If you’ve ever watched a home-shopping channel, you may have noticed a popular line given out by the marketing team on TV – “If operators are busy, please call again.”
This single line shattered a 20-year sales record for the popular NordicTrac exercise machine when it was changed from “Operators are waiting- please call now.”
It seems innocent, but when people believe you are busy with other patients (because you are so incredibly loved and everyone wants to see you), they want your services even more.
It is important to make the distinction between you being “busy with other patients” and you being “just not at the clinic because no one is there.”
For myself, I don’t have a secretary. If I did, this would be a different story, because I could be very busy with patients and then my secretary could tell potential patients that I’m incredibly busy with existing patients.
Anyway, I don’t have a secretary so my phone doesn’t get answered very often at all. I make sure to put in multiple places on my website that it’s best to get ahold of me through email, because I’m busy with patients during the day and am usually unable to get to the phone.
You could also say something very similar on your answering service, if you don’t have a secretary either.
Since I’ve put this information on my website, I get so many more emails from people (because they know exactly how to get a hold of me) asking about my services and wanting to start getting treated. If they know I’m very busy with other patients, they may think if they don’t make an appointment quickly, I may close my doors to new patients altogether very soon.
I have a feeling I missed a lot of calls in my first few years of practice from people who called once, hung up when they got my standard answering message, and moved onto the next acupuncturist!
May you always have an abundance of new patients!
Laura