Sending Follow Up Emails to Build Patient Loyalty

06/05/19 | by Terrnekia Collier | Email Marketing

So, your appointment went great with your patient and you’re already anticipating that they’ll book their next visit. But wouldn’t it be great if you had a surefire way to get them to come back to your office?

Sending follow up emails as part of your email marketing strategy is the perfect way to help build patient loyalty and get your patients to book another appointment.

According to Smile.io, repeat customers are responsible for generating 40% of your revenue.

That’s almost half! This means that maintaining good patient relationship management is key to repeat visits and making your business as successful as possible.

There are so many different types of emails that you can send to patients that will keep them coming back to see you for years to come.

Of course, this relationship isn’t something that will form overnight. You have to gradually build a relationship with your patients and gain their trust so they know they can come to you should they require any of your services.

This is where email marketing comes into play. Here are 6 tips to help you create the best email marketing strategy and encourage your patients to book another visit.

Decide How and When.

Before you even begin sending out emails to your patients, you must formulate a concrete email marketing plan. When in the planning stage, you need to decide how many emails you will be sending out and when.

For example, if your patient completes their appointment and leaves your office without making another one, are you going to send them an email reminding them to do so? If so, how soon after they leave will you be sending it? How often will you follow up?

Three to five days after the patient’s visit should be a sufficient amount of time to then send them a follow up email. However, it’s ultimately you and your staff should decide when it’s best to reach out to your patients.

Now to the how. Whenever you or your staff send out an email, it shouldn’t involve you sitting at a computer, writing up the email and sending it to everyone you know. That’s far too time-consuming when your time can be spent focusing on your patients.

Luckily, there are plenty of email marketing services out there that will do it for you and take a load off of your office workers. You can easily automate all your emails, track your stats (like open rate), and send higher quality communications to your patients.

Send Friendly Reminders.

After your patient has left your office and they’ve booked with you again, you don’t want them to forget about it, right? Right! So, this is your opportunity to remind them that they have another appointment soon.

Appointment reminders are absolutely necessary in your email marketing strategy in order to retain patients. These emails can be used to either tell your patients not to forget about scheduling their next visit or a reminder for their already existing appointment.

Once they’ve made one with your staff in the office, then you want to make sure that they arrive for that as well.

Offer Rewards.

If a patient has visited your office multiple times and becomes a reliable client, offering them incentives through email is a great way to encourage them to continue to continue to be a patron at your business. Plus, it can help attract more business!

Let’s say you own a chiropractic office and they’ve already had five appointments with you, so you send them an email for thirty percent off their next visit. This is a plus for both you and your patient because they receive a discount and you book another appointment.

You could also incentivize them with rewards when they refer someone to you. If they tell friends and family to come to your business, offer them a gift for attracting more patients to your office. They’ve helped you build your patient list, so it would be nice to shoot them an email for a gift card or any other reward you decide to send them.

When someone has been a loyal patient for a long time, it’s important that they know you appreciate their business and decision to continue visiting your office.

Encourage Reviews.

According to Inc., 84% of people trust online reviews. That is an enormous chunk of people who are searching for businesses on the web and considering whether or not they should use their products and services based on a review.

If your business doesn’t have any, it might deter people because they don’t have any information from others who have come into your office and tell of their experiences. This is why you should be asking your new and longtime patients to write reviews online.

You want people to know that you’re office provides amazing products and services to their patients every time they step foot in your office.

But how can they know that with little to no reviews? Take time to send your happy patients an email asking if they could possibly leave a review about their experience.

It’s simple. They can go online and rate your practice and write a small paragraph about what they liked about visiting you r practice. Most patients would be happy to write one for you, but you may have to ask.

The email could be short and sweet. For example, “Thank you for your recent visit with us. We thank you for your business and value you as a patient. Customer satisfaction is important to our office and we would love if you could take a few minutes to leave us some feedback about your visit.” Then, include a link to leave a review on your preferred platform, such as Google or Yelp.

Remember not to come off as pushy or needy. Just simply ask for their feedback and avoid a lengthy email.

Newsletters or Blog Posts.

If you’ve recently added new content to your website, you obviously want as many people as possible to read it. So why not send out an email encouraging patients to read them! You can send them a monthly email about a new blog post or online newsletter that went live.

When formulating these emails, be sure to write them in a way that captures your reader’s attention and makes them want to continue reading. You’re sending these out to a certain audience because you know your content is useful or interesting to them. All they have to do is be intrigued enough to open them.

Email Marketing.

Now that you’ve got some great tips on what to include in your email marketing strategy, it’s time to get started. If you want to build patient loyalty, your communication with them shouldn’t stop once they leave the office.

They want to know that you’re thinking of them and that you appreciate them remaining loyal and booking appointments with you.

Every time you send an email, remember to always be professional and don’t spam your clients. Email marketing is an easy and a great way to maintain good patient relationship management, so hop to it!