Often the first contact which a potential patient will have with you is via your telephone. Therefore, the way the telephone is answered will have a major influence on whether the person will decide to:
- make an appointment for a first consultation, or
- continue to have you as their practitioner, or
- decide to go elsewhere.
Be available:
This doesn’t mean that you have to answer the phone personally at every hour of the day or night. Also, it doesn’t mean that you should interrupt consultations by answering phone calls.
It does mean that the phone shouldn’t time out without there being the opportunity for the person to hear a message from you regarding your availability and for them to be able to leave a message for you.
You should either have an answering machine or a message bank. Note that the message/s being left shouldn’t be able to be overheard by other patients, as they may contain confidential information.
Remember that people often become annoyed if they only ever get a machine, never a person. They get the impression that you are never available.
Messages:
This is probably the worst mistake that practitioners make, especially those who work from home. Patients often state: ‘Thank heavens I finally found a place that actually sounds like they are running a clinic, rather than operating out of a tin shed in the back yard!’
Your message should not state that they have contacted the home of ‘Freda, Bill, little Johnny, Tilly the cat and Rex the dog’, nor should it just say ‘G’day, leave a message’. Messages read out by your child are also unacceptable.
Your opening lines should indicate that they have contacted your homeopathic clinic. You may wish to indicate your normal hours of operation, especially if you only provide appointments on certain days or at certain times.
It’s wise to phone yourself and see how your message sounds, in case it is muffled, unclear or rushed. Get feedback from your friends, too. On the basis of the message and your voice, would you or they want to make a first appointment with you, if they didn’t know you? Or would they think ‘No way! I’d rather try elsewhere.’
Have a separate number or ring tone for the clinic:
If you are working from home, if possible, arrange a separate number for the clinic or have the phone ring with a different tone to that used for the family. In this way, you can answer the phone differently in each case – a chatty, informal response for the home phone, professional tone for the clinic phone.
Return calls:
Don’t say: ‘Call me any time’ if you don’t mean it. If you say that you will return the person’s call as soon as possible – do so. If possible, calls should normally be returned within 24 hours. It’s very annoying to the patient if you give the impression that you will call back and you don’t, especially if you are denying them the opportunity of perhaps seeking help from another practitioner instead.