patients want to return to your office. Therefore, the letter should be about the patient, and why they would benefit in coming back to your office – the letter should not be about you! Develop a tracking mechanism for the front desk to know which re-activated patients return to you. Often, the re-activation letter only contains information about the practice, and says nothing about the patient. There is no intrinsic value to this and, therefore, it will not provide any motivation for the patient to come back. The letter should also extend an offer of some kind to the patient. Offers can vary depending on practices, but the idea of an offer is to introduce new things that your practice may have that the patient hasn’t experienced. Timeline the offer to lend urgency to the letter – people are more likely to take advantage of offers that have some sort of time limit to them. Once the letter has been sent out, develop a tracking mecha-nism for the front desk to know which re-activated patients return to you. This not only allows the office to track the suc-cess of the procedure, but also allows for the staff to ensure that they book extra time for these patients when they come back. Whether the patients are re-evaluated at this point, or are simply given some extra time in the office to re-establish their old routines, a re-connection should occur for these patients at this time. Ask yourself questions like, “Why did they stop care? What are their health goals now? What can I do to answer any questions they may have now?” The idea of the extra time on the first re-activated appointment is to show genuine concern as to what questions, concerns or new circumstances the pa-tient may now have. DETERMINING THE SUCCESS OF YOUR RE-ACTIVATION SYSTEM I often get emails from practices that state re-activation systems don’t work for them. I want to explain how to determine a suc-cessful re-activation system. Consider the cost of the mail-out and the cost value of the time it takes to do it – which is gener-ally quite nominal – and determine your case average per pa-tient. If one patient returns, the investment is generally worth it, from a pure business perspective. From a human perspec-tive, one cannot place a value on the returnee to your office, or on the benefit that that returnee will receive from your care. Re-activation systems are designed for patients who truly want to return to care, but whose lives have gotten in the way. They are not for patients who have made a decision to try something else or not return to your particular office. They are also designed because we genuinely care about our patients and what happens to them. We want this intention to be clear to the patient, but also to our staff who run the system. Re-connect and re-energize in your last quarter of 2010! • aDVISORY bOARD Victoria Coleman, DC eDITORIAL Connie J. D’Astolfo, DC, Dip HA, PhD (cand) Pierre DesLauriers, DC Kevin Finn, DC Karin Hammerich, DC, MHST(L)(cand) James P. Laws, DC, FCCSS(Hon) David Leprich, DC Wanda Lee MacPhee, DC Frank Mangoni, DC Peter Moore, DC Renae Rogers, DC James Thompson, DC Greg Uchacz, DC, FCCSS(C) Jessica Wong (CMCC student) Emily Roback B.Sc, DC mEMBERS OF THE eDITORIAL aDVISORY bOARD OF cANADIAN cHIROPRACTOR mAGAZINE DO NOT NECESSARILY SHARE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THE MAGAZINE NOR ARE THEY REPONSIBLE FOR INFORMATION APPEARING IN THE PUBLICATION. 76 • CANADIAN CHIROPRACTOR | SEPTEMBER 2010 www.canadianchiropractor.ca
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