A physiotherapy clinic reviews its new patient numbers and wonders why they have not grown despite more website traffic. Looking at the enquiry log, the practice manager finds dozens of messages that arrived on Friday evenings and weekends, many answered on Monday afternoon. Few of those patients ever booked.
Unanswered clinic enquiries hide a lot of revenue.
Why each enquiry is worth more than one appointment
Private clinic patients rarely book just once. A physiotherapy patient might need an assessment and five follow-ups. A dermatology patient might return for reviews. Satisfied patients come back for new problems and recommend the clinic to friends and family. One enquiry can open a long relationship.
How the numbers might look
Treat what follows as an example, and substitute your own clinic's figures.
A clinic receives 80 new patient enquiries a month. Around a third arrive in the evening or at weekends. If a quarter of those out-of-hours enquiries book elsewhere before the clinic replies, that is roughly seven lost patients a month.
If an average new patient books an assessment and several follow-ups, each lost enquiry represents a full course of treatment. Across a year, around 80 lost patients is a considerable sum, before counting repeat visits and referrals. Try your own figures in the chatbot ROI calculator.
Speed matters
Patients in pain, or worried about a symptom, want to book quickly. The cost of slow replies is described across many businesses in cost of slow replies. For clinics, the effect is sharper because patients often contact two or three clinics at once.
High-value enquiries cost the most
Some enquiries are worth more than others: courses of treatment, specialist consultations and group or corporate bookings. Hotels see a similar pattern with group enquiries, as in the cost of an unanswered group booking enquiry.
The questions patients ask first
Most first questions are admin: prices, referrals, insurance and availability. Answering those quickly, as described in clinic websites and the admin questions patients ask first, is what keeps patients from going elsewhere. Patients writing in another language are especially likely to drift away if they cannot get an answer, as covered in patients writing in other languages to clinics.
Recovering the revenue
SpideyChat for private clinics answers admin questions from your own pages at any hour and captures appointment requests for reception. It does not give clinical advice.
Comparing the cost
Compare the value of lost patients with the cost of answering every enquiry. Plans are on the pricing page, from a free plan to Pro at $29.99 a month.
The follow-up appointments
The real value of a new patient is often in the follow-ups. A patient who books an assessment but never returns for treatment is a partial loss; a patient who never books at all is a complete one. Clear information about typical courses of treatment, and a simple way to book follow-ups, helps patients complete their care. That is good for their recovery and for the clinic.
Referrals from other professionals
GPs, personal trainers and other clinicians sometimes refer patients to private clinics. Those referrals arrive with trust already in place, and deserve especially quick replies. A referral that waits days reflects badly on the clinic and may not be repeated.
Tracking it
For one month, log every new patient enquiry with the time it arrived, the time it was answered and whether it booked. The gap between fast and slow replies usually makes the case.