I saw a new person in the practice last week. A lady, mother of two with a litany of health complaints.
When I enquired whether she had been to a chiropractor before she replied with – “YES and I vowed never to go to a chiropractor again – it was an uncomfortable and rather ugly experience”, she added.
My interest was now aroused. Then what changed your mind, I asked.
She explained that her bias was turned around by some people who are practice members of ours (and have been for the past 20 years). They convinced her to come and see us because they liked and trusted us.
Further probing revealed that she had gone to the original chiropractor for relief of a neck pain. In her words “He asked a couple of questions about my health, took a few notes and then went into a big lecture about the spine and what he does to it.
He then put her on the table and cracked her neck and told her that her future visits would be organised by ‘the girl’ at the front desk.
She went on to say that the really ‘ugly’ part was the fact that she didn’t see why she needed to go back. The neck pain that she went with was gone, she could move easier – it was all fixed.
BUT the practice kept texting her, emailing her, leaving messages on her phone and generally hassling her to get back in again for which she saw no reason.
It seems to me that the thing that makes so many practices ugly to people is not the practice location, layout, team, technique, results etc
The ugly thing is the preoccupation with RETENTION. Trying to RETAIN people is a losing game – the CAs hate it and the practice members hate it even more.
This scenario happens too much – do you think it has ever happened to you? The problem is that you probably wouldn’t know.
All too often we are wrapped up in OUR practice, OUR techniques and OUR accomplishments. Rather than being ATTRACTIVE to THEM, we try to make them stay.
How about finding out more about THEIR life, THEIR hopes and THEIR dreams and what floats THEIR boat.
Making you and your practice ATTRACTIVE is a very different story. Contact us to have a look at where you could provide a more ATTRACTIVE environment for your practice members.
Mark
