Online reviews provide a great deal of marketing for your optometric practice. Unfortunately, many times patients only leave a review when they are unhappy. While people trust the opinion of their friends and family, some of your biggest fans may not be willing to write an online review for you. Fortunately, they may be willing to refer their friends and family to your practice through word of mouth marketing or referral programs. But how do you encourage more referrals for your optometric practice?
This post lists a few quick steps to help you capture more referrals to grow your patient count in 2018.
Tips For Getting Patient Referrals For Your Optometric Practice
Locate The Happiest Patient
Unlike online reviews, you shouldn’t ask every patient for a referral. Referrals should come from patients who trust in your ability to provide them with the best quality of care.
To find the happiest patients try:
- Sending out periodic patient satisfaction surveys to identify the patients that are the best fit for your referral program
- Making a list of loyal customers who have come back to your practice year after year
- Identifying actions that will build trust with your patient and exceed their expectations
Once you have identified who these individuals are, you can reach out to them and make the ask.
Ask
Once you have identified the ideal candidates to provide your optometric practice with a referral, you have to reach out and ask them. This may seem awkward, but if the patient is truly a good candidate, then you should not be nervous because they likely are already telling their friends about the practice.
Whether you’re asking the patient over the phone, through email, or when they are in the exam room at your office, make it clear what you’d like the referral to do. If you offer any incentives for the patient providing a referral, make sure to let them know when you ask.
Create A Referral Process
Making your referral process incredibly easy will increase the odds of your patient actually referring your optometric practice to their friends and family. For example, you can draft an email and ask them to forward it to anyone they think would be a good fit for the practice, or you can create a referral landing page with social sharing capabilities so the patient can quickly share the page on their social media accounts.
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