Convenience is One of the Best Marketing Tools

You're listening to Podiatry Marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald. Welcome back to Podiatry Marketing. I'm your host, Jim McDannald. Joined as always with my trusty host, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, what's going on today?

Good morning, Jim. Not a lot is happening at the moment, but I can see you're almost about to burst out laughing. You've got a you got a funny smoke on your face.

We get into, you know, funny little jokes. Different things happen before the you know, we push record. So I'll I'll save the audience, but definitely, I'll never dull moment, never dull recording with you, Tyson, for sure.

Wouldn't it be interesting if if we did videos and we released the conversations before, the conversations after, the mistakes that we edit out, we would be arrested.

Probably. Probably. Probably.

Well, one of us would be. Probably you. Because in Australia, we we open slather on. We can we can do whatever we want.

There you go.

To a point. Okay. We should we should dive into this.

Yeah. So we're gonna jump into today.

We are gonna talk about convenience is one of the the best marketing tools. And I was on a webinar a few weeks back, and on the webinar, they had these seven things I was going through. But one of them was convenience always wins. And when I was reading going back through my notes, I thought, yeah, it always wins because convenience is a fantastic marketing tool. And it's because it's something that everybody wants.

It doesn't matter how old you are, your age, your gender, ethnicity, occupation, doesn't matter what it is. Everybody wants convenience. And to give an idea of what what convenience really means, it's just about the ability to proceed with with something without any difficulty. There's no barriers in between. So everybody basically wants that.

And I know if I've ever been somewhere, had great service, or I've I've ordered a product and it's arrived on time or it's arrived earlier, you talk about it. You'll you'll tell your friends, you'll tell your family, work colleagues, and to me, that's where why inconvenience oh, is a great marketing tool because it probably just increases your word-of-mouth sort of traffic.

Yeah. I think it's huge now now now these days. Right? I think for a long time, people are used to waiting long periods for to see a doctor or, you know, if they wanna see something really good, unless they had a connection with them, they expected to wait.

But just

the way that things are going with technology whether it's, you know, having Amazon Prime or Netflix or we have a very a culture now that expects things on demand. So if it takes weeks or even days sometimes for people to come in and see a doctor, It doesn't feel convenient. And like you said, know, when it's convenient people are willing to talk about. They're willing to share on social media or talk to a friend at a gathering about a great experience they had. But also the the the contralateral the contra op the opposite of that is true.

Right? If someone has a bad experience, they're also willing to share that

Oh, yeah.

Pretty readily on a Google review or to talk to their neighbor or their friends about it. So this this level of convenience and how convenient you can make getting in with you, the kind of care and treatment you provide is hugely important.

Well, do you don't know. I'm a little bit older than you, Jim. And I don't know. Back in your day, when you used to take photos on on a camera, not digital cameras, and you take it down to the the Photoshop or the pharmacy or chemist and hand in, and you had to wait two weeks before you got your photos back. And then when they did arrive, if you had a roll of 24 photos, usually 12 of them had were blurred, somebody wasn't smiling, half the photos were terrible.

And then I I remember progressing through to being a week to being a day, and then all of sudden, same day service, you could put your photos in and then come back in an hour and pick your photos up, and it was sort of like, my god. How much that's changed? I look at my daughter now, and if she when she takes a photo, she can't see it instantly on her phone. She would go, why would you even bother taking a photo if you can't check it out straight away? So generations have just gotten used to things being more convenient.

So to give an example, like, what what inconvenience is on the other hand, it's anything that's an annoying occurrence that actually causes problems or difficulties for someone. And a perfect example is if there's a a roadblock and you're gonna take a detour, that is inconvenient, especially if you weren't expecting it. If you normally drive somewhere a certain time, you've allowed a certain amount of time to do it, and all of a sudden there's a roadblock and you've gotta go lot the long way around, and that interrupts your day or interrupts your routine, that is an inconvenience, and that really annoys people. It's got me thinking about what are some of the things in a podiatry business that inconvenience patients, and I thought it would be good to talk about them and some of the ways that we can actually overcome them.

Yeah. There's no short amount of things that can annoy patients either before they get into your clinic or while they're at your clinic. And if you're able to kind of smooth out those road bumps and make it a great patient experience for them, like you said, that you can turn something that was previously an inconvenience into convenience and really wow them with the type of you know, patient experience they have in your practice.

Yeah. So I I think one of the biggest inconvenience for any patient is the podiatrist running late. And last week, I went to the chiropractor. It's supposed to be a three 3PM appointment. I had to be somewhere at 04:00.

I'm looking at my watch. It's like 03:35, and I'm going, I could have been and at the time, I was editing a podcast, which is why I jumped in my car and left. I could have finished doing that editing. And the whole time, I'm sitting here, I'm just thinking I could be doing something else. Luckily, I'd allowed that amount of time to get to the next appointment, but I wish I didn't have to sit there for thirty five minutes.

So then I realized that puts people out. So I reckon some of the things that you should be doing, if your podiatrists are running late all the time or if you're running late, for starters, make longer appointment times. That's that's one easy way. Make your appointment times longer so that if you do happen to finish early, you can always be running on time. Or if you happen to be running a little bit late, it's easy to to basically catch up.

Yeah. I definitely have heard longer appointment times are just putting a little bit of a buffer between some of those appointments that you're unsure how long it's gonna take. But yeah. When you're when you're running late on a consistent basis, everyone's gonna have a bad day now and then. But if you also you have some of these protocols or these kind of ideas about how to smooth it out a little bit.

It's gonna reflect poorly on you and and it'll just frustrate patients and sometimes it'll have an impact on you know, what they perceive as your professionalism. Right? So everyone's gonna have a bad day, but if you're find yourself running behind all the time, you need to implement some of these things you're talking about, Tyson.

Oh, definitely. And I think that if you stick to your scheduled time, if somebody is booked in for a fifteen minute appointment, they get fifteen minutes. If somebody's booked in for a half an hour appointment, they get half an hour. They don't get thirty three minutes because they wanna keep talking. If they were booked in at ten and the appointment finishes at 10:30 and they arrive at 10:12, you finish at 10:30.

That was their allotted time. It's not your fault that they ran late, and I don't think the rest of your patients should be punished because you had one patient who arrived late. And they might say, oh, there was a roadblock and there was this. That's fine. Still not your problem.

Give them the allocated amount of time. Now if you feel bad and you wanna charge them less for that appointment, by all means, it. But I I think you should still should charge them normal because that'll make the patient realize, maybe you should leave a little bit earlier next time. Maybe you should allow for traffic. And you'll find the patients that turn up late and I've got friends that turn up late for things.

Their whole life is late. They were probably you know, when they were delivered, they were probably two weeks late when they were born, and it's just stuck with them the the whole time. So don't keep making allowances for these people. Whatever their time schedule is, they fit in with that time schedule. Or if they arrive really late, you just say, unfortunately, you can't see.

You have to reschedule. And so I think if if you are running late, it's really important. Inform the patient when they arrive that you're running late. When I was at the chiropractor, if they knew he was running half an hour late, they should have told me, as soon as I walk in, hey, Tyson. Good to see you.

Just letting you know, yeah, the chiropractors are running thirty minutes late. I could've gone, great. I'm gonna go outside and make these phone calls that I have to do, or I had my laptop in the car, jump on my laptop, and I'll keep editing the podcast. I'll come back in in half an hour. If they knew he was running half an hour, ring me and say, Tyson, let you know he's running half an hour behind.

Because this is what my my GP, my doctor used to do. I don't think there's anything wrong with ringing patients and say, hey, the person's running behind. But I think this is so important. This is something where you need to have a team meeting. You all need to put your heads together, and you all need to figure out strategies so you never run late.

And my podiatry business when I had it, and we were seeing a ton of patients and and we always ran on time. That was that was one of their biggest marketing things was we ran on time.

It's a huge sign of respect. Right? Whether you're able to communicate that with at the front desk or give a call that they're running half an hour late, it just is a huge sign of respect because people are busy. Right? And people have other things they've either put on pause or put off to come see you.

And when you show, you know, when you communicate with them and you show them that respect, they're not gonna necessarily like it, but the fact that you actually took the time to do it is is a huge thing. And you know, if you can put in some protocols and meet with your team to put in place if you're already behind, I think it definitely makes sense.

And this is what you people don't realize is if your podiatrist is always running late or you're running late, you teach your patients that you are incompetent when it comes to organizing your time. So when they have other appointments that are really important, this is why they ring up day before, and they cancel their appointments. You go, oh, rotten mongrel. Why are they canceling with such short notice? Because other important things have evolved, and they know that you're not very good at keeping keeping the schedule.

Yeah. It definitely is a little bit of a loss of trust there between you and the patient when you're always running late.

Yeah. So the second thing that I think is really inconvenient is when the podiatrist is so busy. Oh, I'm booked out weeks or months ahead. And therefore, the patient that you just saw needs to see you again for something, and they cannot get a suitable time to come back in. And I think if you are that busy that you see a patient on Monday and you can't get them back in that week somehow, then you're obviously not charging enough.

You need you need to increase your fees, and you need to cull the week. You need to free up your appointment book a a little bit more. Or the other suggestion is you need to time block for different appointment types based on what you wanna see more of. So if you wanna see more running patients, more m s a yeah, MSK patients, you need to allow time in your diary that they can get in, and then you can reappoint them for the next treatment, and they can get the next they can get the service that they actually need.

Yeah. The scheduling is huge. Right? And, you know, maybe someone just getting into practice doesn't have that experience or, you know, maybe talking to a mentor or someone that's in the you know, that's can kinda help guide you as far as some some ideas around that that scheduling of your your agenda to make sure that you are leaving those, know, recurring patients. Like you said, fitting in the type of care you wanna provide, that's hugely important because if you just leave it to chance and you're kind of your book your your book is kind of all over the place, you're gonna have either really busy days and then you're gonna be running you're gonna run into the first problem that we talked about running behind.

So you wanna try to make sure that your schedule is really tuned in to the type of care you wanna provide, but also provides it at a high level for for the patients that have a great experience.

I'm yet to have a coaching client who's come to me saying, I'm booked out, you know, weeks or months ahead. Though we have not within a couple of months been able to increase their fees by considerable amount and actually create less work for themselves and be able to get more of what they want in there. But people straddle up with this rate, but I know I'm booked out so many months ahead. Like, it's a big badge on their chest. I I couldn't possibly put my fees up.

I can't do this. It's impossible for me to move patients or have them go somewhere else. I'm going, well, you can because I've done it so many times with other people, and it is possible. You just need to be shown how to do it the right how to do

it

professionally. It is I I think is the main thing. A majority podiatrist I know when they're in that boat where they're booked out, especially months ahead, they do not charge enough. They most of them do not charge enough money. Well, they don't charge enough for the services that they're providing, and they have certain patients that just sometimes they bought sometimes they see them every month where they probably don't need to be seen for every three months.

It's sort of think think about it a little bit more.

Yeah. That's not always just the schedule. Sometimes it is, like you said, it's the fees and having the courage and the knowledge to kinda increase those prices. Yeah. It's definitely something to consider.

So the third thing, and this is a really big one that surprised me, is it's an inconvenience of how long some patients have to wait to get their orthotics. I just I I graduated in '88. '30 '6 years ago. I remember thirty six years ago, you would do a plaster cast or however you did it, you'd send it off to a lab, they'd be back in two weeks. Move ahead thirty six years, and I know there's podiatrists that still make their patients wait two weeks.

And I'm thinking, how is that possible? How can thirty something years later, patients still have to wait two weeks to get a parabatholics? Makes no sense to me. I I don't I don't understand it.

Yeah. With the three d printers and things now, I think it's gonna be even, you know, not even days. It's gonna be hours until the patient can pick up their orthotics.

Yeah. But we we evolved at the appointment. We had our own milling machine on-site. We had the ability that if you had an appointment before eleven, we'd have them for you after lunch. Same day service.

Now we didn't do it with everyone, but but we had a twenty four hour guarantee. But I knew that was something that was gonna set me apart from every other podiatrist. So that was my goal. Get her own milling machine, get it set up, same day or twenty four hour service, and that was convenient for our patients. And our pay our orthotic numbers and patient numbers went through the roof when we did that.

But I think if you've got a lab, inquire about express fees. How much extra do have to pay that I can get this information to you and you can get it back to me in a matter of days, not weeks? And no matter what fee they tell you, see if you can negotiate the price. And if they're gonna, oh, if they won't budge, look at other labs. Especially if you if you turn over if you're doing 50 or a hundred pairs of orthotics a month, you've got buying power.

Go to another lab, see what they're providing. Can they do the express service for free? Will they just include that? And some of the labs I used to use before we had a milling machine actually did that for me because of the numbers that we were doing. But if they won't, ask the patient.

Oh, for an extra $25.30 dollars, I can get this back for you in two days. Would you prefer that? Most patients, if they're in pain and they need the athletics, will pay the extra fee.

Yeah. It's definitely a convenience thing. And like I said, you know, people expect things yesterday now. It's it's on it's an on demand culture we live in now, and if you can make it as convenient as possible by having that express be a part of it, I think that's a huge benefit to to you and to your practice.

And the fourth thing ahead was can't find a car park. Parking is a massive can either be really convenient or can be really inconvenient for the patient. And if you if you don't if you're not in control of your car park or where your clinic is, parking is a little bit difficult, make the patient aware ahead of time that parking can sometimes be difficult at given times. I know some people have a clinic across from a school. So around school drop off and pick up, awful time to try and find a park.

But the rest of the time, it might be great. So make the patient aware of it or or just give them suggestions. Just go, oh, to try and find a park right at the front can be hard, but around the corner in such and such street, there's always parking there. So give them some suggestions, or if you just know it's gonna be difficult, go, I suggest you leave ten minutes ahead of what you thought because getting a park around here can sometimes be hard. And if a patient's aware of that, they'll arrive early.

They go, yeah. You're right. The parking is terrible. They'll find a park, but they'll still arrive on time instead of turning up. And and to me, this is a difference.

I don't know what it's like in Canada or The US or if anybody else is in another country, but I know a lot of specialists, specialist surgeons and all that in Australia, they make it part of their their goal in life is to make parking difficult for patients. Most specialists will be in an area where all the specialists are and the parking is crap because they don't care because they're specialists. They charge an arm and a leg to see them, and they don't give a shit if you're inconvenienced or not. They just don't care. But But I think the rest of us who are in a caring profession, if parking is difficult, we need to make the patients very aware of it so they don't get frustrated.

Yeah. The the parking thing is definitely a huge convenience factor for people. Like, obviously, live in a big city where parking is a nightmare so I'd if I cannot have to drive or or park somewhere I'll I'll choose that first but a lot of times you have to park so and also in The US I always love in Canada and Australia called a car park.

Yeah.

But in The US, we call it parking lots.

I was gonna say

I like

lot. A parking lot.

Yeah. A parking a parking lot. So it's always I always love hearing these different, you know, English ways of saying a different terminology. So yeah, car park, parking lot, all good.

Yeah. If we had to go to Independence Hundreds Of Years ago, we would probably say parking lot too. And we might have even decided, you know what, we're gonna drive on the other side of the road just for the hell of it. There you go. Just because we can.

We're gonna do the exact opposite to what you're doing. Anyway, the last thing I just wanna talk about is just whatever your online booking process is is just go through it yourself and make sure it's simple. Make sure it makes sense. I've seen some booking sites on different health care websites. Really simple to navigate.

You get in, bang, bang, bang, you make your point really easy. I've seen other ones where you get in there, and I'm going, oh my god. This is a bit of a pain. And then and we spoke about this on one of the previous podcasts where you'll they'll have a form on there. They want you to fill out all this information, and then you arrive at the clinic on time, and they want you to fill in the same information.

That is inconvenient. Make it as convenient as possible. So like I said, have a team meeting. Think about what convenience means to your patients. And it really look at all the areas where you can create less barriers is ease of purchase.

So if you're recommending a a foot cream or some form of product, strapping tape, have it handy for them to to purchase it. Hey, this is the foot cream we recommend. We've got to do it the front. They don't have to jump in the car, then go and drive to another place to go and buy that cream. So small things like that, if you're recommending it, have them on-site, and you will actually make some extra money from it.

And then just think about what else do they need? What else will they need next week, next month, next year? And try and navigate your business around that. Just try and make the whole experience with your business fantastic. They will leave, and when they do leave, they're gonna talk about your business in a really positive way.

Yeah. It's a great way to mark your your clinic, right, is this kind of word-of-mouth. It still exists. There's like digital word-of-mouth, regular word-of-mouth. And the more the better patient experience you provide, the more likely you're gonna get that positive word-of-mouth.

So just like you said, do everything you can in your practice to make it as convenient as as possible for the patient. There's a lot of different ways of doing it. There's even probably more than we talked about today. I'm sure we could spend hours talking about this topic, but I think it was a really great topic to bring up today and very relevant.

No. That I that's enough for me today because I like I said, I get fired up sometimes. But no. That's good. I I like this particular subject because it does it is such a a mark it's such a great marketing tool.

And even though you'll hear some organizations say, oh, word-of-mouth marketing is dead. No. But I still think word-of-mouth marketing is one of the best. You you build up your reputation, like you said, online or offline, people will talk about you. I mean, and when you're part of the conversation in a positive way, it can only help build your business.

So this has been a fantastic subject, Jim.

You have enjoyed, Tyson.

Okay. I shall talk to you next week.

Alright. Sounds great. Okay. Bye. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim Mcdonald. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.