Many practices are losing out on new patients because they don’t have the staff or a system to follow up with leads in a timely fashion.
So a lead goes to your website and they complete your online form.
What happens next? For most businesses, the lead shows up as an email in your company general email inbox. But how often is someone checking that inbox for leads?
If you are not following up with a lead within 5 minutes or less, you are missing out on new business. Did you know that 50% of leads go with the vendor that responds first? After 5 minutes, the odds of qualifying a lead drop by 80%. Just having the ability to respond to a lead within 5 minutes could transform your practice.
But how do you follow up with leads in 5 minutes or less? The answer is follow-up automation. Not only will follow-up automation improve your sales process but help you convert more leads into sales. Follow-up automation uses a combination of email, text, and voicemail messages to contact leads immediately to give you the best chance at converting that lead into an appointment. And communication with a lead can continue throughout the process, from scheduling an appointment to appointment reminders to Google reviews after their visit.
With follow-up automation, the minute a prospect completes the form, they can receive an automated reply by email, text, or phone. At the same time, your staff can be notified by email and/or text to make them aware of the lead.
Now that is just one use case. Let’s look at another.
How good are you at closing sales? Well, the average close rate in the US is 19%. That means 4 out of 5 leads are not buying from you.
When they say NO, it doesn’t mean NO forever, it just means NO for right now. Follow-up automation is a great way to reactivate dead leads.
Let me show you. This text message is being sent automatically to a dead lead.
The minute the lead replies, your sales rep is notified and can reply back. In this example, we discover that scheduling was the lead’s concern. As soon as the sales rep helps address it, the lead is ready to move forward.
Learning why someone didn’t choose you, is an opportunity to not only turn that NO into a YES but learn how you can improve your business moving forward.
Here’s another use case.
Before anyone makes a buying decision today they look for customer reviews on Google. Do you have a system in place to get Google reviews?
Let me show you how easy it is to get them. Using follow-up automation, we can send a text message to see how their treatment went.
Once they reply, your staff is notified. If the client gives a positive response, you can then send another automation for them to give you a Google review. If they give a negative response, you now know there is an issue and can correct it immediately by having a staff member give them a call.
The average open rate for email is 18%. That means that 82% of the people are not reading your emails. The average open rate for text is 99%. One of the best use cases for follow up automation is text messaging also known as SMS marketing.
The benefits of follow-up automation include:
- Email, text, and voicemail messaging
- A mobile platform to manage communication with patients from their smartphone
- Ability to monitor all communications including text, email, and phone calls
- Unique phone numbers so you are no longer using your personal number for texting
- Improve online reputation with the ability to request and respond to Google reviews
- Use to offer past patients additional services and increase patient lifetime value
- Automating appointments, getting online reviews, patient referrals, and more
Most digital agencies only provide their clients with leads and leave it to you to do the follow-up. If you hire someone for lead generation, make sure they do follow-up automation as well.
Click here to learn more about follow-up automation.
If you would like to find out how you can add follow-up automation to your business, text or call Social Proof at (914) 825-6656 and see how quickly we respond.
