Was talking to a practice that had a significant number of leads ghosting them.
(Meaning leads who initially engaged online, but fell off the face of the earth once the practice started the conversation.)
After we did some digging, turns out their consult schedulers were sending out a long intro text message that included their full price, even for people who weren’t inquiring about price specifically.
So they were getting a lot of ghosting leads, and also a segment of people saying “Wow never mind, I can’t afford that.”
And at first glance, part of that sounds good, right? We want to weed out the tire kickers up front so we don’t waste time with folks who aren’t serious.
But this is actually a critical mistake, and you end up missing valuable new patient opportunities. And here are a few big reasons why:
- Context. The full price isn’t as contextually useful to a lot of folks because many people use (or need to use) payment plans.
- Current costs. People with bad vision are ALREADY paying money to see clearly (glasses, contacts, etc). A fact that almost all of them forget and need to be reminded of. They are ALREADY in an expensive situation, and you’re actually the more affordable option.
- Teach them how to think. Your prospects don’t know how to make elective healthcare decisions, so unfortunately many of them default to price (even though they aren’t necessarily “cheap”). The need to be taught how to think, which takes more than a single text message.
- People aren’t inherently cheap, but they are looking for the best VALUE (go back to my last couple emails on this). They have no way of determining the VALUE we provide this early in the game, and thus the price can often seem expensive without the appropriate context.
- Your consultation in and of itself weeds out tire kickers. Think about it: if someone gets dressed, takes off work, drives across town and spends time with you in your office for 1-2 hours, you can bet they have a PAIN that needs to be relieved. And they’re willing to spend money to do it.
So be careful with putting measures in place that “weed people out” too early, or that provide information in the wrong sequence. Because you (and potential patients) will miss out on great opportunities.
– T-Cole
PS – In this message, I scratched the surface on a number of fresh perspectives you can use to reframe how your team thinks about price, value and patient education. These are all key topics we hit on a weekly basis in our E3 Coaching Community.
It’s vital to give your team constant exposure to these concepts. The result is a team that has more clarity, more belief and more confidence to handle anything that’s thrown at them from prospective patients. And of course all that means more surgeries booked for you. 💪🏻