Last July I attended the Stars of Dentistry conference and listened to an American dentist reveal to the London audience that 100 patients a day visited his clinic and that his team averaged 1 Google or Facebook review per day.
His point – that a 99% “failure rate” was actually a success strategy because this daily marginal gain created up to 250 reviews per year, every year.
It got me thinking and also observing similar stats from within my own client base.
What I’m finding is a “failure rate” of between 99% and 95%.
Turning that on its head, I’m seeing practices that are collecting reviews from anywhere between 1 in 100 and 1 in 20 patients – the champions being those who collect 1 in 20.
So here’s a benchmark for you to think about.
On average, how many patients a day flow through your clinic?
On average, how many reviews per day do you collect?
What’s your target?
There is little point in announcing to your team “we need more reviews” – this isn’t (as coach Michael Hyatt defines it) SMARTER:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Actionable
- Realistic
- Time-bound
- Exciting
- Relevant
What you can do is to state that “we average X patients per day/week through the clinic and I’d like us to target X/20=Y reviews.”
You must explain the relevance – “more and more of our new patients are telling us that they have read our reviews before making contact.”
You might want to make it exciting – “once we hit our first 100 reviews, this is how we will celebrate.”
Perhaps most importantly, you have to make it realistic – “if the best clinics only manage 1 in 20 – that’s a reasonable target for us to aim at also.”
Then – keep count – at Monday’s Daily Huddle – announce the results from last week’s activity and performance to date against whatever target you have agreed.
Your 95% failure rate could be a very successful strategy for 2019.
