How your business can close the gaps between the healthcare marketing moments of truth

Every business has its moments of truth with customers and prospects. Moments during which your staff can make or break your relationships with your prospects and customers. These are the things we tend to focus the most on. We develop processes and systems, as well as training our people to follow these processes and systems. Sometimes, we measure results like conversion rates between the healthcare marketing moments and do things like measure the absolute totals inside each moment.

“This is the time in which prospects and customers are alone to think, to doubt, to experience anxiety and remorse about their purchase decisions. This is when they start seeking evidence to justify their fear. This is when concerned friends and family are most prone to be overly-protective and raise unfounded doubts. This is the healthcare marketing white whitespace.”

Moments, in the healthcare sales and marketing context may include

  • When your prospect enquires. This is the initial phone call that must be performed to perfection as often as possible. Telephone sales training for this moment of truth is essential to maintain good conversion rates.
  • When your prospect books an appointment. This is the result of that very well handled telephone call.
  • When your prospect attends their appointment. This is when the consultation must be performed with mastery. Consultation skills and teamwork training is necessary for this moment to excel.
  • When your client has their treatment. This is when your customer service has to shine. In these cases, we recommend customer service training.
  • When your client is discharged. This may be a year after a treatment in some cases, often less, sometimes indefinite.

But what about the healthcare marketing white space?

The white space is the space in between those moments, which arguably carry even more risk. This is the time in which prospects and customers are alone to think, to doubt, to experience anxiety and remorse about their purchase decisions. This is when they start seeking evidence to justify their fear. This is when concerned friends and family are most prone to be overly-protective and raise unfounded doubts. This is the white space.

So what are the white spaces between the healthcare marketing moments of truth?

The white space between your healthcare marketing moments of truth.

How can you close the gaps?

The image above shows some of the key training areas you may want to consider in order to close the gaps in your white spaces.

The space between Enquiry and Appointment booked

You will know, that prospects need to be followed up after their first enquiry in order to maximise conversion rates. For some prospects, seminars are an excellent alternative to the imagined higher commitment involved in booking a consultation.

The space between Appointment booked and Appointment held

Is your appointment confirmation process airtight? Do you conduct courtesy appointment reminder calls? Of course, you will inevitable receive calls from prospects who want to cancel. Are you prepared? Can you pre-empt or handle buyer’s remorse? Do you have their details at a glance? Are you able to save those vital appointments?

The space between Appointment held and Treatment held

Sometimes, even after we’ve held spectacularly great first appointments, prospects still get cold. Often, this is a result of them speaking with friends or family members that may influence them to break their commitments. These are tough cases to deal with, but conducting courtesy check in calls and knowing how to deal with the inevitable cancellations, without pressurising them, is essential for success.

The space between Treatment held and Discharge

Often, this is the most overlooked white space from a sales or customer perspective. Often, we think the patients are now in the hands of the clinicians, so we can wash our hands of them. In fact, patients like to see the first people they interacted with throughout the process for the sake of continuity. Further, we have a great opportunity to get testimonials in the first three months post treatment, when patients are most talkative about their results. Lastly, we have a whole year to be in contact with the patient, to remind them of their positive choice, and to stimulate referrals through face to face post-op visits, follow up calls, patient events, and anniversary reminder cards or emails.

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Meet our Co-Founders

We’re passionate about helping leaders of high-quality, growth-minded practice owners double their practice revenue

Rod Solar

Founder & Scalable Business Advisor

For over 20 years, I’ve helped ophthalmology entrepreneurs scale their private practices. I specialise in doubling revenue within three years by offering a proven framework, hands-on experience, and a team of experts who implement what works. We take the guesswork out of growth and scale, so you can focus on delivering exceptional patient care while maximising the value of your business.

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LiveseySolar completely transformed the way we were approaching this… We’ve gone from having just the dream of having a practice to having a practice up and running with people making inquiries and booking for procedures… It’s extremely pleasing. We feel lucky we connected with LiveseySolar.

— Dr Matthew Russell, MBChB, FRANZCO, specialist ophthalmic surgeon and founder of VSON and OKKO

Laura Livesey

Founder & CEO

I’m the co-founder & CEO of LiveseySolar. I’ve developed powerful eye surgery marketing systems that increase patient volumes and profits for doctors, clinics, and hospitals, since 1997.

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Rod and Laura know as much about marketing surgery to patients as I know about performing it. They are an expert in the field of laser eye surgery marketing. They know this industry inside out. I believe that they could help many companies in a variety of areas including marketing materials, sales training and marketing support for doctors.

— Prof. Dan Reinstein, MD MA FRSC DABO, founder of the London Vision Clinic, UK