Marketing: How are Surveys Important to Your Practice? – Part II

Private Practice Marketing Surveys
This article is a continuation of Marketing: Why are Surveys Important to Your Practice? – Part I. If you haven’t done so yet, we recommend reading the first article to get a better context when reading this one.

Many different types of surveys can be created. A brief description of a few basic ones are as follows:

  • Needs and Wants Survey: A series of questions designed to find out what products and services people in your area consider to be valuable, desirable, undesirable or necessary. A Needs and Wants survey provides you with the “hot buttons” of the people in your area. These buttons should be used in all of your promotion.
  • Quality Control Survey: Find out if you are meeting your patients’ expectations and what, if anything, you can do to improve your service to them. Feedback from your patients is vital and helps you keep your quality of service high, so you can keep them coming back.
  • Referral Survey: A survey designed to find out if your patients are referring your practice and why they do or do not refer others to your practice. You can find out how to get more referrals and improve your internal marketing.
  • New Services and Products Survey: A New Services and Products Survey will help you determine how to go about introducing anything new to current and potential clientele and help you predict how they will respond to it.

    • Whom to Survey

    Determine which public or market you are going to target with your survey: active patients, inactive patients, former patients, new patients, or those who have never been into your practice.

    Example: If you’re interested in getting people back into the practice who haven’t been in for some time, create a survey for the inactive/former patient public. After contacting these people and getting the responses to your survey questions tabulated, you’ll have information that you can use in a reactivation letter.

    How to Survey:

    • By Mail: When surveying by mail, it is suggested that you encourage a response by including a postage-paid return envelope or reply card. If needed, mailing lists can be purchased using demographics to target specific markets.
    • In Person: An efficient way to survey your active patients is to have questions prepared that they can answer right in your waiting area. Have your staff conduct the survey either before the appointment or as they are leaving. In-person surveys can be done at health fairs, public events, and on busy public thoroughfares. These are good for reaching those who have never been into your practice.
    • By Phone: Conducting phone surveys is a good way to reach inactive patients but can also be used in contacting potential patients. Phone lists of people in your area can be purchased.

    Get the Patients you Want

    Get more of the kind of patients that you want to have in your practice by using effective survey techniques. Determine who you want to make up your client base and then use surveys to find out how to get them into your practice. Keep them coming back and referring you by using surveys that will monitor their satisfaction with the quality of services you and your staff deliver to them.

    Questions?

    Let us know if you have any questions or suggestions about this article, feel free to submit the form below. Also if you need help with implementation we would be happy to assist you. The Practice Solution Team speaks with doctors and practice owners every day. We would be delighted to hear from you.

    If you need assistance in implementing this article or any practice management topic, we offer one hour of complementary consulting for free, if you participate in a 15 minute anonymous interview to help us in our upcoming publications. Fill out form below