Reduce your response time without giving up quality!
The most significant characteristic of high-quality customer service, according to consumers, is a quick response time. However, just because you respond quickly does not mean it is a quality response. The trick is to lower your response time while still being able to have consumer solutions and quality to your responses.
In a previous blog post, we have explained the reasoning Why Response Time Matters and encourage you to take a look if you have not already and learn why reducing your response time is important.
Now, we’re going to jump right in to discuss ways in which you can begin reducing your response time with our chiropractic software, Digital Patient Chart, without losing the quality of your responses!
Use of Email Autoresponders
The use of email autoresponders will significantly lower the amount of time spent on answering back patients in a timely manner. Even an autoresponder set up to say you have received their message and will get back to them within [insert ideal time frame here] is a huge step in the right direction. For one, this lets your patients know you have successfully received their email. Two, it gives them peace of mind when they are given a time frame of when to expect a response rather than religiously checking and wondering how long it could take.
If your chiropractic office is closed during the weekend, they will be notified of this within the autoresponder when you include your chiropractic office hours in the message. This way, if they do not receive a reply during the weekend they will understand why and it will not be held against you as offices usually do not respond on days they are closed.
Update your FAQ to Lower Patient Inquiries
This is a good one and often looked over! Many questions are asked because they do not see it answered in your FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page or cannot find the page altogether. Keeping this updated on new commonly asked questions will lower the amount of the same questions being asked so you may free up time answering ones that are not so common.
If you have set up an email autoresponder, it is a good idea to include a link to your FAQ page within the email in case they did not see the page before contacting you. If their question has been answered through the FAQ link before you got around to answering them yourself, great! If it is a question that is not found on the FAQ page, then you will be given more time to answer it accordingly thanks to the common questions being filtered out.
Time-Based Alerts
Time-based alerts can be manually set up in Digital Patient Chart to fit what ever situation you need. Let’s say you read an email and need additional information before you are able to give a correct response. In order to make sure you do not forget to respond, you can set up a time-based alert that will go off in any amount of desired time you need to get the information and be reminded to respond back. Emails, especially after being read, can easily get lost in the inbox feed. These alerts can come in handy when it comes to reminding you to respond in good time.
Even questions that are made on your chiropractic office’s social media profiles may take some time to get certain information together before issuing a correct response. Use time-based alerts to your advantage and create reminders of information needed and inquiries that need your attention.
Use of Templates
While our chiropractic software comes with premade email templates, you can also create your own! Not just the look and feel of the template but creating a premade response template where all you have to do is change out the answer can save you a lot of time.
For example, start off by thanking your patient for contacting your chiropractic office. Then, make the body of the text changeable to answer the patient’s question. At the end of the email, provide links to your FAQ page, social media, and contact information. This allows you to respond without forgetting to leave helpful information. All you need to do, is concentrate on answering their question!
Automatic Scheduling
Our chiropractic software includes automatic scheduling for appointments. This saves you a lot of time on redundant scheduling and provides you with more time on responding to patients. For example: when your patients sign up for a specific plan, let’s say 2 or 3 days per week, our system will recognize how often they need to come in and schedule the patient around your office hours and the specific chiropractic doctor’s schedule. That’s not all though, Digital Patient Chart’s scheduling system is quite powerful and adapts to live changes! In fact, we have an article all about its scheduling capabilities and how it helps you stay productive and saves you valuable time. If you are interested in learning more about the power of Digital Patient Chart’s scheduling, check out our article Scheduling with Digital Patient Chart
The Takeaway
We hope these tips enlighten you on ways you can easily reduce your response time. With Digital Patient Chart, lowering your response time couldn’t be any easier! It’s more than an appointment software, it’s a system that lives and adapts with your chiropractic office – becoming part of your team and eliminating tedious day to day tasks.
It might be easy to ask your team to respond quickly, but the more the team focuses on speed they could give up quality and in turn lower the quality of the service you provide to your patients. This is why our system is important: it pushes the chiropractic office to stay productive and, because of its ability to automate many daily tasks, gives your team the time and focus needed to deliver a superior quality experience to your patients.