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Generating Patient Loyalty Dr Qian Xu explores the importance of patient loyalty and details how she believes this is best gained in a business As competition becomes fiercer in this growing specialty, the cost of acquiring new patients has risen dramatically. Since it is much cheaper to get existing patients to come back to you, it makes a lot of sense to set up patient retention schemes to try to keep your existing patients. Many clinics have such patient retention schemes, but they often involve special deals and offers for existing patients. They find themselves stuck in a price war, fearing that if they raise their prices, their patients will go elsewhere. When you are in such a price war, your business may survive for many years, but it will not thrive. It will be hard work and seem like a constant struggle, and I’m sure that it is not the reason you went into business in the first place. In my experience, there are three ways to beat your competition: be cheaper, better or different. If you don’t want to be cheaper, then you have to be better than or different to your competitors. When you are either of these, price then becomes irrelevant. I have found that this is the foundation to building customer loyalty and the secret to raising your prices to charge what you are really worth. I have built a stable referral-based business that doesn’t rely on paid advertising. Through this process, I have also gained a lot of insight into what made my patients trust me, what made them want to buy from me and what made them stay loyal to me. While traditional loyalty schemes can help bring in repeat business, without true patient loyalty, your business could suffer in the long run.
What is loyalty? Before we can start building customer loyalty, we need to first define what it actually means. According to the Oxford Dictionary, ‘loyal’ means ‘a strong feeling of support or allegiance’.1 This means a loyal patient will come to you when they need a treatment, not just when the price is right. They would make time to see you even if it is inconvenient for them. If they can’t afford your treatments, they will save up until they can afford it, rather than going to someone cheaper. During the tough times in your business, it is your loyal patients that you can count on to help you through. You can’t buy this loyalty; you must earn it.
Many clinics confuse repeat customers with loyal customers. Although repeat customers can also be loyal, they are not necessarily the same thing. How many of your ‘loyal patients’ only come in when you are running an offer? Those people are loyal to the price, not to you. The problem with running offers is that it only solves a short-term problem and it also can become addictive, as this may be when you see a significant uplift in figures. Another issue that you must consider is the Advertising Standards Agency Guidelines, which state, ‘Marketers should ensure that promotions do not encourage consumers to undergo unnecessary or unwanted interventions. Particular care should be taken when offering discounts for packages for procedures or promotional mechanics such as loyalty schemes or incentives for, for example, referring a friend’.2 Putting everything into consideration, I believe that for ultimate success, it is important to not get stuck in this cycle of offers and discounts.
What makes patients loyal? When I think of customer or patient loyalty, the technology company Apple pops into my mind. It seems like people will buy whatever they come out with, and they will buy everything. People are loyal to Apple, but why is this? In author Simon Sinek’s book, Start with Why, he talks about the golden circle with ‘Why’ in the centre, ‘How’ in the next ring, and ‘What’ in the outer ring, like a target, shown in Figure 1.3 Most businesses talk about what they do, and sometimes about how they do it, but very rarely do they talk about why they do what they do. For the aesthetics specialty specifically, everyone can talk about what treatments they do and
In my experience, there are three ways to beat your competition: be cheaper, better or different
Reproduced from Aesthetics | Volume 7/Issue 2 - January 2020
