As the sun rises in the morning, you're ready for a usual day filled with customers from the moment your practice opens, until it closes. As you skim your clipboard to plan your day, you begin to notice big white gaps between a scanty amount of customers for the day. In fact, the apointment schedule for the entire week looks rather free. Where are all of your customers? Most likely, your customers are losing interest in your practice and it's time to step your optical dispensing marketing game up. 

Optical Dispensing: 5 Ways to Guarantee Loyal Customers

An Easy to Find & Easy to Use Website:

No matter the size of your eye care practice, having an online presence is key to keeping your practice from being forgotten. Technology is defining the future more than ever nowadays, and without a website, your practice will continue to sit in a corner and eat dust. However, buying a domain and filling up pages with content is just the beginning towards having a successful site. Here are some other tips to keep in mind:

• Have Clear Content: While you may think it's easy to understand what you're saying, it may not be as clear to customers visiting your webpage. In order to establish credibility and trust amongst your customers, it's important to have friendly and easy to read web content.

• Easy Navigation: If your content is easy to read, but your webpage is a cluster of confusion for the viewers, then it's likely that your customers are not going to spend their time trying to browse through the webpage. So it's important that the moment a customer gets to a website, they can get to where they want to go in just a few clicks.

• SEO: Now that you've gotten the basics of maintaining your webpage, it's time to turn it up a notch and dive into the pool of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO will help ensure that your website is displayed before your competitors when a potential customer is searching for eye care practices online. Constantly updating your webpage with proper keywords will help to keep your page on top of the market. SEO could be the fine line between making an appointment, and losing a customer.

Engagement on Social Media:

Many medical practices shy away from expressing themselves on social media. But, social media is one of the major forms of communication today, and without letting the personality of your practice and staff shine from outlets like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIN, you're holding yourself back from meaningful engagement with current and future customers. So don't be afraid to express your practice online!

• Remember Your Reputation: It's important to know the boundaries of expressing yourself. In a world of digital voice, anyone has the freedom to speak as one wishes through social media. So it's crucial to make sure you maintain a positive reputation not only off the web, but also on the web. Any negative comment about your practice can hold the risk of losing a customer. If you are recieving negative online comments, it's important that you respond back
  to the concerns and don't just delete them. Maintaining positive
  professionalism is key. 

Orders that are Delivered Quick:

If you're still placing orders on fax machines and making phone calls, then it's no surprise your customers might be leaving you. You're stuck in the old era of doing things, and have not hopped on to the new advances of technology. Adopting an online lab ordering service helps ensure that orders are returned to your patients 1-2 days sooner than fax and phone orders. Now that's the sweet smell of satisfaction that'll get customers lined up at your practice. Apart from quicker deliveries, online orders have automatic error checking that helps save the time of resending an incorrect order.

A Passionate Staff:

You can have the latest technology and up to date website, but your patients will always be your most important resource. What they say about your practice can make or break its reputation. So how can you make sure your client has the best experience possible? With passionate customer service. Making sure you have staff that is willing to take in a patient's insight and recieve constructive criticism is important. According to MarketingProfs, 75% of customers will tell friends and family about a bad experience compared to only 42% recommending a product or service based on a positive experience. So, if you're looking for just one thing to improve your practice's standards, our advice is: have a passionate staff.

Want to learn more about boosting your practice effiency? Take a closer look at our Ebook and learn how you can make these simple changes!