While new COVID rules continue to affect your practice, they also affect your bottom line. Not only do you need to make up for lost dollars for the pa...
While new COVID rules continue to affect your practice, they also affect your bottom line.
Not only do you need to make up for lost dollars for the past several months of lockdown, but you also need to step it up if you’re going to meet your 2020 goals.
However, PPE masks and social distancing hinder you. Most practices are running at 40-60% capacity and that means fewer patients and fewer profits…unless you make some changes.
The goal now is to get more, or at least the same, revenues but do it with fewer patients.
But that takes strategy and different ways of approaching your business model.
So, here are 5 things you can do right now to increase your post-COVID revenues:
1. THIS WILL BE SO COUNTERINTUITIVE, BUT HERE GOES….RAISE YOUR PRICES.This is NOT the time to market to price-shoppers who will spend the bare minimum, negotiate with you and take up a bunch of your time nitpicking your services and prices.
This is the time to cater to patients who trust you and want a good result for a fair price. You want the patients who care more about you and your expertise than anything else.
However, add a little something of extra value to go with your higher prices. For example, sample-size hand sanitizer with your logo on it or a free peel to go with their filler treatment.
And, raise your prices could also mean just don’t discount them. Concentrate on relationship-building instead so these patients are glad to pay a fair price for a great result AND experience.
I don’t care what happens to the economy, there will always be different groups of consumers who buy the best, buy the least, and the majority by “in-between”. It’s just the way humans are so knowing that helps you increase the value of your services.
Give your patients a choice of 3 so they feel they are in control and choose one by self-selecting what type of consumer they are and where their threshold is.
For example, you can offer a choice of: (Good) Botox – $400 (Better) Botox + Filler – $1,000 (Save $200) ( Best) Botox + Filler + IPL – $1,300 (Save $400)Or offer tiered pricing and wait time for Botox so the patient can choose what’s more important to them.
Either way, they are choosing your practice:
Surgeon fees are $16/unit + 3 week wait
Nurse Injector fees are $13/unit + 2 days wait
3. SMART TARGET MARKETINGIf you are doing external marketing, target the higher-end zip codes where your preferred patients live. Don’t waste your money, time, or efforts on zip codes that are most likely to be affected by the economy. You have to stay focused on the most likely patients who are least likely to be affected by the economy.
4. INCREASE THE VALUE OF THE TRANSACTIONMarketing experts know the best time to upsell a customer is when they just bought from you. Again, that seems counterintuitive but think about it…your patient likes and trusts you enough to buy your services and they feel good about it, so they are most likely to be open-minded to other services you suggest.
But there’s no need to be pushy about it. Just make it comfortable and sensible. For example, at checkout, your staff can hand the patient a thank you note that says, because you spent $300+ today, here’s a $100 gift card to use towards a new treatment you haven’t experienced yet. Have it expire within 30 days and then, hopefully, they’ll book their appointment right now.
Or if the patient is buying a skincare product, your staff can say, “By the way Sara, you save 20% when you buy 2 products” and then let the patient decide if they want to save 20% or not.
5. MUCH BETTER FOLLOW-UPMore revenues are lost here than anywhere else in the practice. The reality is you must try harder to attract patients and convert them to paid procedures. It takes “professional persistence” to get someone’s attention long enough for them to decide.
So here’s what you do….come up with a contingency plan for every step in your process such as:
What do you do when:
