It’s a conundrum, isn’t it…

You have tasks like follow-up phone calls and responding to inquires, but you don’t have the staff or the time to do it yourself.  You want ultimate control over it, yet you can’t do it all yourself.

Do you hire someone in-house for your Medical Appointment Setting or do you hire an outsource agency?

Whether you hire someone in-house or outsource they are not you, so that is the first hurdle you have to overcome.  No one cares about your business as much as you do!  

It then becomes necessary to train them and hold them accountable to your standards.   It is critical to remember while we do hire pretty amazing people, they are not you and it isn’t their business.

If you want to grow your business you’re going to have to give up some control and let others do these time-consuming tasks or you’ll be stuck on the hamster wheel you’re currently on.  Unable to scale your business without giving up your freedom.   

And oftentimes the employee will do the task much better than you ever could.   This is true for people in your physical office or ones you hire virtually.

When I opened my fitness center I was doing everything, and therefore not doing anything well.   I just couldn’t “justify” in my head paying someone $10 an hour to do administrative work for me, like creating the files for my clients, gathering the contracts and other paperwork, answering the phone, and booking appointments.   My mindset was that they wouldn’t do it EXACTLY AS I WOULD DO IT.

I had standards!

Finally, I bit the bullet and hired Brekk. He was going to work part-time as my admin.  The first task I gave him was to organize my office, while I went to the bank.

When I came back I was AMAZED at how organized my office was, not only was he uber organized but he was a really nice person and was great on the phone and with my clients.   But was this really worth $200 a week?

As it turns out…because he was doing the “lower value work” I was able to work on the higher value work… like marketing, networking, and selling.

In his first week working for me, I signed up 5 new clients for total revenue of $11,300.   That $200 investment in Brekk for the week returned over $10K in new business.  Not bad… Um, why didn’t I do it before?

Many business owners have that same mindset when it comes to nurturing the leads.  They want to completely control it, they’re the only one who can do it. Blah blah blah…

Yet they’re not doing a great job of following up consistently or persistently because those are the tasks that always get pushed aside for the URGENT tasks.

Follow up is seemingly one of the lowest value tasks yet the most important task in your business.  Following up on leads and booking appointments.  Isn’t that an oxymoron?

The reality is that most business owners put this task off, yet when done correctly it will have the highest reward for the business.

Imagine waking up on Monday morning seeing that you have 10 consultations on your calendar for the week (that is 10 opportunities to sell) and you didn’t do anything to get them there.

WHY SOME WON’T DO IT

In today’s “nationalistic” mindset, it’s hard to think about moving some of our tasks off-shore.  The reality is that labor is a lot less expensive than on the mainland, and the labor is just as educated, skilled, and efficient as on the motherland.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ACCENT?

Really?!  Walk down any street in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or my hometown Houston Texas, and you’ll hear tons of accents and tons of languages spoken.  

It’s not really about the accent…

The real issue I believe is that people are jaded by hearing from someone who DOESN’T SOUND LIKE THEY CARE.  Someone who is following a script and can’t have a conversation with you.

We’ve all received that call from “Bob” whose name is clearly NOT Bob, who tells us there is a virus on our computer and we should pay him $248 to fix the problem.

We’ve all called our insurance company looking for a solution for the billing issue only to get “Susan” who is just following a script and not really listening to what our issue is.  We would have been better off with an IVR system (Interactive Voice Response) “Press one if you’re pissed off”.

What I’m talking about is the new way of outsourcing.  The one which is an extension of your company.  The one which doesn’t cost you $1500 a month for a part-time appointment setter who you have to train and supervise may or may not really care about you or your company.

When the call center is focused on specific industries you will get industry expertise and experience.  The call center agents are then able to have real conversations with people rather than following a script.

You absolutely can have the best of both worlds.

The low cost of labor AND the people who care about your business and can have a real conversation.

It just takes some trust.   Here are 3 Tips to make the process easier.

First of all, you have to trust that the company you outsource to has your best interests at heart.   It’s a partnership you are creating.  Just like you would create with an employee who is sitting in your office.

SECOND, make sure they understand your business.

Hiring a professional company in your niche is going to speed up the onboarding process.  You don’t have to hire, train, and monitor the performance of an employee which could take up to a month from start to finish.  

THIRD, you want good reporting.

When hiring your outsource agency, make sure you get reports on Key Performance Indicators.  Like the speed of connection, the number of activities, and contact to booked appointments.   There are no “standard” KPIs since each business and the lead source is different, so it’s important to look at the entire picture, then numbers, and have the conversation.  

Make means regular check-ins with your account manager to go over what they are seeing how what areas to improve.

For one client we are getting a 75% conversion rate from contact (speaking with someone) to Appointment Set.  The leads are primed and ready to go.  Yet another client we have a 10% conversion from contact to appointment… The biggest difference is the demographic of the leads.

And when you treat this as a partnership between you and the outsourcing agency it will JUST WORK.

When you follow these 3 Tips To Outsourcing Medical Appointment Setting you will start the relationship on a much better foot.   Of all the clients we have worked with the ones who are the happiest are the ones who understand all 3 Tips Outsourcing Medical Appointment Setting.

If you’re interested in learning more about outsourcing your lead nurture and follow up process please schedule a call with me at www.BusinessLeadMaximizer.com or download this guide at www.BusinessLeadMaximizer.com/monday