Trust is a key factor in acquiring new patients for your practice. If people don’t trust you – they won’t schedule an appointment with you – it’s just that simple. One of the problems with the typical chiropractic business building systems being sold to chiropractors is they seem to ignore this basic premise.
There’s no doubt that patient referrals are perhaps the most powerful practice building tool available to chiropractors. The reason patient referrals are such a powerful practice building tool is that patient referrals leverage trust to inspire action.
The first level of trust which is at play in the patient referral is the trusting relationship established between you and the existing patient. You have a lot of control here – so this part is relatively “easy” for a chiropractor manage. You simply provide top quality chiropractic care while providing basic education for your patient. However, there is a second level of “trust” at play in the patient referral – one over which you – the chiropractor – have absolutely no control.
The second level of trust which is at play in the patient referral process is the trust between the patient and others. While you must earn each patient’s trust – you have no control over how much trust each patient has earned with friends and family. That patient has their own relationships – and his/her credibility is the key element in whether or not he/she is able to “pass” their trust in you to others a.k.a. provide patient referrals for your practice.
Honestly – this is most often the point where the patient referral system “breaks down”. The patient – for whatever reason – either isn’t telling family and friends OR hasn’t established enough trust with family and friends for his/her referral to have any value.
In a perfect world, every patient would be not only willing but able to provide all the patient referrals you would ever want or need to fill your practice. However, it’s not a perfect world and only a few of your current patients have the connections and the ability to truly grow your practice through patient referrals.
This is why actively marketing your practice to reach new and prospective patients is essential for any chiropractic practice. In order to get prospective patients to schedule an appointment with your office you’re going to have to work at building trust with them.
How to build trust with prospective patients
Building trusting relationships takes time.
This is an important fact to keep in mind as you think about creating any marketing communication designed to build trust with prospective patients. The only “shortcut” to a lengthy trust building process via the existing patient referral.
When it comes to spreading the word about your practice – remember the old marketing adage – that it takes 8-13 exposures to your marketing message before it makes an impression on the target consumer. What that means is that a prospective patient has to see/hear your advertisement on average 8-13 times before it even BEGINS to register. So if you’re running an ad on the radio – and you’re sick to death of hearing it – remember – it has just begun to make an “impression” with your target audience.
Traditional advertising helps accelerate building trusting relationships.
Advertising – either on the radio, in the newspaper, on television or via the local cinema – all do a great job of laying a furn foundation for building trust. There’s just something about committing to placing your message in a local media on a regular basis that plays a pivotal role in building trust with prospective patients you don’t know and your current patients don’t know. Keep the point above in mind when advertising your practice though – about the time you’re sick of your ad – it’s just starting to make an impression with the masses.
Testimonials help accelerate building trusting relationships.
Patient testimonials work best when prospective patients know and recognize the patients you feature in your testimonials. However, getting patients to write testimonials can be difficult. I encouraged one of my clients to bring his camcorder to work. When he was done seeing his patients, he asked if he could record them giving a brief testimonials. Of course, some said no – but many said yes – and he uses those powerful videos on his website – to help build trust with people in his community that he hasn’t met yet.
Blogging can help accelerate building trusting relationships.
I recently had a conversation with a client who thought that the “magic” blogging held for her business was to get it to the #1 organic search position in Google when someone searched for her by name. Her blog did exactly that – but it wasn’t until she began blogging for her practice with the idea of building trust with prospective patients in mind that her blog really began “working” at building her practice.
The “magic” of blogging lies in how easy blogs make it to publish content to the web. It’s only when you share your experience and expertise on your will you see what a powerful practice building tool a blog can be.
Start sharing your expertise on your blog on a regular basis and you might be surprised how quickly you can build trust with prospective patients.
Facebook helps accelerate building trusting relationships.
Recent studies have shown that regular Facebook users are more trusting of the recommendations offered to them by their friends and connections on the popular social networking device.
Create a Facebook page for your chiropractic practice and start communicating with patients and prospective patients alike there.
Not only does Facebook help to build trust – but having a Facebook Page makes it EASY for your patients to “share” you there.
Keep in mind as you create marketing messages for your practice – they need to answer the question swimming in every prospective patient’s head – “Can I trust you?”
