The First Phone Call Can Take a Woman Years to Make. Who’s Answering It?

By Jami Enger, Founder of Koru Aesthetic Consulting

I can usually tell within an hour of walking into a practice how the consult calls are going. The front desk picks up, and a woman who’s been thinking about a facelift for years gets a price range, a quick “when would you like to come in?”, and a nudge toward the schedule. Nobody’s being unkind. The phones are ringing and the lobby is full. But I can feel the conversion rate dropping while it happens.

I spent my career inside a plastic surgery practice, most of it alongside one surgeon from his first year until he retired, and I did a bit of everything: coordinating patients, managing front and back staff, meeting payroll, watching costs. So I know how hard it is to staff a busy office. I also know the most common mistake I see, which is making the front desk responsible for patient coordinating.

Why can’t anyone just book the consultation?

Some surgeons have asked me why any staff member can’t book the consult and then book the surgery. Their reputation is strong, they figure, so the patient is already sold.

Credentials and experience matter, and they’re part of why a patient calls. But they aren’t what makes her say yes. Women want something more, and it starts with the first phone call.

How women actually decide

Women do their research. They read the reviews and look at the before-and-after photos. But they also decide based on whether they feel respected, heard, and taken seriously. They don’t want to feel that a question about their body or their feelings is silly.

When I was a coordinator, women thanked me for listening. That’s all, just listening. They told me the surgeon seemed to care, and that it made all the difference.

And here’s something I’d ask every surgeon to think about: women have told me that the first phone call to a practice sometimes took them years to make. Years. Then she finally dials, and gets a rushed answer and a price. That’s a lot of courage to meet with a hard sell.

Patient coordinating is a luxury sales position

I’ll say it plainly. A good patient care coordinator is a luxury sales professional. She needs time to bond with a potential patient and to prequalify her, meaning to find out whether she’s a good fit for the practice. Do her goals match what the surgeon does well? Is she realistic about recovery and cost? You can’t learn that in a three-minute call between check-ins.

The front desk can’t do this and answer the phones, check people in, and calm down the patient who’s upset about a bill. It isn’t their fault. It’s a different job, and it takes a different amount of time.

What changes when the coordinator takes the calls

In one practice I worked with, we let the patient coordinator take prospective patient calls, instead of leaving them to the distracted front desk. The following month, consult appointments went up. We didn’t change the ads or add a single new tool. We gave a woman who was good at listening the time to listen.

Before you spend another dollar on ads

More advertising only sends more people into the process you already have. If the first call is rushed, you’re paying to lose them faster. A few questions I’d start with:

• Who answers new patient calls, and how much time do they have?
• What happens after the consultation? Does anyone follow up?
• Does your coordinator have time to bond with patients, or is she covering the front desk?
• Be the practice that listens

Surgeons often feel patients should choose them for their credentials and experience. Some will. But the practice that wins the woman who spent years working up to that first call is the one that makes her feel respected from the first hello. Don’t discount what a dedicated coordinator can do. She defines your practice as the one who cares, who listens, and who respects women.

Through Koru Aesthetic Consulting, I help established practices look at exactly this: how the phones are handled, who follows up, and whether the people with the most patient contact have the time to do it well. Then we make changes your team can actually carry out on a busy Tuesday.

Learn more at koruaestheticconsulting.com.