We work hard to help our clients earn more business online. But we gotta be honest about something. The work we do pales in importance to the work you and your office staff do to convert patients, provide excellent service, and keep them coming back again and again.
We’ll also let you in on another secret: some of our clients are more successful than others. Sure, there are many reasons for it – time in practice, level of skill, market served, etc. – but in our decade plus in the online marketing game there’s a single factor that stands out: successful cosmetic surgeons make the investment in an outstanding internal team that’s specifically geared toward marketing and customer service.
Here’s a rundown of the internal roles that need expert staff if a practice is truly going to become a marketing powerhouse. Note that you don’t necessarily need an individual staff member for each role, but all the roles need a dedicated, highly skilled person at the helm.
Patient Acquisition
Wait, isn’t this our job? We are indeed dedicated to finding high quality leads and convincing them that your practice is worth a look. But what happens after they send that email or make that call is hugely dependent on how your office handles leads. We have seen clients who treat online leads as “tirekickers” and we have seen clients who treat every single lead as a precious baby bird. Guess which ones have grown the most over time?
Customer Service
Offering excellent service is only the baseline. You have to deliver results. But you also have to manage patient perceptions at every step. We help you do that in the online space, making sure every touchpoint a potential patient may come across accurately and convincingly represents what you do. But there’s so much more. How a patient feels when walking in your door the first time. The vibe your office staff gives off. Heck, even things like how clean the parking lot outside your building is can impact patient perception. Every single thing that might please or miff a patient deserves a regular look.
Branding
Hopefully you have been a key part in defining your own brand and ensuring the service you provide lives up to it. But surgeons have a pretty busy schedule doing, ya know, surgery, and keeping an eye on all your brand touchpoints is probably not the first priority. A brand champion keeps an eye on your online and offline marketing collateral, in-office signage, logos, and other obvious branding materials. They can and should also develop style guides and be involved in how brand messaging gets integrated in all patient communications.
Social Media
We talked before about who the only way to be authentic on social media is to have someone within your practice who can live and breathe it. We can and do help with creative content, but someone inside your practice who can show the human side will make all the difference. If you already have someone on staff who can fulfill this role, great! If not, ask your staff if they have family members or acquaintances who might be able to spend a day or two each week at the office for a bit as a “consultant” to teach about where the social media content opportunities are. You might also want to consider a “social media intern” from a local college or university.
Vendor Relations
We put this one last but it can make a big difference. Having strong relationships with vendors can pay off handsomely in terms of getting special deals, getting priority service when you really need something, and simply having one more team who’s looking out for your success. Think of your vendors as an extended team to help with your success, not just run-of-the-mill contractors.
How to Find Top Talent
Now for the really tricky part. If you have gaps in the roles above, how do you fill them? This is particularly challenging in a tight labor market where it can easily seem like all good guys and gals are already taken. What we’ve found works best is finding staff members through networking. Sure, a “person off the street” might have the qualifications and might work out fine, but the training a person needs to really “get it” in the aesthetic space can be considerable.
Word of mouth often is best, but online job sites can have their place. Whatever method you use, make sure to clearly define the roles you need, and be flexible about how they get filled. It’s a needle in a haystack finding one person with the skills to manage all these tasks successfully. If you find someone with experience in a few of the areas, and a willingness to learn, we’d encourage you to jump at the opportunity!