When communicating with your Patients there are lots of options out there. In this blog post I’m going to focus on SMS and the advantages of using it for urgent/time-sensitive communication as well as for marketing purposes.
The first thing to note is when choosing to contact your patients via SMS v Email, email open rates are around 21%. That is not very high. Especially if you’re trying to give them important information or try to upsell products or services. You want to make sure your Patients are seeing this information. On the other hand, open rates of texts are around 99%, AND 97% opening within 15 minutes. That is a real stark difference when we’re looking at how we communicate with Patients/potential Patients on a daily basis.
Security
One of the main things you need to consider when you’re choosing how to communicate with your patients is the security of those messages, especially if you’re going to include sensitive data. There are platforms out there (like F365) that can send appointment reminders directly from the platform via text to your patient, securly! It’s best when establishing communication channels to ask the right question - IS THIS CHANNEL SECURE?
Opt in - Why?
Giving your patients the ability to opt-in and opt-out of email communication isn’t just polity, it’s now the law. Most people choose to have this as an optional checkbox during sign up - it is absolutely recommended to do this or you could find yourself in a little bit of trouble. This isn’t just for email, this is for any form of communication. Inside F365 you can easily set your marketing communication preferences during your setup of the platform.
When and how often?
This is a difficult question. If we’re talking about time sensitive information, as soon as possible and by text and email however when we’re talking about marketing it’s a very thin line to tread. Too often and you could find your Patients opting-out of marketing communication from you but not often enough and you could be missing out on lots of opportunities for business growth. My best advice is to put yourself in the patient's shoes and ask how often you think is reasonable to get texts/emails from a business? You know your patients and client base the best.
Choosing the right communication channel that is secure and fulfils its purpose of actively growing your business and providing exceptional customer service really is the cornerstone to success in Private Healthcare. If you want to know more about the options available to you inside F365, get in touch with us today!
