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Performance Management for Sales and Marketing

Performance Management

How an Incentive Program Can Help Recapture Lost Leads

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Use incentives to win back that lost caller.

While incentive programs are useful for improving overall employee performance, they can be especially helpful when it comes to refining certain KPIs – specifically recapturing phone leads that didn’t book an appointment with you the first time around.

Administering an incentive program based around recapturing lost leads can be very fruitful for both your business and your employees. It is a win-win: your business gets more customers, and the employee wins some sort of incentive.

It’s been discovered that incentive programs can boost performance by anywhere from 25 to 44 percent. What could that do for your business if call handlers could increase appointment conversion ratios in those same ratios?

Although incentives can also help in boosting call handlers’ performance in booking more appointments on first-time inbound calls, let’s focus today on incorporating an incentivized call-back program with for your top-performing employee(s).

A Successful Call-Back Program

It is important for whoever you choose to be your designated call-back employee to be individually motivated. If they work better in a team setting, then you may want to pair them up with another person to be responsible for call-backs too. But if you have one person who is very motivated to do things on their own, they would be a great choice for this type of incentive program.

Just like a sales person who has to make outbound calls and can make as little or much money as the effort they put in, the call-back employee must stay on top of any missed opportunity alerts received by your call tracking provider.

As far as what incentive to offer your call-back employee(s), try to figure out what motivates each particular individual and create a tailored program. Would your employee be motivated to work hardest at recapturing a lost lead if it means “X” amount of dollars per recaptured caller? If money right now isn’t the right motivation tool, perhaps working up to something bigger like additional time off or a reward program is better. Ask your employees what they would enjoy most, and incorporate that into your incentive program.

Effectively Book Lost Leads

As with any incentive program, there must be clear parameters. A few of the things to take into consideration for a successful call-back program are:

  • What percentage of lost leads vs. actual missed opportunities is the employee calling back on? Look at the number of missed opportunity alerts you’ve received, and use a tracker sheet to see how their call backs compare to that number.
  • How successful is the call handler at rebooking these missed opportunities? Of those that the employee called, how many did they convert into an appointment at this second attempt?
  • How quickly is the call-back employee following up after receiving the missed opportunity alert? The point of having these missed opportunities alerted to you is so that they can be followed up with right away. If the call handler waits too long, that opportunity may be long gone. Look at time stamps of when the missed opportunity happened versus when the employee called them back.

A key component of implementing this program is, of course, to actually know when missed opportunities are occurring. Receiving some sort of missed opportunity notifications, such as CallSource’s DealSaver program, is vital. Otherwise, your call handlers would have to manually inform the call-back person every time they didn’t set an appointment with a prospect – which is a very unreliable way to do this.

If you need some ideas for incentives to offer employees that are not strictly cash, check out our list of non-cash incentives.

Apply an incentive program and call-back program and start seeing your number of appointments skyrocket – it just takes a bit of effort and a little prize.

And yes, while you do have to be aware of your actual missed opportunities and put a plan in place, many CallSource clients have done so with much success. When two programs coincide with each other such as this call-back program aligned with an effective incentive program, it can be the difference that your business needs.

11 Tips from Award-Winning Dentist Howard Farran and His Peers

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CallSource works with both major and niche industries. As a content writer, I make sure to stay up-to-date with these industry groups to provide relevant and compelling content to you, our readers.

One person that I’ve been following is Dentist Howard Farran, DDS, MBA. Dr. Farran has a long list of accolades, some being the founder of and CEO of Dentaltown.com, Orthotown.com, Hygienetown.com, TodaysDental.com, and author of #1 Amazon best-seller, “Uncomplicate Business.” Dr Farran is also an international lecturer as well as the host and founder of the podcast “Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran.”

In Incisal Edge magazine’s second annual “32 Most Influential People In Dentistry,” Dr. Farran was named number 5. Incisal Edge gave him the title of “The Connector,” which seems very relevant as Dr. Farran does connect many people together both in the dental community and a bit outside of it.

All of that being said, I’ve found Howard to be a very useful as well as entertaining person to follow on LinkedIn and other social media platforms to gain new insights into the dental industry and its trends.

I know that dental professionals are very busy people – and that’s why if you don’t already have the chance to follow Dr. Farran and listen to his podcast (which I highly recommend you do), I’ve gathered up some great tidbits from a few of his podcasts that I have shared with our dental audience here at CallSource.

Below is a round-up of great facts and expert advice from Dr. Howard Farran and his podcast guests.

Podcast Episode 1066: Generate Reviews with Leonard Tau, DMD, FAGD

In this episode, Howard and Leonard focus on the importance of online reviews for dentists.

Some Key Takeaways:

  • Google dominates online reviews
    • “I think the most important site, no matter what, 100% is Google. There’s no doubt in my mind that you have to dominate Google no matter where you are in the country because Google runs the world. Google runs the Internet. So if they don’t like you, they don’t trust you, they won’t show you online. And if they don’t show you, you’re invisible and if you’re invisible, people can’t find you.” – Leonard Tau
  • Online reviews should be the main focus before spending too much on marketing
    • “Well, I think that they need to focus their attention on making themselves credible and visible before they spend their money on marketing, and too many people throw too many dollars into paper click advertising, whether it’s on Facebook or Google, social media, display advertising, SEO without making themselves credible. And if you don’t have reviews online, no matter what you’re doing, you’re not going to be effective with your ROI.” – Leonard Tau
  • Online reviews are just as important as word-of-mouth, no matter where you are located
    • [Dentists] always say, “I’m a word-of-mouth practice. I don’t need reviews,” or “I’m in a small town and there’s no dentists. There’s only a couple of dentists in my town.” Well, what happens when that young guy comes into town who has a ton of social capital, has a ton of followers online and opens up two doors down from you and all of a sudden he takes a number of insurances and he pulls out some of your patients from your practice. You don’t have a lot of reviews. Then you have to react. I don’t want you to be reactive… Reviews are literally the foundation or the building block to doing other things online.” – Leonard Tau
  • You have to actually ask for reviews – you can’t just hope that patients will choose to go online and write you one
    • “The first thing, the most important thing you have to do is ask patients. You have to make it a culture in your office to ask patients to do it. If your patients aren’t doing it, and you’re not asking, you never going to get them.” – Leonard Tau

 

Podcast Episode 1047 Social Media Marketing for Dentists with Shannon Gilpin of Nonnahs Marketing

In this episode, Howard talks social marketing with Shannon Gilpin, owner of a social media marketing agency, about how dentists can use social media marketing to their advantage.

Some Key Takeaways:

  • Just because you own your own practice doesn’t mean that you should feel obligated to be able to “own” every aspect of your business on your own – it’s ok to have help in some areas
    • “The problem we dentists have is we went to school for eight years because we want to do surgery on teeth, we want to do root canals, fillings and crowns, and then you graduate and they tell you, “Oh, you got to own a business too.” And I’m like, “I don’t own a business. I’m a dentist. I do surgery and operatory all day.” But they can’t do their root canals, fillings and crowns if they don’t have patients.” – Howard Farran
  • Trust is very important to consumers when choosing a dentist – so make sure you have an active social media presence and online reviews to have great social proof
    • “People are scared to go to the dentist. We deal with that a lot, and they’re worried about costs and everything. So, when you see those reviews, those positive reviews that this is a trusted dentist, this dentist is going to treat me like family and take care of me, that’s important to them.” – Shannon Gilpin
  • A good, personal social media presence helps your branding
    • “You have to have photos, but then 70% of those photos with a human face that you recognize, get higher engagement rates. So, that’s what I like to do for branding photography, is go in and show the hygienists, show the dentist, in that way people become more familiar with them, more familiar with their brand and them as a person rather than just some stock dentist.” – Shannon Gilpin
  • Address your negative reviews with the reviewer – but don’t try to be too defensive or remove the review
    • “I would suggest never deleting the reviews because that shows up bad on your part. That shows that you’re hiding something. So, always reach out to them and make sure it’s visible and take care of it as much as you can, and once you’ve handled the situation, ask them to either update their review or change it, whatever it may be. But I would never delete it or try to hide it because that just shows that you’re not trustworthy.” – Shannon Gilpin

 

Podcast Episode 1043 Effective Dental Marketing with Ken Newhouse, DC

In this episode, Howard talks to marketing expert Ken Newhouse on how to earn more patients with effective marketing strategies.

Some Key Takeaways:

  • It may not come naturally, but dental professionals need to start measuring data in their offices
    • “I always tell everyone there is one business I would never go into; it would be helping dentists advertise themselves. I would never want to go into a dental marketing business, because the dentist doesn’t measure anything. If you go to any dentist and say, “How many people land on your website each month?” “I don’t know.” “How many of them convert?” “I don’t know.” “How many people called your dental office last month that was a new number that hasn’t called your office?” “I don’t know.” “How many of them did your receptionist convert to come in?” “I don’t know.” “How many treatment plan presentations did you present?” “I don’t know.” “How many of those did you convert?” “I don’t know.” “So, what do you think of that new marketing company?” “It didn’t do [anything].” – Howard Farran
  • There are a lot of areas to pay attention to for a successful marketing program – and it goes all the way from your website to your internal staff
    • [An effective dental marketing program is] “certainly multi-faceted, there are a lot of different components to a successful dental marketing program. . .Number one I would say, ‘It has to be multi-faceted, so number one I would say it has to be automated, and I can expand on that in just a second. Number two, you’ve got to have a website that can convert.’ Then lastly, you’ve got to have a sales staff including the dentists, I know most dentists don’t like to talk about money, and maybe they shouldn’t. That’s something I can’t answer, but the staff, if they understand how to use very persuasive communications, how to actually talk to people.” – Ken Newhouse
  • Incentives matter! (And if you need help coming up with an incentive plan for your office, download our Incentive Plan Checklist here!)
    • “Well, incentives matter.” – Howard Farran
    • Your staff sees you making money, they’re working harder, you’re seeing a lot more patients, and you’re making money, they’re not stupid, they know what you’re making, and bottom line, they’re bothered by the fact that they’re really working hard for you and not benefitting from it? I’ve had a couple people say to me, ‘Why should I pay them, I’m not going to give him any of my profit.’ They don’t understand that you’ll get the performance of your staff if they’re worth keeping will dramatically improve. . . If you have the right person in your office, they’re going to really work hard and they’re going to make you a lot more money, and your office is going to run a lot, lot better.” – Ken Newhouse

Hopefully just a few of these tidbits from some of Howard Farran’s podcast have been helpful to you – and you should definitely check in to listen on a more regular basis when you can.

Who else do you follow in the dental industry that you think your peers can benefit from? Let us know in the comments below!

Don’t Let a Prospective Hearing Patient Turn into a Missed Opportunity

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Make sure your hearing loss callers feel heard on the phone.

Working in the hearing industry requires a certain kind of person – someone who wants to help others to live life as normally as possible. It’s a heroic decision to commit your working life to benefit others.

Being responsible for answering phones at an audiologist office also has its own struggles and hurdles to overcome. Callers are most likely either a person with hearing loss or a loved one who wants to help their family member or friend.

For those calling in with their own hearing issues, it may be evident on the phone call that they have trouble hearing. As the call handler, you want to be aware of this and make the best user experience possible. The goal of the call is to have the prospective patient come into your office to help them with his or her hearing issue; setting the appointment by the end of the call is vital.

If the call does not go smoothly and the caller has a bad experience, the call will end without an appointment. This is a missed opportunity. Missing just one potential patient could mean losing the opportunity to help more than just the caller. “According to W. Edwards Deming in his ground-breaking book Out of the Crisis, a happy customer who comes back for more is worth 10 new prospects. Happy customers spread their good news to 8 other potential customers, but unhappy customers spread their bad news to 16 potential customers,” says The Hearing Review.1

Here are a few tips to ensure that your next calls result in appointments rather than lost patients.

  • Speak slowly and clearly, using the caller’s name throughout the call. This makes it clear that you are paying attention to the caller and making everything as clear as possible, so there is no confusion on expectations or commitments.2
  • Try to minimize extraneous background noise. Most likely, you are answering calls in the front office where there may be many patients waiting in the waiting room area near the desk. When answering a call, try to close the glass partition to keep the noise level at a minimum, so the caller doesn’t have any trouble hearing you.2
  • Have the caller repeat vital information back to you. When you are confirming appointment times, a doctor’s name, directions to the office, or anything of the sort back to you. This avoids missed communication and prevents your caller from missing their appointment because of mishearing important details.2
  • Build rapport with the caller. People want to do business with people they like, so make sure to be friendly and hospitable with each caller. Treat them like a person, not just another phone call. Download our “5 Ways to Build Rapport” sheet for more tips on building rapport with callers.

Potential lost patients don’t just mean that there is one less person you are not helping to hear; it can also be detrimental to your business. According to The Hearing Review:

“Nearly 20% of people with hearing loss who choose to be non-adopters report their decision was based on the poor experience of a friend or relative. That amounts to nearly 4.2 million people. Considering their average age (66), the binaural rate (75%), and the expected 4-5 year repurchase cycle over their lifetime, if they cannot be convinced of the quality of hearing healthcare and that they will derive significant benefit from visiting a HHP, then the opportunity cost of this potentially lost consumer segment is staggering—perhaps a loss of 35 million hearing aids over the next 20 years.” 1

Follow these tips and make sure that you aren’t losing patients due to bad customer experience, especially before they even step foot into your office.

Curious to learn more about your missed opportunities? Contact a CallSource representative and discover how we can help improve your call-to-appointment ratio.

1. https://www.hearingreview.com/2014/08/customer-loyalty-quotient-clq/
2. https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/communicating_with_people_with_hearing_loss/

Having Trouble Booking Callers into Appointments? It’s Time to Apply Reciprocity on Your Sales Calls

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By using this advanced selling technique, you’ll have less missed opportunities and more appointments set.

Have you ever noticed that you feel compelled to do something for people who have helped you along the way – even if they haven’t asked you to help them? As humans, we normally try to return favors, pay back debts, and generally treat others as they have treated us. This idea of reciprocity leads us to feel obliged to offer certain things to someone if they have offered something to us. This is because we do not want to feel indebted to someone else.

For example, you might feel obliged to help a friend move out of an apartment if they have helped you on a house project in the past. A client might decide to buy from you instead of a competitor if you are doing everything you can to get the best possible price or any additional services. Reciprocity can be applied in many different life and work instances, and it can benefit your ROI by making more callers want to book an appointment with your company instead of wanting to wait and call around for more options.

Applying Reciprocity on the Phone

To use reciprocity to influence others, you’ll need to identify your objective, think about what you want from the other person (the appointment/commitment), and then identify what you can give them in return.

By staying helpful and friendly on the phone, the caller will feel a connection with you as well, and want to give you their business.

In this case, the rule of doing someone a favor in order for them to feel obligated to do you a favor won’t exactly work. So what can you give to the client? You can give:

  • Your time
  • Your interest
  • Your expertise
  • Your understanding

Although they are not materialistic, by giving your clients these things, they will feel that you are doing them a favor by looking out for their best interests. You are directly involved, giving them your time and listening as well as giving your educated advice on their unique situations.

A potential client is calling because they need something from you. Just by being able to work with them and give them that appointment when they need it will feel like you are doing them a favor. As long as you are able to work with them, they will feel obliged to want to work with you.

By staying helpful and friendly on the phone, the caller will feel a connection with you as well, and want to give you their business. By understanding and listening to a caller’s issue, as well as offering your expertise on their situation, you are offering them something they want and need. Then, they will give you what you want: the appointment.

Importance of Using Reciprocity

Why is reciprocity an influencing tool that you should utilize in your business, especially as a call handler? People generally buy from someone that they like, and are more willing to give their business to someone that they feel is doing something great for them in return. It is important to showcase this while on the phone—you are trying to help the potential customer, and you have something to offer.

Reciprocity is a two-way street. If the client is going to pay you for a service, then you want to make sure to do it to the best of your ability and put as much time into it as necessary to make it the best experience possible. That starts right from the beginning when the phone rings.

If you promise something but then do not to reciprocate, you trigger a negative form of reciprocity. It is important to live up to your standards and promises. Otherwise, the client may not support you in the future, and may go as far as to make sure that others don’t as well. But if both sides hold up their end of the bargain (client calls for service, you deliver, they are happy), then that reciprocity will continue as they will do you the favor of recommending you to their friends and family.

Positive reciprocity will help you gain the appointment that you desire with the customer. It is important to remember that not only are you helping this person with their need, but they are fulfilling a need for you as well to help your business.

Want to Increase Your Appointment Conversion Rate? Here’s the Secret…

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It’s not as complicated as you may think.

Everyone wants it.

Some achieve it.

Is it ever enough?

I’m not trying to be like a Sphinx giving you an almost unsolvable riddle to pass. If you are in the business of setting appointments to make sales for your company to achieve revenue, the answer should be easy enough.

That’s right –higher appointment conversion rate at your business.

Now, it is lofty to dream of achieving a conversion rate of 100% (but I won’t stop you from trying).

Even if you are killin’ it in your industry with a higher-than-average conversion rate, you should never be satisfied with where you are. Just as in life, with a bit more effort, you can always improve.

How is it that you can increase your conversion rate in one straightforward way?

You need to decrease your lost appointment opportunities.
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Sounds obvious enough, right?

Less missed opportunities = More appointments made.

Now the question that may remain is: How do I decrease my missed opportunities?

Be informed of your actual number of missed appointment opportunities

You don’t know what you don’t know.

How can you increase your conversion rate without first knowing what it is?

Use call tracking data to see where you currently stand, and even look at past historical and trending data to see if any recent changes you may have implemented or seasonality have made a difference on your conversion rate, either positively or negatively.

You can also use call tracking data to see how many appointments you don’t set.

Set up missed opportunity alerts with your call tracking provider to be in the know shortly after a missed opportunity occurs so that you can rectify the situation.

Call back consumers who hang up without setting an appointment with you
…Which leads me to my next point.

Once you know you have missed out on an appointment opportunity, dedicate an employee to be responsible for making outbound calls to make a second attempt to recover that lost lead!

Want to track how successful your outbound recapture attempts are?
Download our free Appointment Follow-Up Worksheet.

Before that caller moves on to call your competition, try to win back their business with a helpful and pointed call back to address the issues or problems they may have had that deterred them from booking an appointment with your business in the first place.

Increase phone skills

One of the easiest ways to achieve less missed opportunities is to improve call handlers’ phone handling skills.

When employees perform better on calls, they are more likely to set the appointment with a caller. Poor performance will lead to more missed appointments –make sure that your call handlers have the training and skills that they need to book more calls.

Ask for the appointment!

Going hand in hand with better call handler phone skills is ASKING callers to book an appointment with your company.

Sure, call handlers can still have a “good” call but is it successful unless the outcome of that call results in an appointment to lead to a sale?

Keep track of how many more appointments you can book by merely requesting when you may not have asked before – and asking at least two times (without being overly pushy).

So there you have it: the secret to improving your appointment conversion rate.

Of course, this is a basic overview, and CallSource advisors can work with your team for a more individualized approach based on your business’ specific problems to help you better your ROI and appointment rate.

Want to learn more? Talk to a CallSource representative now, and don’t forget to track your recapture attempts with our free tracker sheet.

You Spend a lot of Money on Marketing – Now Make Sure Those Inbound Leads are Worth the Dollars Spent

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Don’t let inbound leads fall through the cracks due to missed calls or poor employee performance.

Do you hear that?

The ringing.

…..and ringing…..

………and ringing.

Voicemail.

And do you hear that from over there?

A call handler on the phone with a prospect.

This one is interested!

But wait – oh – they said they’d have to think about it and your call handler just said “okay” and let them hang up.

So do you hear it?

These are your precious marketing budget dollars being thrown away with every missed phone call or missed appointment opportunity.

Do you know exactly how many calls are being missed in your office, as well as how your call handlers are handling phone calls?

These are two very vital aspects that you should be paying attention to.

How do you make sure you are getting the most out of your marketing dollars spent?

Call tracking is useful in many aspects for bettering your business – but let’s focus on how it can help you in the two areas noted above.

Take control of your missed calls

If you have a properly staffed business with enough call handlers and rollover lines, you shouldn’t be missing many calls.

You may think you aren’t missing many, but how do you know for sure?

Call tracking delivers specific missed call reports so that you can see an overview from how many missed calls you receive in any period: yearly, monthly, daily, weekly – all the way down to by hour.

By viewing these reports, you can verify your busiest phone times and days to make sure you have enough people to answer phones on the schedule. Perhaps by looking at the data, you may conclude that you have too many missed calls overall and need to hire an additional call handler or use an answering service.

Use the data to determine your decisions.

Another benefit that your call tracking service should offer is missed call notifications. With these, you can be notified immediately when a call goes unanswered for whatever reason.

These notifications can even pick up if the caller hung up before you were able to pick up the phone. They also deliver the phone number the call originated from so you can work at the moment to return the call.

Stop missing calls and take control of your phones.

Ensure your employees are handling calls appropriately

Ok, so now your call handlers are picking up most phone calls – how well are they doing in booking those callers into appointments?

If your marketing is working and your phone is ringing with prospective customers, you don’t want to lose those prospects and not convert the call into an appointment due to call handlers’ lack of skill.

Instead of relying on hovering over your employees and trying to listen to their phone calls, a good call tracking option should also have a call conversion plan as well!

CallSource has live human analysts score employees’ phone calls not only to see how many leads they are converting into an appointment or where they are missing the opportunity to book but also to score certain aspects of the phone call to make sure that they are being successful and giving a good caller experience.

By looking at these reports and seeing your overall appointment conversion percentage as well as broken out by the call handler, you can see if you are making or missing your appointment goal. If there are specific call handlers that need more help than others (or maybe all can use a bit of a push), there is call coaching available as well. Make sure to have frequent team and one-on-one meetings with your employees to discuss if they are meeting their KPI’s.

Download our team meeting slide deck and call handler self-analysis to help voice your goals to your opinions and stay up-to-date on their performance, as well as help improve their phone skills.

Feel free to reach out to a CallSource representative if you’d like to learn more about how CallSource can help you improve your marketing ROI and employee performance.