throw money down the drain when you don’t do all you can to see these active leads through to paid procedures.

Here’s a typical consultation scenario…

Hmmm….

You thought you had a great consultation with your prospective patient, Sara.Follow Up on Plastic Surgery Leads

Sara had a good consultation with you and your staff and she asked lots of questions and you had a good connection…at least you thought you did.

But then you find out from your coordinator Sara ended up saying, “I gotta think about it” and walked out the door.

Now what? Maybe your staff emails or calls them and then they are dropped in the “dead leads” file.

You move onto the next consultation that you hope converts and the cycle of waste continues…

Why Don’t Cosmetic Patients Convert?

Since cosmetic rejuvenation is a very personal as well as emotional decision, there are all sorts of reasons why prospective patients don’t book….MAYBE:

  • They have other consultations lined up
  • They don’t have a comfortable way to pay for it
  • They’re confused about something you said so now they will research it more before
    deciding to move forward

Or maybe…..

They received bad news that morning or

They got flack from their family when they told them about meeting with you;

Or a dozen other benign things could have happened that had nothing to do with you.

It could have had everything to do with the patient’s frame of mind at the time that prevented them from moving forward.

The point is people change, their moods change and their circumstances change so you can never assume anything.

What Do You Do When You Can’t Convert Consultations?

Let’s say you did everything right and now you are stuck because you don’t know how or even if you should follow up for fear of looking as if you are chasing the patient.

When you follow up on plastic surgery leads, use these strategies and close more procedures:

Follow Up Protocol

Follow Up Process for Plastic Surgeons

Develop a follow up protocol like this one above that spells out how, when and what to follow-up on revenue-generating consultations that didn’t book….YET.

Otherwise, it’s too easy to never get around to following up because there are a million other things to do.

Protocol takes the emotion out of it and it becomes what you do automatically…no matter how busy you are.

Collapse Time When Following Up

Collapse Time When Following Up on Leads

Time is your enemy in the follow up process. The more time that goes by without the prospective patient hearing from you, the more distant you become to them.

Collapse time by following up quickly, repeatedly and often. That’s how you differentiate yourself from your competitors who follow up weeks later (or never).

Add a Sense of Urgency when You Follow Up on Plastic Surgery Leads

Since its human nature for prospective patients to put off making a big decision, you want to counter with a sense of urgency to get the patient off the fence. Give them very compelling reasons to stop procrastinating when you follow up on plastic surgery leads. For example:

  1. Your schedule is filling up quickly so book now or you’ll have to wait
  2. Your prices are going up next month
  3. If they can have surgery on a Wednesday next month, they get a $500 price reduction
  4. If you want it done before [wedding, summer, etc], they need to take into account the
    recovery time (IE., even though the downtime is less than 7 days, they are still a bit
    limited in activity like swimming and dancing), so they’ll want to get it done before this [date].

You need to customize these to your liking and use them in your standard protocol so you get comfortable telling the prospective patient WHY they need to make a decision now rather than later.

The most successful cosmetic practices have systems in place to follow up quickly, strategically and consistently. They spent a lot of time, money and effort attracting prospective patients so they do all they can to see it through to a YES.

These fix your follow up for plastic surgeons strategies “pave the way” for your staff to do all they can to confidently convert these valuable consultations.

If you need help with your follow up on plastic surgery leads, let’s do a call to set up your own customized plan to follow up on plastic surgery leads.

Follow Up on Plastic Surgery Leads

Case Study When You Follow Up on Plastic Surgery Leads

When your staff has the proper training and strategies, they will be able to convert at extra 15% of your leads which bumps your revenues up significantly. See for yourself in this case study:

Follow Up Case Study for Following Up on Plastic Surgery Leads

 

So, rather than spend more or advertise for more leads, they focused on the follow up on plastic surgery leads on the leads they already had, and it didn’t cost them an extra dime.

However, this windfall allows this plastic surgery practice to either pocket the savings or increase their ad spend budget to compete on google adwords.

Win Back Lost Patients with Follow Up

Winning back lost customers is frequently the most overlooked source for incremental profit. Research studies tell us that a business is twice as likely to successfully sell to a lost customer as to a brand new prospect.

Here are reasons first-time buyers do not return:

  1. rude or indifferent staff
  2. inconsistent results
  3. inconsistent experience
  4. long waiting times
  5. Money discrepancies/misunderstandings
  6. Being ignored

Have your staff track the percentage of first-time patients who became repeat patients.Then research the reasons they did NOT return and address those issues before you lose any more.

If you contact patients who haven’t been back, three great things happen:

First, you have an excellent opportunity to renew your relationship.

The second benefit is that you have begun to stop the negative publicity. The patient knows that you care about them and tells others.

Finally, as your last benefit, you’ll identify what’s wrong within your processes so you can take immediate steps to correct the problem and prevent it from occurring with other cosmetic patients.

Great questions to ask during your next team meeting would be a good start:

– How many patients do we lose each year?
– What would it cost us to keep those patients?
– How does this cost compare with the cost of finding new patients?

Your Patient List is an Asset

An up-to-date list of your current patients is the most valuable list you can own.

These patients chose you for cosmetic rejuvenation and gave you money. That means they know, like and trust you. That’s more than half the battle.

You can use your list to help motivate your current patients to return more often, spend more when they buy at each visit, and refer more of their friends.

Your list also gives you the ability to segment names into subgroups and to personally address their needs and give them a compelling reason to return.

For example, segment a list of anyone who has had Botox but not fillers. Your message would talk about the advantages of fillers and include a special offer on their first filler treatment.

Click here for all the strategies for Plastic Surgery Marketing: What’s Working Now.

 

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Catherine Maley

Catherine Maley

Catherine is a business/marketing consultant to plastic surgeons. She speaks at medical conferences all over the world on practice building, marketing and the business side of plastic surgery. Get a Free Copy of her popular book, Your Aesthetic Practice: What Your Patients Are Saying View Author Profile.

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