Article originally posted on: www.clearonhold.com/blog/2020/6/8/7-secrets-the-best-veterinary-hospital-managers-know-about-communicating-with-on-hold-messaging
On-Hold Messaging can help you increase sales, make customers happier, and help people take better care of their pets! Here’s how…
1. On Hold Messaging makes callers into better customers - and your hospital into a better service
You receive calls from three basic kinds of callers: established clients, regular clients, and potential clients. Established clients make up your most loyal customers – they call every month for check-ups and they look to you as an exclusive source of food, medicine, or some other regular service like grooming or boarding. Whenever they have a question, your phone rings. Your regular clients probably wouldn’t go to another vet, but they engage fewer of your services and really only reach out when they have a glaring issue they cannot ignore. Finally, your potential clients are first-time callers, callers who only rarely or never engage your services, and might even be looking for a reason to avoid your services.
The best practice managers know this secret – the more established clients you have, the more established income you have, and the better your serve all your clients with that revenue. By impressing callers with quick hold times, relevant information, and professional sound, you not only improve your relationship with all your customers, you give yourself the means to be a better hospital.
2. On Hold Messaging should sell all of your services to all of your clients
Just like you have different kinds of callers, you have different kinds of services: services your clients know about and use, those they know about but don’t use, and those they don’t know about. The best On Hold Messaging sells all three. All your clients have busy lives – even the established ones can use a reminder about vaccinations and general check-ups, and your potential clients will be all the more impressed when they hear about services they wouldn’t otherwise have thought of. Likewise, though, you don’t want to flood all your callers with only one kind of service.
If your established and regular clients are calling about check-ups, and all they hear on hold has to do with check-ups, that makes their wait time longer and dulls the appeal of your hospital. It might even prompt them to consider other veterinarians and hospitals that advertise their services better. The best practice managers know this secret – the more variety you offer on hold, and the more frequently you update your messaging, the more opportunities you have to strengthen established relationships and create entirely new ones!
3. Your brand is what people hear on your phones
Okay, so you’re not exactly Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to think about branding! People build their identities from products and services they engage and having clients who identify with you means having clients who are far less likely to look elsewhere for your services. Veterinary hospitals and clinics save lives, keep friends together, and provide necessary information to make their clients feel more confident and secure as pet owners, and the time for you to remind your clients of that is while they are waiting. The best hospital managers know this secret – your clients identify your service with what they hear over the phone as much as what they see in your office, and the more they like what they hear, the more likely they are to identify with your service!
4. Shorter hold times make good messaging more important
It sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s true! When you place a client on hold, you gain a golden opportunity to talk about what you offer that will improve the life of their pets and, in turn, improve their own lives! Longer wait times actually make this task easier – after all, you can say a lot more in 4 minutes than you can in 20 seconds. That’s why we have the phrase “elevator speech” for job interviews and sale pitches. The best practice managers know this secret – the less time you have to communicate a message, the more important it is to communicate it well. That makes custom, professional scripting a keystone of the best and most effective On Hold Messaging.
5. Callers on hold are already in your waiting room
What do callers on hold do? They wait. You don’t want people sitting in the dark when they come to your office. Hospitals, whether they cater to people or pets, often can’t help but be anxious places. How people wait, when they find themselves left to reflect on why they came to you, effects how they engage your services, how likely they are to stick around and how likely they are to visit you again. The best hospital managers invest heavily in their waiting rooms, and they invest in On Hold Messaging for the same reason – clients usually spend more time waiting than doing anything else, so make their wait engaging, calming, and encouraging. In your waiting room, you do this with light and color. On Hold, you do it with good messaging.
6. Professional image – and customer trust – depends on how you place people on hold
We hear all the time about how important professionalism is to our businesses – but only rarely hear why. Nothing in healthcare means more than trust: you can communicate more easily with a trusting client, and in turn they find their experience at your hospital or clinic more encouraging and engaging. That makes them more likely to increase how often they seek out your services! Trust forms the basis of any lasting relationship, especially when you facilitate that all-important relationship between pets and their humans. The best hospital managers know this secret – how professional you sound affects clients’ trust and loyalty, and determines how likely they are to both continue giving you business and increase the amount of business they give you.
7. Good On Hold Messaging creates happier receptionists
Your receptionists work hard every day, and as the face of your hospital, the easier you make their job, the better they can sell your services, both with their words and their demeanor. Good On Hold Messaging answers little questions for your receptionists, very good On Hold Messaging limits the number of questions they have to answer into certain categories, and the best On Hold Messaging does all of this and reduces the number of calls they have to answer.
The Best and Most Professional On Hold Marketing makes wait times seem shorter, satisfies all your callers’ questions, and makes them feel like you always have them on your mind – that makes them more willing to wait on your receptionist, more pleasant when they speak to your receptionist, and less likely to hang up and call back multiple times. The best hospital managers know this secret – make your receptionists’ lives easier and you create a better image, and the easiest way to make their lives easier is with the best On Hold Marketing.
Article written by:
Clearonhold
119 N Sage St Suite 201
Toccoa, GA 30577
(888) 465-3661
https://www.clearonhold.com/