4 Tips for Keeping Your Cosmetic Practice Busy During the Summer Months
Nearly every plastic surgery practice and medspa experiences downtime in the summer. As travel restrictions from Covid-19 continue to lift, people are getting back to making summer travel plans and spending more time outdoors with friends and family. Cosmetic practices are sure to notice changes to their appointment books and possibly a much lighter schedule from June to mid-August. While that can be an unsettling thought for small businesses, we encourage you to make a detailed evaluation of the steps you may or may not be taking to keep your appointment books full and implement these 5 tips to keep your business busy during the summer months.
You've probably heard the 80/20 rule: 80% of your business will come from 20% of your existing patients. Are you incentivizing your patients to continue to be loyal to you?
Start A Patient Loyalty Program
You’ve probably heard the 80/20 rule: 80% of your business will come from 20% of your existing patients. Are you incentivizing your patients to continue to be loyal to you?
What’s keeping your current customers from trying another practice or medspa down the street that’s offering a slightly better Botox deal on Instagram?
Here’s the good news: We are living in the age of digital. Before HIPPA-compliant digital charting software and encrypted text messaging, starting a patient loyalty program meant excel spreadsheets or buy 5, get 1 free card (you remember these from Subway and Blockbuster?) Technology now exists that enables you to incentivize your patients to keep coming back to you.
Studies on customer satisfaction report that 54% of consumers say that they would consider doing more business with a company for loyalty rewards.
- Your electronic medical records and point of sale system keep records of patient treatments and transactions and provide the foundations for what can become a robust patient rewards program. Symplast EMR software includes a Point-of-Sale system to eliminate the headache and integration issues for a seamless experience for plastic surgery and medspa businesses.
Follow Up with Those One-Time Treatment Patients
Do you have a lengthy list of patients who visited your business one time, only never to return? What is your practice strategy for follow-ups on initial appointments and cosmetic procedures?
Consider 1-to-1 text and video messaging follow-ups as a standard protocol for new and existing patients. Ask them meaningful questions that show that you’re invested in giving them the best results and experience:
- courtesy check and follow up on specific concerns with pics and video
- digital copies of post-care and recovery tips
- product recommendations with links to online POS
- gentle appointment and cancellation policy reminders
Utilize your EHR to create custom reports for your one-time patients and their treatment history and prepare a customized offer to woo them back into your cosmetic practice for additional therapies.
Symplast technology helps you build a relationship with your patients over a secure digital platform. We do this by providing your team with a HIPAA-compliant video and text messaging capability so that your team can craft unique messaging for individual patients.
Launch A Patient Referral Program
Bringing in new customers can cost up to 16 times as much as retaining existing customers, but if your existing patients are happy, why not ask for referrals? Word-of-mouth referrals are the strongest type of marketing that an organization can have.
Give your happy patients a reason to tell others just how wonderful you are and give them an effortless way to do it.
Educate Your Patients
Providing value for your patients is a win-win. It gives your new and existing customers much-needed education to feel empowered about the products and services you offer while credentialing you as a helpful expert. Drive education about the therapy, address cosmetic trends and debunk myths about plastic surgery procedures.
- Use email marketing to create educational content. Symplast to pull a report on your services with low revenue generation and procedure inquiries might indicate that your audience needs more information.
- Evaluate your low-cost services and offer a compelling monthly special for single and multi-service treatments directly to your patients through Symplast’s Patient App.
Getting started with these tips will help you and your team think outside of the box on how to use your practice data and technology to attract, interest, convert and delight new and existing patients.