Patients are typically unaware of the wide variety of services and procedures that practices offer when they first walk in the door. Focus on equipping your front desk staff with the tools needed to successfully engage patients with educational materials for their aesthetic consultation.
To improve patient satisfaction and increase your cross and up-sell opportunities, we have compiled a list of several ways to optimize your front desk process.
Intake Process
Waiting time is educating time! As part of your standard welcome process, instruct your front desk staff to hand patients an iPad or tablet with educational content to browse while they wait. The tablet should be ready and queued up with a presentation that contains before and after pictures and product information specific to each patient.
For example, if a patient is visiting for an injectable treatment, including before and after pictures of that treatment, and synergistic treatments that bundle well, such as device-based services and post-treatment skincare recommendations. Go the extra mile with a personalized message at the beginning of the presentation welcoming the client by name.
Before each appointment, the front desk staff should review the incoming patient’s history and be prepared to greet them by name. If the patient is new, the greeting staff should be prepared to set expectations about how the visit will go and should have appropriate educational information ready.
During the welcome conversation, the front desk staff should add notes to the patient file. These notes can include anything specific the patient shares about their past experiences, hopes for their next treatment, and products they ask about. This will help streamline internal communication.
Check-Out Process
Effective consultations continue well after the patient has visited with the provider. The front desk staff is the final touch point for your patients before they depart.
Front desk staff should engage in conversation and ask for feedback about how the visit went. This is a great way to informally collect information about things that went well, and provide insight into areas for improvement. This also provides final up-sell opportunities such as post-procedural skincare. The front desk staff should note any feedback they received during the checkout in the patient’s file for next time.
Before the patient leaves the front desk, staff should do the following to encourage continued communication:
- Book the next appointment.
- Sell post-procedural skincare products. If expectations were properly set during the intake process this should be an easy conversation.
- Use a QR code at the check-out desk to encourage patients to follow social media channels in exchange for a small gift such as a skincare sample.
- Include information about your friends and family referral programs via a flyer in a take-home bag.
- Ask for the patient’s email and cell phone number and if they’d be willing to fill out a brief satisfaction survey. Send the survey immediately while the patient is still in the building.
Ways to Encourage Compliance
- Training: Train your staff and create a standardized process. Create KPIs that allow you to track the compliance with your processes such as the number of patient referrals, the number of new social media followers, and revenue from post-procedural skincare products.
- Incentive Programs: Motivate your team through staff incentive programs. These programs can help boost morale and drive sales.
- Feedback & Reinforcement: Help your staff learn and grow through constructive feedback and reinforcement of positive behavior.
