Your office closes at 6.
A patient calls at 6:05 to move tomorrow’s visit.
The voicemail still has your old CA’s name on it. She left in March.
It also says you’re closed for the Fourth of July.
So let me ask you straight. Have you ever heard what your patients hear?
The voicemail after 6.
The reminder text that goes out the night before.
The hold, and how long they sit on it.
The “we’ll give you a call” to somebody who never gets the call.
So no, you haven’t. And I get it. You’re the one person in the building who never has to call the front desk.
You know your adjusting room cold. Your patients know the rest of your office better than you do.
What shapes the patient experience at a chiropractic office?
The phone and the front desk, more than the table. Patients decide what kind of office you run in the parts you never see.
Your adjustment is why they come. But you’ve got them on the table for a few minutes a visit. The rest happens on the phone and at the desk, and you’re in the back for most of it. That’s where they decide if this place has it together.
Try this: Call your own office tonight after close. Listen to the whole greeting. Then call tomorrow at lunch from your cell and count the rings.
Why do a chiropractic office’s automated messages go out of date?
Because they never break. The stuff that runs by itself is the stuff nobody’s checked in years.
The reminder text somebody wrote three CAs ago. The welcome email with last year’s hours. Nobody looks at it because it never breaks. It just keeps sending the wrong thing.
Try this: Have your CA forward you every automatic message a new patient gets in their first week. Read them in the order the patient gets them, like you’ve never set foot in your office.
Who should check what patients hear when they call your office?
One person, by name. Somebody in your office has to be the patient. Right now it’s nobody.
Nobody’s assigned to hear it. That’s how a voicemail stays up for seven months. Your patients caught it a long time ago.
Try this: Put one name on it. One person is in charge of how your office sounds when nobody’s at the desk. The first Monday of every month they call in, sit on hold, and read every text and email a new patient gets.
What This Means for You
- ✅ Your patients know your voicemail better than you do
- ✅ An old message keeps talking in your name long after everybody forgot it was there
- ✅ If nobody's in charge of how your office sounds, it sounds like nobody's home
- ✅ Patients won't complain about any of it, they'll just trust you a little less
Pro Tip: Block your number before you call at lunch. If the desk sees the doctor’s cell come up, you’re not hearing what a patient hears. And when your CA forwards you that first week of messages, start with the new patient welcome emails. They’re the first thing a new patient reads from you. Make sure the hours are this year’s.
Inside CC with Nerissa: You Don’t Get to Only Do the Part You Love. I Checked.
I’ve been sitting here judging a woman who doesn’t exist. 📺
Her name is Kim Wexler, she’s a lawyer on Better Call Saul, and she is so annoying. She has a great client and a great gig, and she keeps fucking it up. She’s not lazy. She keeps wandering off to the work that makes her feel good. I get it, and it’s still frustrating to watch.
Greg and I have had months to form this opinion. We watched Breaking Bad first and then Saul, which is eleven seasons. Shew. We work from home, together, seven days a week, so after that long the people on the TV start to feel like friends. You get opinions about your friends.
But I figured out why she gets to me.
Kim didn’t come from this. Neither did I. She had sketchy parents. So did I. She started at the bottom and worked her way up, and then she went out and started her own thing. Same.
So when she wanders off from the good thing she built, I take it personally.
Because I wander too. My version is marketing and building out systems. That’s the fun part for me, and I can disappear into it. The work at hand is less exciting. It’s the admin and the backlog and all the boring parts of running a company that nobody claps for.
So this week I closed the fun stuff, sat down with my laptop, and cleared my list. Then I spent the rest of the week where Kim should’ve been, with my clients. I set up new ones and went back through our personalizations. More and more of our clients are picking up fall announcements, and a lot of them are for new therapies. Seems like docs are expanding. 🍂
Kim had one great client. I’ve got a whole list of them, and I’d like to not be her.
Do you see a little Kim in you? Do you spend your day on the thing you love most while the work that sucks sits there? For you, the thing you love is taking care of your patients. The work that sucks is the admin, the business, and the marketing. It’s not what you went to school for, and it still needs done.
There’s work you love, and there’s work that’s work.
I’m still learning how to be an entrepreneur and not only an email expert for chiropractors. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes right now, with new relationships and new revenue streams to build. So there’s always somewhere to wander off to. I’m working on it.
The boys have a show now too. They found their favorite YouTube channel, and they only do the work they love. Must be nice. 🐦
What does a Chiro Connect newsletter actually include?
Every newsletter ends with a Week of Wellness, a simple daily calendar that gives patients something to check and use all week, and a reason to open the next email. Here’s the one that went out with this issue.
FAQ
How do I check the patient experience at my chiropractic office?
Call your own office tonight after close and listen to the whole greeting. Call again tomorrow at lunch from your cell and count the rings. Then have your CA forward you every automatic message a new patient gets in their first week, and read them in the order the patient gets them.
How often should a chiropractic office check its voicemail and automated messages?
Once a month. Put one name on it. The first Monday of every month that person calls in, sits on hold, and reads every text and email a new patient gets.
Why do old reminder texts and welcome emails keep sending the wrong thing?
Because they never break. Nobody looks at the stuff that runs by itself, so the reminder text somebody wrote three CAs ago and the welcome email with last year’s hours just keep going out. It’s the same reason patient follow-ups slip: nobody owns them.
Do patients complain about a bad phone experience at a chiropractic office?
No. Patients won’t complain about an old voicemail or a call that never got returned. They’ll just trust you a little less. Most of them caught it a long time ago.
Want your patients hearing from you every week, in your voice? Let’s look at what’s already in your list.
