Follow up
The enquiry that went quiet gets followed up, every time, on a schedule
Somebody enquired, you replied, and then nothing. Follow up happens on a fixed schedule rather than when a member of staff remembers, so the person who got busy hears from you again. Every attempt is logged, and nothing depends on anyone keeping a list in their head.
The outcome
An enquiry that goes quiet is not a no. It is a person who got busy
Somebody rang on a Tuesday, got the information they asked for, said they would have a think, and then their week happened. Nobody in the clinic did anything wrong. It is simply that going back to them is nobody's actual job, it sits behind treating patients and running the diary, and by Friday the note has gone cold. The difference between a lost enquiry and a booked one is often just whether anyone went back.
How the going back works
- It runs on a schedule
- A fixed sequence of attempts at set intervals, decided once and then applied to everyone. That is the whole trick, and it is why it never happens reliably by hand: not because anyone is careless, but because it depends on remembering.
- It uses the channel they used
- Somebody who filled in a form gets an email, somebody who texted gets a text. Chasing a phone call with a letter is how a follow up gets ignored by a person who was perfectly interested.
- It stops when it should
- A reply, an opt out or a booking ends the sequence immediately. Nothing keeps arriving after somebody has answered, which is the failure that makes patients resent a clinic rather than return to it.
- Every attempt is logged
- Who was contacted, when, on what channel, and what came back. Your team can see the whole history against the enquiry rather than reconstructing it from three inboxes.
What it’s worth
It is the same enquiries, losing fewer of them
This adds no new patients to the top of your list. It changes what happens to the ones already on it, which is why the arithmetic is unusually favourable: you have already paid the acquisition cost for every person in the sequence. Work it out against your own enquiry volume and what a first assessment is worth to you.
A hundred enquiries in a month and fifteen that go quiet after the first exchange. At £800 an assessment, going back to them and recovering a third is £4,000 from work you had already done. Invented numbers, your own arithmetic.
How it’s built
The record belongs to your clinic
Every enquiry, every attempt and every reply is stored on infrastructure registered to your clinic. If we stop working together you keep the whole history, not an export of it. That matters more here than almost anywhere: a follow up record is patient contact data and it should never sit somewhere you cannot reach.
- Registered to your businessThe numbers, the database, the automations, the website and every call record sit in accounts in your organisation's name.
- We hold access, not ownershipOur route in is a permission you grant, and one you can withdraw without anything stopping.
- If we stop working togetherThe system keeps running and nothing has to be exported, because none of it was ever somewhere else.
What it takes
Find out how many are going quiet first
The Leak Check measures what happens to an enquiry after the first reply, as well as what happens when one arrives. If your follow up is already sound and the real gap is somewhere else, the report will say so and point at the thing that actually costs you most.
What owners ask first
How many times should a clinic follow up an enquiry?
More than once, which is where most clinics stop, and fewer than the number that starts to feel like pressure. The sequence is set once with you and applied consistently, and it ends the moment somebody replies or opts out.
Does this feel like chasing to the patient?
Not when it is written as a useful message rather than a reminder that they have not replied. A follow up that answers the next question they were going to ask reads as service. One that says we notice you have not got back to us reads as pressure, and we do not send those.
Is this different from marketing emails?
Yes. This is follow up on a specific enquiry somebody made, on the channel they used, and it stops when they answer. It is not a newsletter and it does not add anyone to a list.
Who writes the messages?
We do, and you approve them before anything sends. They are written for your clinic and your treatments, because a generic follow up performs worse than none and is the main reason clinics conclude that follow up does not work.
What about people who were interested but are not ready yet?
Keeping somebody warm over a longer horizon is a separate piece of work and we are not claiming it here until it ships. Today this covers the enquiry that went quiet in the days after it arrived, which is where most of the recoverable value sits anyway.
Does it work with our practice management system?
It sits behind what you already use rather than replacing it. Scope varies with the system you run, which is one of the things the Leak Check establishes before anyone quotes you anything.
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Find out what's recoverable in your clinic
We mystery-shop your clinic the way a patient would, by search, phone and web form, then show you the patients you could be winning. Scored on three things: are you found, is the enquiry answered, does anyone chase it.