Even with all the great marketing tools at our disposal, its no argument that word-of-mouth referrals still have an incredibly enormous impact on the success of our practice. We can spend a pretty penny each month on the best web-based or external marketing out there but the question is, can we keep our patients happy once we get them through the door?

Today we’ll discuss the value of having a mystery shopper come into our practice and assess the entire experience from start to finish. As youre with patients in the treatment rooms, its difficult to get a sense of what the experience is like in the waiting room. Or, how pleasant or unpleasant is it when trying to schedule an appointment with you? Where there is one complaint, there is usually many more that go unheard because some people are just not as vocal. But you can be sure that when they speak to their family, friends and colleagues, they will not hold back when sharing any negative experiences they’ve had at your practice.

There is a whole range of factors that contribute to a patients experience and gaining that objective perspective from the mystery shopper can be an invaluable internal marketing tool. Youll be able to get a detailed assessment of your practice that is objective and uninhibited and you can prevent having a disgruntled patient instead of just having to put out small (or large) fires.

We can guess what areas we might need to improve such as wait times, however, guessing can cause you to spend your already limited time and money in areas that might not be the biggest priority or even an issue at all.  By having a mystery shopper come in to do a full detailed assessment of your practice, you’ll be able to see what really is going on from a perspective that you do not have.  There are many things we are not even aware of since we never experience our own practices as an outsider.  Mystery shoppers can provide an in depth evaluation of your business from the aesthetics, the service from your staff, the amenities and environment, the protocol and procedure down to the experience they have with you or any of your other physicians.  Surely this mostly likely will bring up things that are not the easiest to face, however, the benefit it provides is well worth it.

Stay tuned with us next week as we discuss how to find a mystery shopper and what areas they evaluate.

Continuing our discussion from last week, today we’ll look at how we can find a mystery shopper and what exactly they evaluate.  Again, mystery shoppers are a great way to get a detailed, objective critique of your entire business operation and see what little or big elements of your practice need working on.  They should interact with the practice in several dynamic ways in order to evaluate all types of situations and when possible, take notes or even use hidden recording devices.

Finding a mystery shopper can be very simple.  You can so much as ask someone you know to come into the office and provide you with an honest evaluation of their experience.  Of course, your staff should not know who this person is and you should choose someone who will be unbiased and thorough.  There are also companies that do extensive evaluations and tend to go more in depth as far as what they observe and the situations they present. Companies like this can provide mystery shoppers on a one-time basis or over the course of several weeks or months. With any route, the benefits will surely outweigh the costs.

What do mystery shoppers evaluate?

Everything. Their critique should include the entire experience from start to finish. Below are examples of what areas they evaluate.

• Making the appointment Mystery shoppers will take note of how quickly phones were answered, how they were greeted and spoken to, appointment availability, clarity of instructions/directions and how helpful your team was overall.  Did they feel comfortable and attended to or did they feel rushed? How long were hold times? Were they placed on hold more than once?
• Pre-appointment – Here your practice will be evaluated on protocol as well as aesthetics. Mystery shoppers will evaluate if your office was easy to find, if there was enough clear signage, if there was suitable parking and if it was handicap accessible.  They’ll pay attention to how they were greeted upon entering (if at all), how busy the waiting room was, if it was clean, the overall atmosphere, if magazines were current and neatly displayed and if there was other educational material provided. They should also critique the check-in process and their own wait times. Maybe they spent too much time filling out forms that could have been filled out prior to coming.
• Appointment – Simply put, here they will evaluate their experience with the physician and look at amount of time spent with patient, attentiveness, mindfulness, sensitivity, compassion and how knowledgeable and helpful they were. They can also observe the comfort and cleanliness of the treatment rooms. How long did they wait in the treatment room? How long did they spend with an assistant as opposed to the actual physician?
• Post-appointment – This will involve everything that follows seeing the physician including your check-out protocol. Did your team ask how everything went or were they just seeking payment? Were they asked if they wanted to schedule a follow-up and did they receive an appointment card? New patients are great, but we have to make sure we can keep them happy with us. Were they sent home with an informational new patient packet? Do they know how to leave the physician a review if they wish? And, if they made a follow-up appointment, did they receive any sort of appointment reminder? They will also observe how informative the front office was as well as if phone calls about test results, etc. were handled confidentially and in a timely manner.

There are countless other areas that we can scrutinize and improve on, but mystery shoppers offer us an honest look at the strengths and weaknesses of our practice that could largely contribute our practice’s success (or lack thereof). Confronting these areas for growth can be challenging and overwhelming, but when we are in the business of providing [health]care, customer service and satisfaction is directly correlated with our success and should not be overlooked or ignored.