With the latest unrest, companies across all industries have increasingly turned to the internet to generate sales leads. A typical medical practice will spend thousands of dollars each month on pay-per-click, social media, and other paid advertising to drive prospects to their website with the goal of booking an appointment. However, all the inbound leads in the world don\’t mean a thing if they aren’t pursued within a timely, consistent, personalized, and measurable manner.
It’s never been more important to ensure every lead makes their way into your office. Here are the 5 pillars of managing inbound leads effectively:
1. Rapid Response
It can’t be stressed enough, time is of the essence when it comes to following-up to patient inquiries. Consumers are increasingly making decisions “in the moment”, often out of an emotional need to solve a problem or fulfill a need. Google calls these “micro-moments” where consumers make multiple, perhaps even hundreds, of small decisions along their journey toward a solution.
That’s why it’s never been more important to capture prospects at the right time by responding quickly when they take an action, like completing an online form.
In fact, a report from InsideSales indicates contact quality rates decrease by 10x after the first 5 minutes of a user submitting a form. This proves with every passing second after a lead takes action, practices run the risk their prospect could quickly lose interest, change their mind, or have made a connection with another practice.
2. Convenience
Practices often avoid extending availability outside the hours of 9:00am to 5:00pm because it’s either difficult to ask staff to stay longer or the cost of hiring additional staff outweighs revenue generated from call volume.
However, roughly 50% of patients research outside of business hours such as after work or on weekends. With this high statistic, it’s important for practices to consider how many more prospects could be captured with extended hours of coverage. When many other practices may be closed, there\’s an incredible opportunity to initiate a conversation that gets potential patients further engaged and hopefully, into the office.
3. Consistency
When there isn’t a plan, process, or system in place to help field incoming leads, many inevitably fall through the cracks or are mismanaged.
A study by Harvard Business Review not only indicated a vast majority of leads are never followed up on, they’re only contacted an average of 1.3 times. Practices can’t take a “one and done” approach to following up and expect the prospect to reach back out. An effective follow-up process should include multiple and varying contact attempts over time.
Alternatively, a prospect could be turned off completely by too many repeated contacts from different people at the practice. Clear communication and a standard, trackable process can make the difference.
OptiCall’s Capture web lead response program uses a systematic process that includes multiple touch points over the span of three months until the patient takes action. A combination of direct outreach and relevant content over a sustained period of time helps your practice stay connected to the prospect and significantly increases their likelihood of re-engaging when they weren’t initially ready to book. Click here to download the Capture Infographic.
4. Personalization
Just because a prospect submitted a form on your website, doesn’t necessarily mean they want you to reply digitally. Consumers want to connect with practices according to the communication method that works best for them. This can vary significantly by generation, time of day, and a variety of other factors.
Responses should also be personable – paying attention to details like tone of voice and language, to ensure the prospect feels welcome and cared for.
5. Reporting
The only way to determine whether your lead management process is effective is to track and report on performance. Key performance indicators (KPI’s) should measure performance with every touch point – from driving marketing leads to the website, to engagement and conversion rates at each point in the process. Monitoring analytics on a monthly or even weekly basis can help you understand what\’s working and where there’s room for improvement.
The Proof: Effective Lead Management Put to the Test
OptiCall’s Capture program was initiated for a medium-sized medical practice that receives an average of 200 leads per month.
With a focus on response time, consistency, extended hours of availability, and the reporting on key metrics, the practice has seen a 20% increase in leads booking consultations.
In addition to more leads converting to consultations, the practice has saved 40 hours a month of staff time that would have been spent on lead follow-up. With more time, staff is able to focus attention on patients within the office.
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Get Your Assessment
OptiCall offers a free lead response assessment that can determine how many leads are either contacted too late or never followed up on, and the impact on your practice\’s bottom line. Complete the form below to request your free Capture assessment.
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