107: Chiropractic Clinic First Impressions

Chiropractic practice first impressions. Welcome to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast. I'm Dr. Michael Perusich. I'm joined by my co-host, Dr. Troy Fox. 

Troy, you and I were talking just a minute ago before we jumped on here.

We were talking about the first impressions that Chiropractors make on that first day, second day, and how important that is. 

Yeah. And that's right, so I have a couple of thoughts on this because I had an experience with the business that I went into this morning. And their website appearance was great.

It was intuitive, it was easy to get through. And we, we talk a lot about making your chiropractic website, you know, easy and functional. Don't make it 80 pages of complex dialogue. Don't make it hard to navigate. Make it simple, searchable. Make it fun. Make it something that actually is youthful. It's a tool for the patient to use, right?

It's not a tool for you to use. It's a tool for the patient to use. So there'll be a tool with your website. That's right, . So if you do that first, that's wonderful. But here's the problem. It’s your website and what it reflects on you. And so I had a, an opinion of this business before I walked in because of the website.

And it was a good opinion. The website was well put together. So I assume when I have a well put together website, I'm gonna have a well put together business. When I walked through the door, that was not the case.  When I walked through there was no congruency, and I walked in and oh geez. Literally I…so I had buyer's remorse.

Right after I walked in the door and I had already paid for this, I'd already paid for this service and I'd paid for a year in advance because I thought the website and the services offered looked great. And I walked in the door and immediately had buyer's remorse and said, oh my gosh, what have I done?

Because this guy, and this is the owner that was speaking to me. So it'd be like you doctors walking out into the front area of your office…literally turning your practice on its head and sometimes we unknowingly do that. So I think first chiropractic impressions are very important because quite frankly, if this would've been a deal where I could have just said one and done, I'd have walked out and never gone back.

Sure. 

Unfortunately, I've signed a year of contract, so I'm gonna have to figure out if I can make this work, but I'm not very happy. And that's a shame because those first impressions, that is your opportunity to wow, you know, in our case, the new patient. That's your opportunity. And that chiropractic first impression sets the stage for everything.

Is the patient gonna comply with care? Are they gonna accept your treatment plan? Are they gonna stay in the practice? Are they gonna become a maintenance patient? Are they gonna refer people in it all? Pretty much hinging on day one. Now sometimes you can unwind a bad first impression, but yeah, why? Why put yourself in that position?

The first impression should be the wow factor, and honestly, I personally think we (as Chiropractors) have three first impressions. One, the first phone call, so it's not even face-to-face. The second. This one's obvious the first day when they walk in the door. But the second day. The second visit, if you're doing the report of findings, going over the treatment plan and all that on day two, that's also a first impression because you're meeting with the patient in a different mode than the other first impressions.

So, right. 

Those three events are so important to really wow the patient. Here's what I'm gonna tell you about. So the phone call, obviously courteous, knowledgeable. This is something that you train your Chiropractic staff to do. Very important. 

Yep. 

Now, if you haven't walked out into your waiting room in your office lately, go out there after hours and just go sit down. Have a seat. Look around. 

Yeah. 

Like you're waiting for the doctor. Do you see cobwebs? And you know what I'm gonna say? Dust your darn plants. Right? How many offices do I go into? There's cobwebs, there's dust. 

I love plants. I think they're great. Now if you walk out, plants are dead. . If you'd have walked into my office about three weeks ago, we were a work in progress because I'd brought my plants in from outside.

So we were still trimming a few dead pieces off and all that. Trying to make 'em look good for winter. But it's very important. I love plants. Very important to have it. But here's the whole point, Sights, Smells. Sounds. So I like to have a little jazz music. Maybe you want some, you know, good old dirt road country in your practice, or maybe you like classical, maybe, maybe you're, you're just playing Queen all day (laughter).

I don't know if, if you do, I'd come to your office, but, so there's the sound. Smell. I always like to have a diffuser with a little bit of essential oils. Absolutely. Change it up every day. Absolutely. It's a, it's really amazing and there's a lot of research to support that. You set the stage with, with lighting, you set the stage with sound and with, you know, with smell. 

And so I like to have a good look in the front office. I like to have it smell good. And then obviously then add that in, that you've gotta have a, you know, a wonderful staff member up there that's well trained to receive that patient and make 'em feel like we're as excited to be there as they are to be there.

Yeah. That's huge. That is so huge. Big deal. Big. And you're so right. Big deal. You've, you've got to hit all the senses. It can't just be how it looks or a hello or mm-hmm. It, you've got to hit 'em with the whole thing. And I, I love your idea. And I used to do this too. Go sit in your front office, go walk in the front door.

Yeah. Like a patient does, you know, and catch your staff while they're working. Behind the front desk, you know? Yeah. What's the office look like when you walk in? Is the back office cluttered and you can see junk everywhere? I almost used a French word there. Yeah. Do you see, you see junk just sitting anywhere.

Does it look like you're prepared? Does it look like you're a chiropractic clinic or does it look like you're a junkyard? And I've been in some practices. Over the years, I was in this one practice, the guy never threw away any periodicals that he got, and he'd been in practice for 40 years. 

Okay.

Yeah. I'm not, I'm not kidding. It was aisles that were made from stacks of magazines that he'd never thrown out, and I asked him, why do you hang on to all this stuff? He said, well, I might need it someday. Hey you guys, there's a thing called Google. You don't need to keep any of that stuff because you can find it on the Google.

So, you know, declutter your Chiropractic office, get rid of the old magazines, get rid of the junk, the cobwebs. How about right? Some of you don't have dust bunnies, some of you have dust, dust, elephants. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. , you know, pull some things out from the wall once in a while and vacuum a little bit. That first impression is so, Clean your front windows we had, so yeah, so we have a fairly large Mennonite community in the small town we're in, and they're very proud of their town.

So we had a window cleaning service, I guess that was cleaning the windows of the office before we bought it. Several, but I guess they'd quit several months ago. Uh, nobody really knows why. They just didn't come back one day. You know how that happens sometimes your services just go, well, we've had staff disappear, and so we're just gonna disappear.

So literally, my wife walks in and, and it's a flooring store that's down the street and Bridge's just going around. She's introducing herself. We're getting out, we're getting to know this community that we've opened this, the, this or bought this other practice in. And the first thing she says, she says, now,honey, I know some people that can clean the windows in the front of your office because, you know, quite frankly, that's pretty important to me.

Now she, here she is, another business owner down the street, and she immediately draws attention to our front windows. If you don't think other people are looking, they are right? Yes, they are. They are. Yes they are. Yeah. . You gotta put forward your best foot. And quite frankly, if you're gonna put forward your best foot, here's what this lady said.

She said, now if you don't have somebody to clean your windows or can't right now, I've got somebody I'll send down there and I will clean your windows for you because I want this town to look wonderful. And I thought, what a great thing. You don't see that in every small town, but she's so proud of the small town that she lives in.

She was willing to come down and clean our windows just because she wants our downtown to look nice. Yeah, I love that. I was like, . I love that. Cool. And of course we, we actually already had it scheduled and we got 'em cleaned the next day. And I'm sure she probably looked down the street and was, you know, what made Oh, very appreciate, great impression with her.

Yep. And she's gonna tell everyone about it. Even though the windows weren't clean when she saw 'em, it was a great conversation starter. Bridget said to her immediately, I am absolutely aware of our windows. She goes, and I agree with you wholeheartedly, that they need to be cleaned and we've got somebody coming tomorrow.

Oh, good. She says So, yeah. So first impressions, man, it's, it's so, it's not a highly technical thing. No. It's a detailed thing. It's detailed. 

Yep. It's a detailed thing and you know, you've heard the saying the devils in the details.  What was it Walt Disney said? There's no magic in magic.  It's all in the details. 

There's no magic to Chiropractic practice, it's just in the details. This is one of the details, right? You know, pull up in your parking lot park where a patient parks look at the parking lot. Is it clean? Is there clutter around? Is there trash? One of the things that cars do is they drag gravel everywhere they go. And every time they stop and those tires sit there for a few minutes and cool down the gravel falls outta the tires. When was the last time you went out and hosed down your parking lot or swept it? You know, I used to do that frequently just to keep it looking good.

I've never heard that. So once my tires cool down, they drop the gravel. See, there you go. I learned something new today. Yeah. Learn something new. Okay, well that's Galilee. I mean, I'm gonna take that probably and log that and the old, uh, . I'm gonna, as people would say, probably ought to write that down.

Write that one down. 

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. 

Well, and, and so don't just look at the inside of your Chiropractic practice. Look at the outside too, you know. Dirty. Is it cluttered? Have you mowed the grass or trimmed the plants or the, all the plants dead, you know, take care of it, you know? And if you, right, if you live in a place where you get bad weather, like snow and those kind of things.

Make sure you're on top of that too. Oh yeah. I used to always make sure that if we had a snowstorm, I'd be at the office super early, shovel on the walkways and just make sure that. People knew, number one, that we were ready for them when they got there, but number two, It was just safe to walk into and it just presented just a, a, a happier wow factor.

I'm gonna guess this wasn't in Florida. 

This was not in Florida. This was in good old Central Missouri. 

Oh yeah. Good old Central Missouri. Yeah. A lot of, lot of good points right there. I mean, quite frankly, we could probably talk for hours, but we could, the truth of the matter, I mean, it's just go outside and make a short list on your own.

Take your notepad with you and go sit down. . And a lot of this is stuff that either A, if you're a busy doctor, take the 10 minutes to figure out what's wrong and then hire somebody to fix what ails you because you can, right, you can. it's easy. I got a handyman coming over to my office tomorrow to work on a few things.

Yeah. I don't have time to do it, nor the inclination, but I'm gonna go back and see patients and he's gonna work on stuff. Yeah. So making short list, you can always hire people to do things and if you're, if you're one of those penny pinch. Hey, there's your next Saturday project. Yeah, exactly. You know, and just look around your office.

What need, what little things need to be fixed, dripping, faucet, the plants, cleaning. Yeah. Et cetera. So I think you guys get it. 

But very, very important. Hey, I just wanna mention this. Our podcast is sponsored by Barlow Brain and Body. Check 'em out at barlowbrainandbody.com. They're doing some amazing things over there.

Dr. Andrew Barlow will absolutely. Explode your mind. So if you're thinking about adding any kind of brain-based therapies to your practice check them out.

Barlowbrainandbody.com. Again, that's barlowbrainandbody.com. And we want to thank them for sponsoring our show today. 

Hey, if you haven't done so yet, go and check out KatsConsultants.com. And be sure if you don't have a coach for your chiropractic practice to help you, and partner with you, be sure to check us out and go ahead and schedule a breakthrough call with us.

They're free. We just like talking to everybody about their practices. So jump on our calendar and we'd love to talk to you. 

So, hey everybody. Thanks for listening today to the KC CHIROpulse podcast. And on behalf of all of us at Kats Consultants, we'll see you next time.