Independents miss out on growth opportunity

Are you an independent practitioner who feels it is too pushy or commercial to ask patients to recommend your practice to others? If so you could be losing out on a third of new business. This is the message of a new survey of nearly 6,500 patients which revealed that independents were under utilising their key strength of gaining new customers through personal recommendation Ð and may be missing out on growing their patient base by up to 33 per cent. The survey, by marketing support business for independent opticians the Independent Marketing Partnership, asked 6,487 patients from 50 smaller practices for their views and found that personal recommendation remained the main reason why people choose these outlets. It found that 61 per cent of new patients said that personal recommendation had prompted them to choose a particular practice. In contrast, only 2 per cent cited advertising in Yellow Pages. Not surprisingly, the research also found there was a strong correlation between the level of patient satisfaction with a practice and a willingness to recommend it. It found 83 per cent of patients rated their practice either 'very or extremely good', and 82 per cent said they would be 'very or extremely likely' to recommend it. Nevertheless the research showed that there was a significant difference between the number of patients willing to recommend a practice (82 per cent) and the number of new patients who choose one because of personal recommendation (62 per cent). It appeared that many existing patients were not carrying out their intention to recommend a practice, which suggested there was the potential to increase the number of personal recommendations by up to one in three. Graham Hutchison, managing director of the partnership, said that independents should now encourage personal recommendation by existing patients. 'At the moment the vast majority of practitioners never even consider asking their patients to recommend their practices,' he commented. 'This is probably because they feel it may be seen as being too pushy or commercial. Yet they are leaving their most effective form of new patient generation to chance.' He added: 'Practitioner concerns about promoting recommendations are misplaced. There is no evidence that the public objects to being asked. In fact this research suggests that the opposite applies Ð four out of every five patients are willing to recommend their practice.' david.challinorrbi.co.uk