If you are ever in any clinic in Rajkot on a Monday morning, you are likely to see the same scene at the front desk- a receptionist juggling three phone calls as walk-ins fill the waiting room, two or three consultation rooms are empty, since patients have failed to show up for their appointments and by the end of the week, you can count on your fingers how many potential appointments you threw away because people simply did not show up.
Having fewer doctors' visits by a couple of percent per week may sound insignificant, but if you extrapolate that number over a year, it can add up. And it's not like you are losing out on 3-5% in overall clinic appointments either. Across the globe, clinics and hospitals lose anywhere between 5-30% of their appointments to no-shows, which is way more than you think.
What's the Big Deal With Missed Appointments?
While a missed appointment means an empty chair for the doctor, or an underutilized diagnostic machine, it's more than just a loss of potential treatment for other patients. It's also a loss of revenue for the clinic, and depending on the scale of the clinic, could be significant. If you are a solo practitioner, it's probably just a couple thousand rupees a week that you lose out on, but for a multi-specialty hospital, it's the revenue from an MRI machine that goes unused for 15-20 minutes. Even more worrying is the opportunity cost in terms of retaining patients. A patient who was scheduled for a treatment, but failed to show up, may decide not to return as a patient, or at least reschedule their appointment later.
Why Are Clinics in Rajkot Choosing WhatsApp Business API First?
Rajkot has a healthcare landscape that has a mix of multi-specialty hospitals on the 150 Feet Ring Road, diagnostic centers on the Kalawad Road, skin and hair clinics on the Kalawad Road, University Road and Gondal Road, and single doctor clinics that are sometimes located in residential areas. What these clinics have in common is their patient base- Rajkot has one of the highest smartphone and WhatsApp penetration rates in tier 2 cities in India, with patients preferring to communicate via WhatsApp, over SMS and even over calling back, the actual clinic.
This is exactly the issue that Bizzriser helped out local skin and hair clinics with- when they approached Bizzriser about their no-show appointments for laser and skin treatments, the solution involved using WhatsApp Business API for appointment reminders while using it to design a comprehensive WhatsApp Business API flow for patients to keep them engaged with the clinic. With the proposed changes in place, within a month, the no-show rate for these clinics had gone down considerably.
Appointment Reminder WhatsApp Business API Use Cases
When it comes to WhatsApp Business API, most clinic owners think that it needs an elaborate setup with a ton of automation involved in order to make something as simple as an appointment reminder work. The reality is that a lot of it is actually remarkably straight forward, with an example of a WhatsApp Business API reminder system being as follows:
A patient books an appointment, either over the phone, in person or fills up a form on the clinic's website. Within minutes, they receive a WhatsApp Business API message regarding the details of their upcoming appointment. The next day, they receive a WhatsApp Business API message asking them to confirm or reschedule their appointment.
Finally, within a couple of hours of the scheduled time of the appointment, they receive another WhatsApp Business API message as a final reminder, reducing the likelihood of no-shows significantly
None of this has to be done manually, since most appointment reminder systems on WhatsApp Business API take advantage of WhatsApp's automation features, freeing up your staff to do more important tasks.
Follow Up Messages are where WhatsApp Business API really shine
While appointment reminder messages are great, it's the follow up messages that really keep your patients engaged, and that engagement can be measured in terms of increased retention. How many patients have you lost due to a failure to send out follow up messages? A patient who walks in for a procedure, walks out with test results, but never follows up on the results is one thing, but a post-surgery patient who fails to show up for their 2-week follow up, or an expectant mother who fails to bring her child in for a vaccination because nobody followed up with her, are situations where a simple follow up message could have made all the difference.
With WhatsApp Business API, a clinic owner can design a comprehensive patient engagement flow that serves as a gentle but effective reminder for patients, without overburdening the clinic's staff.
A post-procedure patient can be asked if they are feeling alright the next day, and to WhatsApp the clinic immediately in case of any discomfort. Patients with a chronic disease can be reminded to return for their monthly checkup, or a patient being sent a follow up message asking them to come back for another round of teeth cleaning six months later are all situations where a clinic owner knows the value of a follow up message, but are unable to implement those messages due to a lack of time, and that is where WhatsApp Business API comes in.
WhatsApp Business API Takes Over as Your Front Desk
Once a clinic owner has set up a WhatsApp Business API appointment reminder system, the next step is to begin using WhatsApp as the front desk, which is more effective than you think. Patients use WhatsApp to ask for appointments, reports and prescriptions, inquire about doctors and consultation fees among other things. A good WhatsApp chatbot can handle many of these routine tasks, with more unique or difficult requests being passed on to the appropriate person in the clinic. This means that patients can use WhatsApp to book appointments, check a doctor's availability, send WhatsApp address for reports and prescriptions, ask about timings and more, all while reducing the burden on the front desk, who would otherwise spend the better part of their day dealing with the same five or six queries over the phone, instead of seeing patients.
WhatsApp Business API Patient Communication Tips to Boost Trust
When it comes to patient communication, healthcare providers have to be careful not to annoy patients, especially when it comes to marketing, something that makes the role of Bizzriser even more important when it comes to setting up WhatsApp Business API for clinics. Patients do not want to receive marketing messages when they are recovering from a major surgery or when they have just received their test results. When it comes to WhatsApp Business API, Bizzriser helps clinic owners stand out from the competition with flows that make patients feel valued and cared for, as opposed to bombarding them with generic messages that everyone else is sending out over WhatsApp Business API. One of the best ways to achieve this is by making sure that patients feel like they're talking to the clinic, and not an automated WhatsApp Business API chatbot, which can be achieved by WhatsApp Business API, as long as it's set up correctly.
Patients like to keep their personal information private, and rightly so, which is why it is always a good idea to make sure that they feel comfortable communicating with you over WhatsApp Business API. It is always best to refrain from sending out information to patients over WhatsApp Business API unless they explicitly ask you to, since it is best to let them communicate privately rather than sending out reports and other information to a group chat where other patients might be able to see them. WhatsApp Business API can help you achieve that level of privacy, as long as it is set up correctly.
WhatsApp Business API Metrics To Help You Measure ROI
Clinic owners, for all their interest in patient care, are primarily concerned with what makes financial sense, which is why it's always a good idea to keep track of the numbers when it comes to WhatsApp Business API for clinics. Implementing a WhatsApp Business API appointment reminder system will almost always boost a clinic owner's revenues in multiple ways. First and foremost, is the increase in the number of patients that actually show up for their appointments. Depending on how many no-show appointments a clinic has, a WhatsApp Business API appointment reminder can reduce the number of no-shows by as much as a third, or more, in the first month or so after it's been implemented. Next, is an increase in the rate at which patients rebook appointments, since asking them to reschedule their appointments is much easier with a simple click compared to asking them over the phone. WhatsApp Business API also boosts a clinic's overall revenue by reducing the burden on the front desk due to routine inquiries being handled by an efficient WhatsApp Business API chatbot. All of this combined leads to an overall increase in productivity, and by extension, the revenue of a clinic, which is what every clinic owner aims to achieve, especially with the high competition in a city like Rajkot.
Where does Bizzriser Come In?
This is where Bizzriser comes in, by helping you with all things related to WhatsApp Business API. From helping you get your WhatsApp Business API verified with a green tick, to designing the appointment reminder system as mentioned above, and finally designing a chatbot that helps answer your patients' most frequently asked questions. Bizzriser handles it all, end to end, without ever trying to sell you a WhatsApp Business API package that is meant for someone else. Every WhatsApp Business API clinic owner who works with Bizzriser gets their WhatsApp Business API flows built out according to their specific requirements. You should always begin with the WhatsApp Business API appointment reminder system, but once you're comfortable working with WhatsApp Business API, you can reach out to Bizzriser and work on a more comprehensive WhatsApp Business API strategy that will help you boost patient retention rates.
Getting Started is Easy!
For most clinics in Rajkot, or anywhere else for that matter, getting started with WhatsApp Business API can be daunting. However, once a clinic owner realizes the number of patients they can retain by reducing their no-show appointments to practically zero, they may find themselves thinking about embarking on this journey sooner rather than later. It's always best to start with something simple, such as the appointment reminder system, and build upon it. The clinics that fail to adopt WhatsApp Business API eventually find themselves struggling to keep up with patients who are unhappy with their communication options, while the ones who adopt WhatsApp Business API early enough find themselves reaping the benefits of higher retention, while also being able to build stronger relationships with their patients in the long run, which is ultimately the point of it all, isn't it?