At the typical established practice, 22% patients do not respond to recall.
By adjusting the recall process the typical practice in Ireland will increase sales turnover by €23,000 per annum.
But, of course, you don't want just to fill the consulting room chair, you want patients who want to buy spectacles and contact lenses.
In a recent study of the recall processes of independent Irish practices, we found that:
- 91% had sophisticated Practice Management Computers (PMS);
- 22% of practices with a PMS were not aware of the full potential of their system;
- 93% of practices had less than 9 different recall texts;
- 97% of Eye Care Professionals (ECPs) only used postal letters to try and recall patients;
- at 98% of practices, the only 'trigger' was based the date of the last exam;
- 14% of owner-managers were aware of the response rate to recall;
- 4% had a mechanism for identifying active patients; and
- at 88% of practices, more than half the records were dead but the firm continued to waste money on trying to contact them.
A Better Way
These days you need to use mail, email, text messaging and the telephone to communicate the benefits of regular examinations and buying spectacles & contact lenses.
The timing of recall messages is critical. Most practices get this wrong and run their system to suit the practice not the patients. Unsurprisingly, the response to recall is poor.
The content of your letters needs to be effective if you want patients to not only turn up for examinations but also to make a purchase.
You must have an effective mechanism to weed out dead records, to reduce time and money wasted on try to contact people who will never return.
You need to have a process that is guaranteed to get patients back into the practice to buy their spectacles and contact lenses.
As the leading independent consultancy specialising in marketing for optometrists and opticians, Myers La Roche have a proven package to boost the response rate at your practice and the consequential income that you derive from examinations.
We can supply you with a variety recall and reminder letters for your practice and the different types of patients you have. The letters are based on research into the differing needs of your patients.
We produce 3 letters for each patient group - an initial recall letter, a reminder letter and then a final letter. The letters we put together help to increase the number of patients returning for examinations and they are likely to have more impact as they are specifically targeted at each patients needs. The letters can be uploaded onto your computer system and sent out to each patient group when required.
The recall and remainder texts are supplied both on paper and on CD-ROM so that you can update them with special promotions.
We guarantee that your response rate will improve and that your sales turnover will increase.
What do I order?
Visit our online shop and follow the on-screen instructions. You need to order just one pack per business as the information is transferable between separate branches.