When you ‘deliver’ your path/lab resultsdo your clients go “Wow” or do nothing.It’s easy and inexpensive to create a “Wow”and to stand out from the crowd.Read on………
Click Here to listen to the PodcastSee below to read the TranscriptionEnjoy
Warmly
DiederikTRANSCRIPTION:Ringing Clients
Hey, it’s Diederik here. Michele and I came out to Melbourne today for the third of the three-part Mastermind group that I’m running this year, and just a heads up, I’m running the mastermind group again next year. If you want to join, send me a request, then we can have a chat, and we’ll see whether you fit in with the group. You’ll get a massive amount of value for it, out of that group.
What I wanted to talk to you about today was that while we were driving to the airport (as you know I just purchased a practice and got back in the game and took over on the 18th of May), and while we were driving to the airport, I rang up four of my clients who I did bloods and biopsies on their pets yesterday, and the results came through to me overnight and on the way to the airport I rang them up to talk to them about their results. This was at 7-8 in the morning
Each of the four of them said, “Oh, wow! Fantastic. Thank you for ringing, you really care.”
Now, this contacting the clients and giving them their results is something I’ve been banging on about for a long time, and that’s what I want to talk about today.
In most practices, the client is asked to ring in; “Oh, look, the results will be through tomorrow. Give us a ring and we’ll have a talk to you about it.”
Well, two things about that: number one, they’ll ring in at the wrong time and they won’t be able to talk to you or they’ll stuff your day up because you’re in consult or on surgery or whatever, and then….. this phone tag thing happening.
When you ring them first, you know, this will fit in with your day, and I rang some of these clients up at 6 & 7 o’clock this morning, and I checked in with them yesterday. I said, “What time can I ring you tomorrow,,,,
I said to them, “What time can I can I ring with these results because I will be driving to the airport and I want to give them to you – and I start at 5am – so what time works best for you?”
And they all “We start at (whatever time it is), you can ring us as early as you like.”
That was a real ‘Wow’ to them for me to ring them, for me to make a special time on my way to the airport when I was obviously doing other things, so they really appreciated that. You’ll get that same response as well.
Number one, they’re not stuffing up your day and ringing at the wrong time with your schedule.
The second thing is they feel that you care because you’re ringing them.
As I said, I’ve been talking about this specific topic for quite a while, and it was brought home to me about 12 years ago when Robert Cialdini, or Bob Cialdini—whatever you want to call him—he’s the guy that wrote the book ‘Influence: the six laws of persuasion,’ he wrote another book called ‘Yes’.
And in that book, they did studies on doctors and psychiatrists and other professionals.
And they looked at the perceived value of various ‘results’ to patients.
These doctors were running tests on these people, and then the results came through and then the doctors were divided into a number of groups with respevt to HOW they delivered those results to the client/patient.
- One group, the client was asked to ring in, or the doctor rang the client; what was the perception of value in that how did the client feel about that?
- The second group, the results were faxed to that client, and yes, I did say faxed. As I said, it was 10 or 12 years ago.
- The third group, the results were mailed in the mail just as they came off the doctor’s fax machine, the plain black and white.
- And the fourth group, the results were annotated in a different colour pen, so it’s the same fax that came from the lab, and then the doctor or someone on the staff had written personalized comments on that fax in a colour that was different to the fax—so, obviously red or green or something like that (faxes being black and white).
And then in all cases, the clients were polled or surveyed with respect to what delivery method gave them the most perception of value.
And as you can understand, the ones that were mailed and which were personally commentated on by the doctor had a much higher perception of value to the client/patient.
In all cases the doctors DID talk to the client on the phone as well.
The first one was talking only, and the last one was the talking plus the mailed version of the hand annotated results.
Which clients were ‘happiest’?
Well, the clients that had the conversation and got the letter in the mail with all the personalized results on them, they were way, way, way, way, way happier.
So, – my inner circle clients now deliver their results via phone and they emailed those results to them plus they get a hand-annotated copy in the mail as well – covering all bases.
Let me just give you a little bit of a summary that I’ve created of this.
With this study, when you look at perception of value, which of those four results were most valuable?
It was this one over here, the mailed copy, plus the hand annotated copy.
The client said that they would have been prepared to pay a lot more for that result, than for this result, which was the phone result only.
Okay. I’m not saying you should or you shouldn’t, but you can charge more for this one.
The client, there’s a lot more in it for the client, and as well as that there is the matter of ‘believability’ of results.
The clients/patients also polled or checked on how believable these four results were.
Well the phone only result, phone delivered result, was the most tenuous and the least believable in the client’s mind, whereas the mailed hand annotated one had the most believability, liability, credibility in the mind of the client.
I know they’re the same four results, but think of it from your own perspective. If you’ve received a phone call with the result on your car service or tyres or repairs needed or you’ve got a written little personal letter about the plumbing in your house or all the repairs that need to be done to your roof or whatever versus just a phone ‘quote’, which one is going to be more believable to you?
We’ve got perception of value, we’ve got believability and now the third thing was ‘nothing to hide’.
When you give the results physically in some way shape or form, rather than just on the phone, it shows that you’ve got nothing to hide.
That’s all out of this study, and now I’ve added two extra things in from my personal perspective.
I’ve got a lot of coaching clients who we transition to this type of method for ‘delivering path/lab’ results.
We have them going from just talking about the results on the phone to talking the results through on the phone and delivering information this way, and then we check in with clients and we do focus groups and also personal discussions with the clients.
We get a lot of valuable information out of this, and two of the things that I get out of it are;
- It’s courteous; that doctor, that veterinarian is regarded as being a lot more courteous when they make that phone call and when they send those results than if the client has to ring in or if there’s only just the phone call.
- And then, the last thing which is really important to me is it’s a point of difference, it’s a huge point of difference. We’re always looking to do—we’re not trying to do anything better than any other practice, that’s terribly wrong. We’re never trying to be better than anyone else, that’s setting yourself up for a really big fall. What we’re always trying to do is just be a little bit different. It may be a dozen or twenty or thirty different ways, and at the end of the day, that creates a huge slew of clients coming your way because they like that little bit of difference, they like that those personalized touches.
Have a look at the way that you’re delivering your histo-results, your preoperative screens, your senior screens, and your general routine illness screens and ‘results’ in general even…
How are you delivering them to your clients? Is there a way in which you could simply and easily and more effectively ‘wow’ your clients and then have them talking about you?
Just imagine, if they have the blood results, you know, sitting there on their lounge room table and the whole family could have a chat about them.