Are you not getting the number of referrals you wish to see?
Team Members Don’t Get Many Referrals
Maybe you are going through your systems but things are connecting so that you see the results you are looking for?
Let’s talk about that and who’s responsible for it.
In your own practice, do you have some team members that their whole family comes to your office and all their friends on a regular basis? Aunt Betty, Uncle John and Uncle Fred, don’t forget the cousins- Susie, Christina, Joe, and of course, Grandma Pat who always brings cookies when she comes in…
And then there are other team members. The one’s you don’t see any of their friends or family members. You know they are married but you have only seen the husband in once last year when he broke a tooth.
This is a problem. If they won’t refer their own family, then they aren’t asking existing patients for referral either!
And even worse, the team member goes elsewhere for their dental care because, “Dr. Ross is a dear friend of the family that we have done to forever. He has all my records and he would be crushed if I stopped seeing him?!”
I want to share a real case study.
I observed a small office struggle with referrals. It consists of 1 doctor, 1 front desk, 1 hygienist and 1 assistant. Things were going well, running smoothly, however they just weren’t getting many referrals from the hygienist and the dental assistant.
After talking to them for months and making sure they were both skilled & trained properly on asking for referrals, we learned that they just weren’t comfortable referring to the office. As clinical team members, they both felt that was not their duty.
OUCH!
BIG Red Flag! If someone is working in your office and isn’t comfortable referring family or friends, that is an issue and a conversation needs to happen. You need to find out why. They may seem to be the best employee by doing the tasks you give them each day, but if they aren’t willing to refer others that they care about to your office…a change needs to take place.
Either you need to make a change in how you run your business to build that confidence or they need to make a change in their thinking.
If you’re in a relationship and the person you are with doesn’t want to tell anyone about you, that’s not a good thing.
EVERYONE IN THE PRACTICE is responsible for referrals. If you are a part of the team, it is a part of your job to promote the practice.
So if you aren’t getting those internal referrals and you’re system works well, maybe it’s not the system. Maybe it’s the people working in the system and it might be time for a hard conversation with you and with them.
In this week’s video, you’ll learn:
- The importance of evaluating your referrals
- Everyone is responsible for referrals
- How to improve your referrals