Looks mean a lot
How to spiff up your clinic’s image
By Eldar Causevic

Gaining and keeping new patients is difficult. To help promote their services and recruit new patients, practitioners tend to focus on how they can improve their advertising, how to craft a better message, or how to offer a different service.

While all of these are important considerations, they frequently overshadow another extremely important aspect of their practice: The look!

To better understand the importance of the look of a practice, it is helpful to consider the typical decision-making process that new patients go through when choosing a healthcare provider.

Chiropractic care is difficult to evaluate, because as a service, it is intangible. Patients cannot hold, touch, or see the service to evaluate it. This is generally a problem when new patients seek to compare practices.

Since they cannot compare things they cannot see, touch, or feel, they, consciously or unconsciously, tend to compare the tangible components and attributes that they can experience.

So what are those attributes? They are “the look” of the practice. This includes:

• Signage,
• The building,
• The front entry,
• The waiting area,
• Treatment tables,
• X-ray machine; and
• Other things that convey the “tone” your practice.

In other words, patients tend to use the physical items in and surrounding the clinic to form an opinion about the service they have received or expect to receive.

This is a powerful concept. It means that the way the practice looks is one of the most important aspects of how successful the practitioner will be in attracting and keeping patients. Moreover, when patients or others make their decisions on whether to send a referral, they go through the same decision-making process.

Unfortunately, too many chiropractors frequently overlook this important factor. In fact, many purposely skimp on the “look” of their practice, hoping to save on costs, without realizing that they might be spending more to overcome “look” issues to attract new patients.

Furthermore, they are likely losing existing patients and referrals as the office appearance degrades.

An updated office with a professional look communicates success and therefore provides the tangible component patients look for when making their provider decisions.

IMPROVING YOUR LOOK

In an ideal world, financial constraints would not exist and you could spend whatever it took to operate a first-class office. The office would be in the best part of town, in a new, professionally decorated, custom-designed building, with all new equipment.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. However that does not mean that it is impossible to achieve the “top look” on a budget.

Although changing the office location or layout is often impractical and expensive, here are a few things that can be upgraded without overburdening the cash flow:

• Outside signage. The exterior practice sign is one of the first tangible attributes that a patient sees when assessing a practice. A professionally designed, freshened sign will go a long way in providing a positive first impression. An elegant sign can compensate for many look deficiencies of the building or the location.

• Reception area. The reception area is one of the key places where a practice has an opportunity to shine — and for just a few hundred dollars. A fresh coat of paint and a few new chairs can easily transform the look of the entire practice. Additional things to consider are new pictures, some plants, and frequently updated reading materials. If possible, consider giving staff members logo shirts to wear. All of this makes a good first impression.

• Tables. Treatment tables are one of the most visible and most frequently used tools in a practice. Patients get a chance to evaluate them more than any other aspect of the practice — before treatment (while they are waiting), during consultations, during treatment, and after treatment.

Because tables are bulky, they tend to be the focal point in a room. The look of the tables might be one of the most important parts of the overall look of the practice.

Patients also realize that tables are a big investment for a chiropractor. Consciously or unconsciously, patients equate the value of the practice with the value of the table.

Investing in a quality table benefits your practice, because the table “just keeps on working.” But even the best tables begin to show their age after a few years.

While upgrading the tables can be a costly option, with proper research it can be done with very little impact on the cash flow. New tables offer the most “bang” for the “cash-flow buck” in terms of your practice’s image. They communicate success.

When researching various table options, consider the following:

1. Buy direct from the manufacturer. The manufacturers tend to offer the best deals.

2. Look for 0 percent financing. Several companies offer 0 percent financing, but most are not actually able to offer credit due to credit-score constraints. Look for a manufacturer that offers in-house financing. They tend to be a lot more flexible.

3. Look for a manufacturer that will take trade-ins. Not every company will take a trade. But this is a good way to reduce the cost of your new tables and not have to worry about how to dispose of the old ones.

OPTIMIZING YOUR INVESTMENT

Once you make these small but very significant changes, let your community know about the “new” practice. You have a unique opportunity to host an open house for your patients and referral sources.

An updated office can generate enough excitement within the existing patient population to move them to invite their friends and family so that they can brag about how successful their chiropractor is. Patients enjoy sharing increasing success of their chiropractor, and this is a very powerful marketing tool.

Eldar Causevic, a partner in Medicor Dextera, a table company, teaches entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., and is involved in the entrepreneurship community through industry panels, guest lecturing and volunteer projects. He can be reached at 636-578-6000 or at eldar@medicordextera.com.