4 Easy Ways to Increase Patient Retention This Month

Which do you think is more important: getting new patients or retaining old patients?

You need both to maintain a healthy practice, but in my opinion, you should focus on patient retention.

That’s because the best marketing strategy ever is CARE.

When you build your practice around the patient care experience, you will have a high retention rate and set yourself up for sustainable growth. And if you do it right, you’ll get plenty of referrals so new patients can discover what makes you great.

Here are some of the ways that I make sure a stellar patient experience keeps my patients coming back and bringing friends with them:

1. Be Easy to Find

You don’t have to be a marketing whiz or SEO expert to be easily found online.

I call myself the affordable chiropractor in my town and I’ve set up Google My Business, so anytime someone Googles “affordable chiropractor Georgetown”, two things happen.

First, you’ll see a map pop up of my location, and you’ll see my business underneath.
Second, you’ll find a link to my website in the listing below. When you get to my link, the preview text shows my address says my office is nestled between a Taco Bell and an Auto Zone. This little trick helps people find me right away when they visit.

I also keep my website very simple. One page is really all you need to communicate your hours, location, contact information, and affordable price. Patients love it because they can find what they need quickly.

Below are links to a couple of my Future Chiro student’s sites, so you can see how they made simple sites work for their practices.

Hutto’s Affordable Chiropractor
Just Chiropractic

2. Be Easy to See

Patients love the ability to walk in whenever they need to get adjusted.
The fact that I don’t take appointments or phone calls makes that easy to manage. I open my doors at 9a and see patients steadily throughout the day until I close at 5p. There’s hardly a wait more than 10 minutes long, so it’s convenient for everyone.

This is also what makes me different from most other chiropractors out there – and a reason patients come back to see me.

3. Be Easy to Approach

Since I run my practice completely by myself, it’s critical that I’m easy to approach. This starts before patients even see me. It starts in the waiting room.

I make sure to have clear (and funny) signage when people walk into my building that directs them to enter the waiting room, sign themselves in, and have a seat until I can see them.

One of the easiest ways you can improve your patient experience is to put yourself in their shoes and sit in your own waiting room. Assess how inviting and intuitive it is to find what you need, and adjust to make it reflect the environment you create in person.

4. Be Easy to Refer

Word of mouth is your biggest marketing tool.

When patients love their experience, you retain them. And when you retain, they refer.

I attract patients with an affordable rate and a walk-in policy, but they come back because I relieve their pain with full adjustments and treat them like family every time they visit.

Think about what your WOW factor is, and let that be the lifeblood that runs through your practice. Patients will remember you for it and refer their community so they can experience you too.