Staying busy is one of the most discussed business topics in all of optometry. Usually, when optometrists talk about how busy we are, we are referring to our appointment books. We also discuss how far we are “booked out,” indicating how long I would have to wait if I wanted to schedule an eye exam in your office.

It is critical that we have steady traffic in our offices to keep things flowing properly. There are multiple strategies and services that we employ to keep our appointment books filled.

A primary component in every marketing strategy is in earning the loyalty from patients so they will decide to choose us again next year. Degree of loyalty is quite variable and strongly determines the likelihood of a patient’s return to your practice year after year.

“Recall” is the term most practices use to describe the system they use to administer their loyalty programs. It always begins with a strong recommendation to return from the doctor then may include a pre-appointment, a postcard, an email, a text message and a phone call.

Recall systems have undergone a lot of transition in the last few years due to changes in insurance coverage, electronic medical records, transient lifestyles, and the huge shift in the ways we communicate. There are multiple services now available that can dig into our records and automatically send messages to bring people back. Some are run by people and others by technology.

We have tried to make a number of adjustments to our system and have settled on a recall system that seems to be working well for us. Here is a LINK to our current recall system.

Take care,

Mike