Ep. 182: The Front Desk Evolution: Turning Your Front Desk into a Profit Center (Full UCA Talk)

 Hey, I Michael Ray here, and I wanna do a quick intro to this episode. So this is actually a recording from our talk. My talk actually from the UCA Dallas Convention a few weeks ago, I guess now, about over a month ago. And it's all about how to evolve your front desk beyond just a customer service type position.

And the goal of the talk was simply. I want to reshape your mind a little bit. Now, if you were there in person, listen to talk. This is a recap of that talk, so you need to skip it. You can, you can always re-listen, not, not gonna hurt my feelings. And then, uh, but if you haven't heard about that, here's the thing.

Your front desk is a huge revenue generator for your company and you may not think it that way. You may think it's just they simply as someone who answers phones and processes, people that come in. But it's so much more than that. So I really encourage you guys to take a list of this if you haven't already.

Also too, just wanna promote that. We will have a webinar in June that's all about an extension of this talk. Just like more details, more options, more scripts and all the things. So I'm really excited to have you guys listen to this and then sign up for the webinar. Uh, it's been a great time talking about, I've also had a lot of great feedback.

So really enjoy, uh, just the fact that this is something that's helpful to you guys. So please take a listen and, uh, let us know what you think. Let's go ahead and get started. Thank y'all for coming to visit and listen to my talk for the next 45 minutes. My name is Michael Ray and I am with Patient Care Marketing Pros.

So what is Patient Care Marketing Pros? We're a marketing company designed for urgent care. We're trying to get patients in your door, and I'm the VP of operations, but I've been in the marketing B2B sales world since 2011, so 14 years of this I've been working through. And what we are learning in our world is that we're pretty good about getting patients to call you.

Patients to maybe book online, but then there's a, a problem. The problem comes with the front desk and where the front desk isn't necessarily doing the part of getting them to convert to an actual patient. We see this all the time in urgent cares and this to the point now where we wanted to bring this conversation to the front and see, get some feedback from you guys and kind of show you what we're learning and what's working and what's not.

Sound good? Good.

Okay, so walking through the goals of today, so basically like we're gonna understand that we're not just doing a front desk duty type thing where I'm entering the phone or just taking in the person on the intake side of things, right? We're, I'm just doing the basics of a customer service. We're gonna go beyond that.

Now, it, it may sound like a tainted word, but we are going into a sales training mode right now. I know when people think sales, what do you think of? Used car salesman new, there's sometimes a negative side to sales, right? Well, you, I gotta change your mind on that. It's not negative. It's really just adjusting some conversation to a more proactive approach and not a passive approach.

Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. Okay. So we're gonna go through that. So, and we're gonna show that your revenue, wherever revenue you're at right now, can increase your current staff by just making some minor adjustments. I, I can almost guarantee that. We see it all the time where just making a small adjustment to one phrase can actually increase your patient volume.

It's really amazing to watch. Beyond that though, I'm actually gonna give you guys resources. So even if you, you're trying to jot down some notes, don't worry. We'll have a scan at at the end. You can scan it and you can download all the scripts I'm talking about and everything. So don't feel like you have to rush on the notes here at all today.

Uh, 'cause we wanna make sure you get all the information that we have to offer. Sound good? All right, so let's just move on through that. First question out of the gate though, because I want some feedback. Have you ever had a great customer, customer service experience and how'd it make you feel? It could be this morning, could be last week, could be years ago.

Somebody give an example of a customer service experience that you had that was just fantastic as a customer. Yep. I, healthcare related, but um, luggage company. Eight years ago got a slight crack in it and they, uh, immediately, uh, sent insulin. Oh yeah. And didn't request for me to send the open back.

Fantastic. Right. Yeah. Now your chances are you'll probably utilize that from the GetGo, like back and bought something else. Same time. Exactly. So you, there was client retention, correct? Yes. And what did they do was they identified the problem, they had a solution to your problem beyond what you thought the solution could be, and it impressed you.

So now you're a forever client. A forever patient, right? So who else? Another example. Somebody else. Don't be shy. We all, we're all customers of something, right? There's gotta be something because your mind's like, this is what's fantastic. I, I love that one. Anybody have one more? Come on. Yes. Um, just coming here, uh, my luggage was left in Salt Lakes Oh, joy.

So a little stressful, but as soon as I went up to the Delta representative. She was very kind and assured me my, my, uh, luggage be on the next flight at two o'clock, you know, or whatever time it was, and they'd get it to me. And the tracking, the person delivering it, they text you when they leave the airport.

They text you in route, they text you and they drop it off. They tell you who they sent it to. So it made the stress less Yeah. For me because, and just having the kindness and. And just feeling like you'll have to come back and get it. Or them doing, taking care of the problem. Exactly. So take that mindset, think about your front desk.

Are they taking that extra step? Right. And communicating throughout the process. So that's where I'm trying to go with that. So thinking through that. 'cause at the end of the day when you have, you're spending marketing dollars, that patient that potentially called you, or a potential patient that called you.

That costs you money and you wanna make sure they're taken care of. And so you have to go through that mindset of like, is this the most effective way of doing this? Am I just, are they just answering a phone call to answer a billing question or are you open? Like it has to go beyond that. And this, we're gonna talk.

All right, so real quick, just kind of honing in on the idea of why this is more than just answering a phone. So here's, we all know Chick-fil-A McDonald's who likes Chick-fil-A. Everybody. Everybody who likes McDonald's, ooh, lot less. But look at the revenue, right? So now you can make arguments. There's not, there's more McDonald's than our Chick-fil-A's, all these different things.

But at the end of the day, Chick-fil-A is a two to one to McDonald's per location. Probably the same amount of employees too, honestly. But when you think Chick-fil-A, you think consistency. You think customer experience, my pleasure. Right? So it's, it's, and you know you're gonna have a good time. And with McDonald's, you don't know, maybe hit or miss.

And they're trying to remove people. They're putting kiosk up and all the things, trying to remove the human side of it. And so, but at the end of the day, whether we like it or not, McDonald's and Chick-fil-A is two pieces of bread with meat in the middle. And potatoes, they're both doing the same thing.

Right? One's beef. But what this is showing though, is like, it's the experience side. It's the retention side. I'm coming back to Chick-fil-A. I have a 5-year-old. I'm going to Chick-fil-A over McDonald's 'cause I know it's gonna be a better experience for my five year-old. So that's how you gotta start thinking about everything your uh, urgent care's doing because at the end of the day, that first impression, that first human impression is your front desk.

Is a Chick-fil-A type impression or a McDonald's impression? I know some of y'all are thinking right now, eh, we're probably more at McDonald's. Why, why is that different? Why can't it be a Chick-fil-A experience every single time? It. Are you focused on that or are you just focused on the, lemme make sure we take care of the patient from a purely let we find how to help them feel better.

Well, it starts at the very beginning of the front desk. All right. So once again, going into the, the dirty word of cells, but it essentially, they are your secret sales team. So what we're going through here it is. That phone call is converting to that, that leave will be converted to a patient. And so you have to take the mindset, if a phone call's coming in, can I convert them to a patient or not?

And if you're not having that trained, they're never gonna do it. Like any anybody been in sales before? Couple of people you know. Right. If you don't have, if you don't ask, they're not gonna buy. 'cause you got, they want to buy, but you have to ask. And then that's what's happening in our urgent care space.

We have lots of situations where. They're asking like, do you take this insurance? Do you do this? And then they just answer the question, okay, thanks. And they hang up. Well, what's the point in that? 'cause you want to get them in the door, right? Because they're looking for help and you're there to help 'em.

So that's the mindset and, and what I'm trying to tie together before we go into is your, because we see it, your front desk can make or break a good month. If you are five patients a day difference between a good month and a bad month, your front desk probably has control over that. And if you're, if you don't believe that, go pull up your calls on your call on your phone system.

What does that look like? Are they actually converting? Are they just answering questions? Right? All right,

so there's just some basic stats here, like just to kinda showcase some information. One per 1% increase in retention could be equal 4% more lifetime value. That heads up over time, I don't know if you guys ever heard like that mindset of uh, be better, 1% ti at a time. It can make a huge difference. So this is where we are with that.

Um, also just looking at this big number over here on the right is 873% ROI, better patient engagement. So that's just the idea of taking a clinic and making inquiries better and utilizing some AI to kind of help along the way. We, uh, I don't think you guys have seen or heard flip AI before. The vendor here as well.

We're friends with them and they help bring up some of those stats, but like AI can definitely mix into the benefits. Okay.

All right. Now kind of set the table. Raise your hand if you're confident that your front desk person can convert leads into patients. Maybe a no which clinic. Exactly, exactly. Now let me ask you, you said which clinic? What's making the difference between clinics? Uh, patient demographic. Okay. Employee demographic, um, managers.

Do you think the managers can make an impact on that? Yes. So is it concerning that of this room, two or three people raised their hand, they think it could do it. Why is this the problem?

I mean, y'all, y'all are in charge of a lot of these people, right? That are front desk. Why is this the problem to you guys? Is this not a focus or just an assumption's? It's a fear. It's a fear. Well, tell me more. Why is it a fear when you think about the, the competition in, in this role? Right? I mean, people can come work for us and make $17 an hour.

They can go work at Chick-fil-A and make 17 an hour. Right. Um, so you're paying somebody to see your 30 or 40 people a day to have a great attitude. And there are sometimes managers go, my God, if I counsel that person, then they're gonna leave to go make money at Starbucks or Chick-fil-A, and then I'm stuck at the front desk.

So that's a real, it's just a fear. It's a real fear, but it's not. But it's actually fake. It's a valid, yes. Yeah, it's fake because if I train you and make you better, yes, you could leave, but if I kept you and made you worse, you're not going anywhere. And it's just hurting my clinic. Correct. And you're afraid to get rid of 'em, or afraid to like sit down and have that hard talk with 'em.

And you have to, because at the end of the day, like this is real. Like if you can help somebody go from 30 patients a day to 35 patients per day, just by having a better conversation, who's winning? Everybody's winning. Right? So I'm I'm, thank you for mentioning fear because it's real. So, so we got fear.

Anybody else got any reasons why they're not Yeah, we're, you're not putting your resources in, you're. Minimum just a little bit among mineral wage. That's the last focus you really look at. You look at your clinical staff, what can I can do clinically? What can I do better? Because once they your, you wanna wow them.

Yeah. You want you, if it's the doctors, it's the nurse practitioners, it's the clinical staff or our stuff, you know, usually less than list. So, so why? Right. Like, 'cause at the end of I, okay, let's, let's take away the healthcare side. Most businesses that aren't healthcare to have a sales part. The salespeople make the most money because they impact the rest of the business.

So you have to take that mindset. Your front desk needs to, if you increase your pay from like $20 an hour to $40 an hour, sounds like a big number, right? You're gonna get better talent and you're gonna be looking for that sales type person, not just a customer service answer phone person. Um, 'cause we've all seen it, right?

You've had that great sales experience by somebody where they were telling you exactly what you wanted and then just made the process super smooth. Anyway, thank y'all for the feedback on that. If you got more, let me know anybody else real quick before I move on. Okay, cool.

Yeah, I think everybody can raise their hand. Thanks for room for improvement. I think we just talked about that. So lots of hits should go up right now, correct? Yep. Okay, good. All right, so let's throw some numbers at it. This is where you're paying your $17 an hour. Could be a lot more, makes a lot more sense to pay $40 an hour to find the right person.

Kind of straightforward. This is pure marketing dollars, by the way. I'm not, I'm not trying to measure out everything here, but we know that in our world, so like who? Sorry. Got that. We know that in our marketing world, we're getting patients in your door between nine and $17. That's our cost per conversion, overall cost for acquisition, and.

So nine to $17 for somebody to call and book appointment or go online book appointment if they're, and I can go ahead and tell you right now, not like probably 70% of people would call before, they'll book an appointment 'cause they want to talk, ask a question, even though the information would be right in front of 'em.

They want to ask a question. And so think about that. If there were 30 calls per day that would come in 'cause of your marketing that's costing you approximately $10, that's $300 plus a day, you could be wasting if they're throwing away the phone call. So all of a sudden that $40 an hour front desk person is worth a whole lot more to you.

Make sense? Gotta look at it from that standpoint. And I, and we've experienced good front desk people. We know what it's like, like you said, one of your clinic is really great at it, and it's all about being the proactive side. I, I tell you the best example of this. You take somebody, you take a clinic that is the, you know, the front desk isn't doing a great job.

You put the owner on the phone for a day. How many more patients are you gonna get that day? 'cause they're so enthusiastic. They love their business and they want it to grow. We, we've done it before, like outside the healthcare. We had a daycare that we worked with and their front desk person, same concept, front desk person, was not good at asking for tours and they would call in.

So what she tuition costs and then the follow up, which like can go and schedule tour, she wouldn't do it. So she went on vacation. Best time to do these things right? The owner comes and gets on the phone and she booked a tour on almost every phone call. Same concept, right? 'cause she's invested in this her business, so she was motivated to do it.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. Does these numbers make sense? Like this idea of what it's costing you when the phone call's going through? Okay. Other things that you may not realize is that when you have missed calls, uh, who in here knows how many missed calls you guys are averaging right now in your clinic?

How many missed calls are you getting? Uh, about 30%. 30% of all calls coming in are missed. Are they because they're after hours or because you're busy or do you know? It's a little unclear that that has been, the hard part got in exactly what a missed call is. Okay. Yeah. Right. So sometimes it goes to a voicemail and all the things.

Right. Did they hit a call tree and abandoned the call tree? 'cause they got their answer. I tell you, call trees are interesting because while they do save some time. They hurt your conversion. We recognize that it's a real thing. So who else? What'd you, what was your number? I'm with Oh, okay. Cool. Anybody else?

What's your missed call number? We're at 96%. 96, okay. Nice. Anybody else? One more? Yep. Who's at 96? We connection. What was yours? Uh, 13% missed. 13% missed calls. So, and you guys like the percentages ma matter because you're getting thousands of calls. So, you know, if you're getting, I don't know, a thousand calls, like we'll just keep, keep it low.

A thousand calls a month talking 30%, 300 calls go unanswered. That's painful. 'cause you know, some of those are actual patients trying to get in. Yep. What do you, um, you factor in like a text line service too. That's what you have. How do you. We have a live person like remotely just answer and like bring them in or you know, so the focus is are they being intercepted?

Yes. Yeah. So like in intercepted, not just from like a bot, but like an actual person, like a person of some degree, or we talk about AI bots, how they're starting to evolve and get better. Um, but no, like an actual intersection because at the end of the day, people make decisions in their own unless you help to direct 'em down a path.

So yeah, I mean, when it comes to that, like. We have a couple of clinics that are almost a hundred percent no missed calls and they're, they're doing very well, honestly. So that's the part I want to push on you is like if you, even if they are interacting to some degree, is there like that final push, like, are they getting what they need and then can we get them into the clinic?

'cause a lot of times when you just let 'em just answer a basic question, then they're done. I mean, you do it all the time, you're shopping online, right? You answer, ask the bot something, and. Okay. But if somebody calls you and say, Hey, actually I saw you said this. Can we go ahead and take care of this for you?

Okay, I'll go ahead and take care of it. 'cause you want to say yes, but sometimes you have to push to say yes. All right. Some matter of things there. So the patient experience, we all know about patient experience. You pour four souls with your Google reviews, how you have five stars and one stars all day long.

People love to talk about a bad time before they'll talk about a good time. But the reality of it is some of that is not. Some of, at least half of it's your front desk experience like. Did they intake well? Did they answer my questions well? And then the other half is the actual, you know, the doctor seeing them.

'cause like, but then they, they had to get through a lot of pieces to get to that doctor. Was it frictionless? Did they actually get what they wanted the whole time? Like, do you believe that your intake process is frictionless right now? Where it's just very simple and straight to the point? There's no questions asked.

If you're not sure, I'll mention this later, but, uh, you need people to secret shop you. Like they need to go through that process and say like, is this good or bad? So, 'cause you know your clinics, you know your processes, you're the worst person to test it on. You need somebody that's never seen you before and in the mindset of a follow-up appointment.

So this is where I'm curious if any urgent cares do this. 'cause we only have a couple that, that we've talked to have ever done this. Are they booking appointments from appointments? Anybody do that in your clinic? Ever thought about it? So like a simple example of like they come in like, hey we actually, we go ahead and schedule your flu shot or a physical coming up.

'cause I know you said you played sports. I take care of that for you. Anybody do that at all? Couple? Yeah. Does it work? Yes. Yeah. So it's one of those things like it sounds so simple, it's one question and it can create more revenue for you. So it is going back to that mindset of a little bit of training, a little bit of training.

All right,

so moving into this. So let's start with some actual conversation changes right now. So we're going from receptionist mindset to sales rep mindset. Passive scheduling. This is what you don't necessarily want. It sounds good on the front end, but it is not a true conversion point. Would you like to book an appointment?

Uh, well maybe, um, I don't know. Or let me call you back. Ever heard that before, right? Doesn't work. Switch it to, I have a time that works for you. Let's go and get you scheduled now, like if you do scheduling, I don't know if you do or not, you know, maybe walk in, but you can even say. Our, our lobby's actually very, uh, not many people in the lobby right now let you go ahead and come in.

You'll be in and out really quickly, so it's proactive. Let's get you on the scheduler now. Uh, this is actually one of my favorite ones. Well, how far are you from our clinic right now? Oh. And when it does, it forces them to look or to think. Um, I'm 15 minutes wait. Great. It's 10 30 right now. I'll go, I have a slot for 10 50.

Can't go and put you down for that. And they'll see you in 15 minutes. Absolutely. 'cause you solve their problem. They no longer have to search anymore. 'cause you took the time to engage with them. Does that make sense? So like in the talking, and this came about because like I'm in, I don't want B2B sales in the sales world.

Hey, would you like to book a time with me to talk about marketing? Uh, maybe Let me get, lemme look at my schedule. Whatever doesn't work. If I go back to say, Hey, can we talk to Mark Tuesday at 10:00 AM or 2:00 PM Which one works better for you? What does that do? Force you to go look at your calendar and say, yeah, I can do 10:00 AM Cool.

Let me go ahead and. It's the same concept. It's just like you're taking the extra five seconds to say, go in. I got a slot just for you. Come on in. Make sense? Does this sound like, does this sound reasonable? Yeah. Okay. And then another one is how to identify like, I'm so sorry that you're not feeling well today.

Could, we can go ahead and change that for you. I have a slot this time or this time. So you gave a little power back to the potential patients saying, here's two slots to pick from, but you identified and. Related to their problem. Like, I know you're not feeling well. Yeah, we've had a lot of people come through for strep recently.

I'd love to take care of you for that. So you're just being, just a little bit of empathy, right? Um, and that's what they want. 'cause chances are, if somebody's calling an urgent care, they don't feel good and Right. You wanna make sure they feel better soon. And that's the mindset. All right? And then here's some small ones.

This is like sales one oh one smile on the phone. Ever heard of that? Do do your people smile on the phone when they talk to people? Yeah, sometimes. Yeah. So, or are they just like, hello, this is so urgent care. Yes. Okay. You smile, your, your tone warms up, which is more inviting, and then all of a sudden they're more likely to talk to you more.

I, and this is fascinating to me. So, um, I was cold calling some urgent cares because I want you guys to work with us. And I called one Urgent Care and they hung up on me. I was like, well, maybe they just did it by accident. Call 'em back. I said, Hey, this is so and so click I. They didn't know my name, clicked it off, and I could hear in the background for the split five seconds noise.

So they were busy and they just click. Do you think that happens in your clinic or they just can't get to a phone? They start to pick it up and put it down as soon chicken and nose, but I bet it's happening. Anyway, so that's that mindset of they, you know, they're busy, what's in front of them? The phone call becomes a little secondary when you have like five people standing in front of them trying to intake, trying to get their insurance information, and that's a problem, right?

'cause while they, you're taking care of the five actual patients to get them to the door. Then the other side is like, well, you just had five or 10 potential patients you just did not talk to. And then all of a sudden your patient numbers are down for some reason 'cause they, maybe they had a bad day.

Have you ever connected those dots before that your front desk not feeling well and then your patient volume seems to be following that sometimes. Ever looked at that? Yeah, it's real. It really is. All right. Here's some other key things. KO's answering. The phone call needs to be answer in three rings or less.

If it's not, chances are, I'm gonna hang up or I'm gonna assume you're close or I'm gonna assume you're busy. Alright. Who in here is confident that if I call the urgent care right now, it would answer in three rings or less? Got a couple. Just a couple. Why? Why is three rings difficult? Anybody, why do you think three rings are not like a real number?

Like anybody wanna say what? Why three rings doesn't work?

So the ones that raise their hand, that they do, they're confident in three wings. Why? Why do you think your confidence is there is? It's just, um, I call 'em all the time.

I know you said a huge fan of trees, but if you utilize phone trees, you can put that extension on multiple. Yes. Yeah. So the phone tree thing is interesting because it, it depends on how long the phone tree is. We've had one urgent care to, I implement a phone tree 'cause they're having some issues and we told 'em, you're gonna have to adjust this.

This phone tree is 60 seconds before they can put in in an option. It needs to be well, uh, this is Birmingham. We're from Birmingham, Alabama. This is Berg Emergent Care. Please call 9 1 1. If it's a medical emergency, press one. For front desk, press two. It should be within like a ten second frame. Where they can just barely hear enough say, okay, yeah, I need a one or two, or whatever.

But if it goes into like this long conversation before they can hit a number, you're losing. We see the hangups all the time, like it's really bad. Like we had one where we just said, look, you're gonna have to cut that thing down. And the second they did and they, and we gave 'em a little script to use instead, their patient volume started to go up.

Like it is just the reality of it because. We're an inpatient population, right? So you only have a few minutes to convert or a few seconds to convert somebody. And if I'm sitting on the phone for 10, 20 seconds just to talk to someone, 'cause I have a question, I'm starting to lose my ability to sit on that phone.

I think we could all relate to that. Good. All right, so, uh, this is very simple stuff. When somebody answers the phone, please use your first name when you answer the phone. Hey, this is Michael at Birmingham Urgent Care. It sounds so silly, but it works all the time. Anybody ever read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Bill Carnegie Couple?

First name matters, right? And so that's the same concept here. If I know your first name, you're gonna have a better conversation with me if I don't know your first name. That's why. And same time, if the caller's willing to give a first thing that the front desk should be using that first thing, the rest of the time, it feels made way more personal.

And it's way likely to convert. They feel like they're part of you all of a sudden. Are y'all confident that your people are using their first name and then trying to use a caller's first name? You think that's happening? Maybe Kind of, yeah, kind of. Yeah. It, it makes a difference. Or the worst is when they pick up the phone and say hello, like, please don't.

Yes. Yeah. We're just one of your children. Yeah. Yeah. Like, hello? Or How can I help you? Did I call the right place? Is this Birmingham Urgent Care? What's hard for me, I think is, for example, I have one employee, she's, she really is stellar when answering the call and always says her name. Yeah. But we did receive, I just received a message that somebody had called the clinic.

She didn't give her name. She didn't, and it was like 20 minutes before we closed, so I didn't know if something shifted. Yeah. But she's usually always on top of her game, so it was like, what happened in that moment? Yeah. And she could have been busy. Yeah. Got distracted, frustrated. Yeah. But I mean, I mean, how do you keep them on task with that?

And it's like, my other biggest thing is multitasking. If they're having to call an insurance and I've only got one front desk person, they can't, they don't answer that phone ringing. And my clinics are set up to catch, to have 'em go reroute. Yeah. But it takes X amount of rings. Yeah. And it gets real frustrating, right?

Yes. How many rings do you think it takes worth a swap? Um. It hits like the other phone's probably about the fifth ring. Okay. And so, see, I'll pick up the phone and I notice if they haven't picked it up by the third, that's my queue. 'cause I'm old school so I'm picking it up in my office. Yes. You know, there you go.

The three ring matters. Right. It it helps but helps. But I just don't know how to get them to understand it's three rings, you know? Especially 'cause I have universities around myself. I have lots of students. Yeah. Well, and so like there's, I, I don't have time for that conversation. There's something called EOS where.

You focus on one number per employee. And so if the front desk like your number is three, and it's very simple, right? Because if I gave you like 10 numbers to keep up with, you're gonna drop a number, you're gonna not pay attention to the number. So I don't know what like, 'cause like I said, a front desk has mo is lot of things going on, what's most important to them, right?

Like is your focus on well make sure they get their billing correct or make sure they get their insurance correct, or make sure they get the paperwork done. Or is it the phone ring? Like if you gave them one simple number that was most impactful to your business, what number is that? Yeah, and that's how you help with the training side of employees.

Like let them focus on that side because it becomes a lot easier to reward off of that. I can give incentives off of that. So, great. Thank, thank y'all for the feedback so far. Anyways, a couple other things so far, uh, simple scripts to be read. Like this is something where you print it out, laminate it, put it on their front desk.

Let them feel confident about it, right. And make, if you laminated and they can mark on it with a marker and just like make some little adjustments. Uh, just a simple, uh, here's our cash pricing, all these different things. It's very easy. 'cause what I'm trying to avoid is, um, please hold on. And that goes to a, some type of waiting 30 seconds later.

'cause they got distracted when they put their phone down and now it becomes two minutes to go get a five second answer. And then that person probably already hung up. We've seen lots and lots of times where especially I, I'm okay with like if they pick up, so, so and so. Can you please hold for just a second and if they come back within like 10, 20 seconds, you're okay.

But if it's going into like a minute, I've probably hung up. Uh, I've moved on, so, all right. All right. So here's some objective side of things that I'll call back later. We've heard that before, right? Like they got an answer of some sort when they called your urgent care. Um, would you like to come in and I'll call back later?

So it could be, and I've heard this too. Okay, I'll call back when ready. They're not gonna call back. They got what they wanted and they probably moved on because maybe they didn't like the answer. We've seen that. That's your cash price click. That happens a lot. Uh, but instead of, I'll call back later.

Well, I actually have a time for you right now. If you want to go ahead and come in. Tone, change opportunity and then they'll tell you, okay, yeah, I can't come in 'cause I can't afford that. Or actually, yeah, go ahead and put me down. I'll come. Um, we talk about how buyers are liars. I mean, you've heard that phrase before.

So if becoming the buyer, I'm actually not telling you the whole truth because I don't wanna tell you the whole truth because I want, I wanna be shielded right now. So you gotta keep that in mind anyway. And we talked about already about the pricing sheet and the importance of that. Making sure you have insurance listed on the easy sheet to read.

They shouldn't be go looking for it. 'cause you know, chance, are you guys accept 20 or 30 insurances? Is somebody calling us? Ah, if it goes, I don't know if it goes, I don't know. You're losing. Uh, that's just the simple fact right there. 'cause like, I don't know. What else do you not know? Uh, it sounds terrible, but it's real.

We've even had some where the, uh, they call an urgent care. Do you have a doctor on staff? I don't know. Why. Is that a hard question? Or do you, uh, do you have an x-ray on, uh, on site? Um, let me go check. This sounds silly, right? But I, I bet you've had that happen before and you may not even know it. So it's just these simple things because like you said, you haven't prioritized the front desk at all, but my goodness, there's the difference between you that you getting that patient and you not getting that patient.

So like this is where when you don't prioritize it, they're gonna make silly mistakes. But, uh, anyway, this good so far you guys? This is good stuff. Okay. And then this last one of like, simply, let me see if I can fix something for you. Let me be proactive with you right now. Or like you talked about the luggage type of thing, where.

They knew how to fix this for you and make your life a lot easier. Same concept here. What can I do to fix this for you right now? Because I know I only got a few minutes to make this happen. All right. Here's the bonus side of the calls. If you have a missed appointment, you call 'em back. You call 'em back within 1530 minutes of the missed appointment.

Did anybody do that? No. Yes? Yes. Does it work? Yes. Yeah. It's simple. It's, it's very simple. Like if it's an 11 o'clock appointment, it's 1115, they haven't shown up. Call 'em. Hey, I'm just check and make sure you guys, you're still coming. Oh, I got caught up. So I said, cool. Can I move your appointment to this time?

Absolutely. I'll be there in 15 minutes. Instead of I got distracted. Who was I supposed to go to? Because they forget. Because the urgent, sadly, when it comes to branding of an urgent care, an urgent care is an urgent care is an urgent care. It's very hard to separate brands for people 'cause they all kind of feel the same to them.

Uh, which is frustrating, right? But it works. The callback really does work. And, and we tell you this here, you gotta do it in 15, 30 minutes of a missed one because if it goes beyond an hour, they've already gone to the other place or they're already in route to the other urgent care, or they just lost interest.

Maybe I do feel better. You know that mindset. And then, you know, basically it's that proactive conversation you saw, Mr. Is would you like to reschedule? And then, hey, and here's the missed call in. Hey, this, hey name. This is Michael from Emerge for Emergent Care. So sorry I missed your call. How can I help you?

Like it? Is that coming back with that name part of things and just engaging them just a little bit. And I do realize this, this reason why put bonus points on this, it's taking an extra step outside of their norm to do this and you have to have a process around to do this. So, but it does work as you confirm.

It definitely does work. Work. So let's talk about AI a little bit, because AI is here, it's not going anywhere, and healthcare's embracing it, so AI can handle some stuff. Uh, we have, you know, talked about flip for a second. We have, we're working with some AI stuff ourself and it can take calls, they can schedule, we can send you a text and all that stuff.

And it's really good for booking some straight appointment stuff. The second it gets complicated needs to go to a human very quickly. Uh, and complicated is beyond just the insurance question, right? Or can I, can I talk to the doctor? Can I do this? You know, those type of questions, that type of stuff.

Anybody using AI right now on the voice side? Like is it taking, is it working? It's flip. Flip, is it? Yeah. You like it? Yeah, it's great. Good. Awesome. So it does work, right? All right, so I don't know if this will play. Let's try it. So this is us using our ai. Just an example. Hannah was making a call. I have no idea.

This will sound you have reached Nick's Urgent Care. If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 9 1 1. How can I help you today? Hi. I was wanting to schedule an appointment. Okay. I am sending you a link to schedule your visit. Great. I've sent you the scheduling line, just text. Could I get your name please?

Yes, my name's Hannah. I was wondering what your hours were. Thanks, Hannah. Our hours are Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM. Until 5:00 PM and on Saturdays from 9:00 AM into 3:00 PM we're closed on Sunday. Anything else I can help you with? Yeah, I'm just wondering if I could speak to a doctor really quick.

Hang is slow, right?

And it connects over. This is actually Nick picking up the phone.

Thank you for calling this urgent care. How can I help? Yeah, you have re So that's a good example of like AI is where it's not a hundred percent human right? Like there's definitely some delays. I can recognize it's ai, but my goodness, that's, that's a better option. Just missing the call together, right?

So you have, there you go. Uh, so we did talk to Flip, like can you give some case study information? 'cause you guys are really deep with on the flip side. And basically, um, 30% of all involved calls that clinic's never reached you. You confirmed that today saying 30% are missed calls, so like this line's right on up.

AI can be 24 7, which can help with some of that. Uh, and then at the end of the day, AI was flipping that 30%. They were taking, let's say a thousand calls, 300 being missed. Now 40% reduction of that. So 120 less missed calls can make a difference, right? I mean, if you just had 10 of those, 10% of those converting to patients that make the difference.

So that's where AI's going. It's got more work to do. It's not perfect yet, but it is working and we can confirm it's working. All right. Alright, here's some action plans for you guys 'cause we're getting up to the end here. So role play. Anybody ever role play, whether it's a staff. Yeah, what's that? Who, what, which staff do you role play the most with?

Front desk. Front desk. Okay. What, and when you do a role play, are you calling in the front desk or are you just sitting down and talking to about conversations that you're having or what Somebody, gimme an example what the role play looks like. It is an in person role play where you sit and you act with the customer and then you observe their responses and then you give them back a response to which you would expect them to do.

I gotcha. So you go both ways. So you go play that application and then do you ever find where you need to, like, okay, let's retrain on this little piece here, or they give a really interesting answer you weren't expecting. Yeah, and I, so I'm encouraging this right now. Role play with your people. And if you're afraid to, you're gonna have to get over it.

Um, it's just the reality of it. You need to sit down with your front desk. Have a conversation like, all right, I'm gonna give you the top five questions I know you're gonna get, 'cause I've heard the calls or whatnot. And I want you to answer 'em just like I'm a patient you never talked to before and then you need to be aggressive with 'em.

It's like, well I'm, I'm an angry patient now I'm a nice patient. I don't want to talk to you, but I have to patient like all these conversations, you need to see where are they with their conversation. This is sales training. This is that part that matters. 'cause then you need to, and on the role playing side, you need to say, okay, okay.

I, I can see you can answer the hard questions, but you're not being proactive and saying, well, let's go ahead and book you a time to take care of this for you. 'cause I bet that's happened where they're not pushing for that booked appointment, they're just answering the hard questions, but they're not pushing on the proactive side.

So start roleplaying if you haven't done it. All right? And then actual call scripts. So be confident in your call script. I'm gonna give you guys call scripts at the end too. You can scan in, you'll have some basis to work off of. So most generic because I'm not your, but at the end of the day, like you need to have some basic scripts 'cause you wanna be consistent.

Like if you're multi-location, you want that lo each location to sound exactly the same and be confident in that. It's a Chick-fil-A experience, right? Like if I go to Chick-fil-A here, if I go to Chick-fil-A in Birmingham and go Chick-fil-A California, it's the same thing. And that's what you want with all your clinics at the end of the day.

All right. And then here's the, the fun one. It's the Secret shop. We talked about that briefly at the very beginning. Um, who in your head has done the secret shopping? A, a couple of hands. And who did you use? A family member or a friend? Who'd you use? Complaints. I mean managers from other centers, or, you know, yeah.

So I'll encourage you to use somebody who's never used your urgent care that knows nothing about your urgent care because, and it needs to not just start from a phone call. It needs to start with, go to my website. Go book an appointment and make a phone call. How hard was it are if you, and you can sit there and watch 'em and you can't help 'em, right?

If you help 'em, you lose. That's not secret shopping anymore. 'cause we've seen that happen. It's like, well just go up there and click that. Well, why did I have to tell you that? Right? Like, I shouldn't have to tell you that this is the, this marketing site for us. And when they go to that call and you say, I, I want you to, um, say that you're sick, and basically need to see if there's appointments available and see what happens.

And you'll be surprised, like it may be great, it may not be great, but this is like a, a two minute exercise, right? This is something you could do very quickly, but I encourage it that somebody that's never interacted with your urgent care before, because if there's familiarity, they're gonna probably understand it a little better.

It'll be smoother. You don't want smooth, you want it to be as rocky as possible so you can expose the problems. Does that make sense? Yeah. I would even say if you have a a, a kid that's. 15, 16, they probably don't care about your urgent care. So you can get them to call and they're gonna be the most awkward people in the world.

And let's see how good their front desk is. Right? So can I get an appointment out with this 15-year-old? I don't know. Um, and so also too, so we have a podcast called Walk-ins. Welcome. There's episode 1 48, which is with Jessica Walker, care Sherpa. This is what she does. She secret shops, clinics, and helps improve their follow up process.

It's not like her focus isn't urgent care, it's specialties, but she's helped urgent cares in the past and she's happy to help you with a secret shop situation. So that's a, like I said, we got Walkin's welcome. Uh, I'm a co-host to it. It's a fantastic episode. Encourages, alright, and then finally at the end, right here.

So, scan that code now to get to that information.

Yay. Yeah, and we're gonna ask you for information 'cause we're marketers, but you're gonna get a link to slot the slides here. Call scripts our DIY toolkit. If you like running Google Ads yourself, we got some information that'll help you run your ads a little bit better. And everything else, everybody get it.

Plug in your info. Okay? All right. I hope you guys enjoyed that recording from UCA Dallas. So once again, it was all about how to encourage your front desk beyond the simple customer support side of things, but more into a sales type role. I hope there's some good information you got out of it. Uh, as always, we will have links to the different things that you can sign up for, including those scripts that I had mentioned in the talk.

Uh, and then of course we do have our webinar coming up, which is an extension of the front desk evolution, just more details and so forth. We'd love for you to sign up for that as well. Uh, let us know if you got questions, but thanks again for listening.