Set A Goal & Communicate to Your Team:
A healthy baseline is 50-60% of new patients coming from patient referrals vs marketing
- How long is your campaign
- Where are your new patients currently coming from (%)? Add 10% min.
- Is your goal achievable but also competitive?
- Involve your team as much as possible
- Who will be your ring leader & biggest cheerleader?
- How will your office track progress?
- What are the trackable KPIs?
- How will announcements be communicated?
- How will wins be celebrated?
Who Should You Ask For A Referral?
- Ask your happy patients, not the stressed or angry ones.
- Patients who openly rave about the practice, they are loyal
- Interactive, chatty and helpful patients
- Patients that talk about their family
When Should You Ask For A Referral?
- After treatment is completed and the patient is pleased and happy!
- After a patient compliments a team member or practice
- “Thank you! That means so much to us. We love having great patients like yourself! Do you have any friends or family that would love us too? Let’s get them in!”
- When a patient is checking out & they mention they had a great visit
- “I am so glad to hear you had a great experience today! We would love to have more patients like yourself. Who do you know that is in need of dental services that we can bring in?”
- During a Hygiene visit when the patient is raving about your office
How: Make it a part of your daily routine:
- Assign patients to your team during morning huddle- make it fun
- All team members should be asking for referrals- Especially if they are raving fans!
- Document every patient that a referral is requested from, more importantly, documenting in both the existing patient’s and new patient’s chart when a referral comes in.
Make it easy:
- Hand out a card at checkout with a QR code to book an appointment
- Send a link in a text message to direct prospective referrals to your website to call or book an appointment: be sure to ask who you can thank for their referral
- Give a big welcome & thank you they arrive at their appointment
- Send a handwritten thank you to the existing patient for the referral
Incentivize Your Patients:
- Donate $5 for every online review and $10 for every referral that comes in to a non-profit and let your patients know
- Offer a “refer a friend or family member” discount card. Incentivize both the existing patient and the new patient
- Offer complimentary exam and x-rays for new referrals and a discount off future services for the existing patient that referred them
Motivate Your Team:
- Reward the team when goals are met
- Each team member gets a gift card
- Team lunch
- Extra PTO or a day off
- Seasonal gift package
- Gift card to a bicycle shop, BBQ equipment, Airline voucher, tickets to a concert/show/sporting event, spa package, gift card for an overnight hotel stay with meal package
- Draw a card (Interactive)
- Aces = $50
- Joker = $25
- Face Cards = $20
- Numbered Cards = $ card value
- Review daily schedule and assign patients to team members
- Know your competition and share with the team: Use morning huddle as a great way to shout out new referrals that have scheduled an appointment
Tip: This program does not work unless your entire team is excited & bought in. Most importantly, your patient experience must be nothing short of exceptional.
{remember to stay compliant & legal}
