Your patients’ time is valuable, and if you do everything you can to answer their phone calls quickly, they will notice. On the other hand, if you do not answer phone calls quickly and to your patients’ liking, they are more likely to look elsewhere for their chiropractic needs. A study by Marketing Land reveals that 74 percent of people who have a bad phone experience are more likely to choose to do business with a competitor.
How can you ensure that your patients are taken care of every time they call your practice, especially if your receptionist is bogged down with work? One of the most effective solutions to this common problem is to hire a live answering service. Here are five of the top ways an answering service can help your chiropractic office.
1. Answer Calls Around the Clock
Many patients work the same hours you do, which means they may have a difficult time scheduling appointments when your practice is open. Hiring an answering service that can handle appointment setting needs around the clock can benefit your busy patients immensely. This simple service could potentially help you earn the loyalty of clients who consistently need to schedule and confirm appointments at odd hours of the day or night.
A live answering service can also take care of appointment confirmations, rescheduling needs, and other after-hours phone call inquiries. This chiropractor answering service is available during any assigned times you choose and can even be utilized during busy daytime hours when your receptionist is likely to be taking care of other patients.
2. Make Follow-Up Calls
According to Physicians Practice, performing follow-up calls can help you and your staff learn more about your patients’ experiences in your office. South Florida Hospital News quotes Dr. Jay Kaplan, the medical director of Studer Group (a healthcare coaching organization), who stated that doctors have a 90 percent chance of keeping patients whom they call within 48 hours of discharge.
Unfortunately, the follow-up call is one of the first items to be dropped from an action item list because it can take up so much of your staff members’ time. In situations like this, a live answering service can take care of your follow-up calls so that you can focus on more pressing needs, such as caring for patients currently under your care.
3. Provide Directions to Your Office
In addition to taking care of your appointment setting and follow-up call needs, an answering service can also provide patients with directions to your office. This chiropractor answering service can help patients avoid the hassle of getting lost on the way to their appointments and can reduce the number of late arrivals or no-shows.
4. Collect Contact Information
It can take a lot of time to track down and verify patient information, including insurance details, contact info, and payment type. Instead of having your in-house receptionist dedicate a large portion of time taking care of these important details, why not outsource them to a live answering service? You can specify what type of information you want the answering service receptionist to collect, as well as practice-specific forms that you need to be filled out.
5. Forward Messages from your Chiropractor Answering Service
When patients call after hours, they want to have confidence that their messages will be listened to and will make it to the intended person. By hiring an answering service that forwards messages to you promptly and consistently, you will be able to get back to your patients quickly and enhance their confidence in your services.
These five live answering service benefits can help you take care of your patients at all times of the day and will likely improve patient satisfaction. If your current receptionist is frequently too busy to handle customer phone calls and appointment settings, an answering service may be a wise option for your chiropractic office.