Journal of Aesthetic Nursing - The secret to achieving great referral rates: five-star service

Abstract

Useful as they may be in acquiring new patients for your clinic, marketing campaigns can be expensive and time consuming. Ultimately, the ideal scenario for most aesthetic practitioners would be a system whereby satisfied patients recommend you to their friends. In this article, Harry Singh explores the key to increasing your referral rates, by giving your patients something to tell their friends about

‘We've been asked by a lot of people how we've grown so quickly, and the answer is really simple … we've aligned the entire organisation around one mission: to provide the best customer service possible. Internally, we call this our WOW philosophy.’ (Tony Hsieh, Zappos)

There are three simple rules I live by that will encourage referrals from your existing patients:

Rule 1: if you deliver what patients expect, they will return as regular patients

Rule 2: if you deliver less than what the patient expects, they will go elsewhere

Rule 3: if you deliver more than the patient expects, they will return, and will also tell their family and friends about your service.

Before we consider developing a systemised new referral process, it goes without saying that you need to have excellent clinical skills in facial aesthetics as a starting point. You need to deliver the ‘Wow’ service, achieve exceptional results and leave the patient in a better place than they started. All of this, combined with the right culture and environment, will result in referrals.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, once described great customer service as follows: ‘We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better’ (Greathouse, 2013).

Relating this to aesthetics, our patients have expectations—more so today than ever before thanks to the fast-paced information age we live in, courtesy of the internet. At the very least we need to meet, if not exceed, those expectations to keep patients happy and coming back to us.

Practice management guru Roger Levin calls this the ‘Wow’ experience, and it is a great rule of thumb. Are your customer service and the treatments you offer likely to elicit a ‘Wow’ from your patients? Do they make you say ‘Wow’? If not, you're not there yet and, like Jeff Bezos, you need to look at making the customer experience as good as it possibly can be.

Exceptional customer service is basic human courtesy—it is as simple as that. It is essential that you have a sincere interest in and care for the person you are serving. Patients enjoy buying from happy people, and happy team members are more productive and committed to the business.

» Patients will judge us on how we make them feel, how we treat them, what the results are and how we deliver that result «

Patients will judge us on how we make them feel, how we treat them, what the results are and how we deliver that result. To be outstanding, we need to deliver a better service than is expected and deliver it every time. Once we have raised the bar in terms of standards, patients will expect us to exceed this at every visit. The aim is to make the patient think they are the only and most important person in the practice. Just imagine the patient has a sign around their neck saying ‘Make me feel important.’ What we want isn't just a satisfied customer, but a raving fan.

We can never be 100% better than our competitors, but we can be 1% better in 100 different ways. It's showtime, your team are the actors, and the patient is like a baton in a relay race—every player in your team has a responsibility to avoid dropping the baton. We want the patient to leave the practice feeling like they have received the very best service available anywhere. Everyone enjoys VIP, five-star customer service.

Follow the ‘10 foot’ rule: if a patient is within 10 feet, acknowledge them, smile, speak, shake hands. One of the deepest urges in humans is the desire to be important, to be appreciated and to be noticed. This will help you to create an environment in which your patients feel not only welcome, but valued and cared about.

So what might help you to get your patients saying ‘Wow’? There are many possibilities, including, but not limited to:

A great telephone manner and a warm welcome when a patient walks through the door

Showing the patient that you remember them from last time by making relevant small talk (make a note of pertinent information, such as their child starting school in September, to remind you to ask them about it next time you see them)

Making time for personalised patient education and inviting questions

Ethically recommending products that you feel will be of benefit, irrespective of whether or not you sell them in practice. A lot of practitioners feel uncomfortable about this, but there is such a wide range of products out there that patients are often grateful to be pointed in the right direction

Doing something out of the ordinary, such as sending a card on their birthday

If a patient refers someone to you, acknowledge it in some way, such as calling them to thank them

Post-treatment phone calls by the clinical staff. This will only take a few minutes, but the upside is huge

Make a note of your patients' music preferences so you can select an appropriate playlist for them when they come in for a procedure

Provide fresh strawberries in reception

Spend time with the patient to reassure them and build rapport

Provide patients with a free post-treatment kit. These can easily be obtained from manufacturers. They cost our clinic nothing and are given to every patient after any procedure. Most patients love getting stuff for free, and it also gives you the opportunity to provide skincare recommendations at the same time

Provide a free mineral makeup session after treatment. Your patients are concerned with their appearance, so why not do a mini makeover with your mineral makeup? They are not expecting this, and you never know, they may want to purchase some of your make up range

Free neck and shoulder massage: my assistant is a qualified beautician, so while I am preparing the toxin/filler, she will give the patient a free two-minute massage, which helps to relax them and increase the quality of service provided

Three-month guarantee: for all toxin patients, our clinic offers a three-month guarantee from the day of their treatment. If they feel they need a top up or that it has worn off within three months, it will be free of charge. You may get a tiny minority of patients that abuse the system, but this is balanced by the patients who appreciate this safety net and tell their friends about it

Mates' rates: look at your non-prescription only medicine (POM) services and see how you can incentivise your patients to refer by offering a special price for any new patients they refer.

Taking steps to make your clinical environment welcoming to patients will make them feel respected and valued, and will make them more likely to recommend your services to their friends and family

These services are known as ‘critical non-essentials': they are not essential to do your job and get the results you and the patient want, but they are critical in the non-clinical aspect of your business, especially with respect to gaining more referrals.

When you and your team consistently ‘wow’ patients with attributes such as these, which show that you care and have their best interests at heart, you will exceed their expectations and win a loyal, regular visitor for the duration of your career.

Here are Zappos' 10 golden rules on how to deliver the ‘wow’ service:

Deliver wow through service

Embrace and drive change

Create fun and a little weirdness

Be adventurous, creative and open-minded

Pursue growth and learning

Build open and honest relationships with communication

Build a positive team and family spirit

Do more with less

Be passionate and determined

Be humble

Conclusion

To conclude, if you are looking to increase your referral rates, not only do you need to be providing good results, you also need to go the extra mile to deliver a service that is worth talking about. Going the extra mile to provide five-star treatment for all of your patients is absolutely worth pursuing as an investment in the future of your reputation as a business.