Customer Journey Analysis and Work with Referral Agents

The foundation for increasing profit that’s available to everyone is the customer base. And new technologies and modern software will help improve service and automate processes. You can maintain your customer base however you prefer: in paper or electronic format or using software. 

MARVI was created specifically for opticians and ophthalmology clinics, taking into account their needs and specific nature of their work. It is a full-fledged CRM system for working with customers, sales management, etc. The customer base has additional functionality, so all customer data is stored in their personal profile card—including even the source of how they learned about you. This information can be used to retain them or to bring them in for additional upselling.

Knowing your customer’s journey is necessary for better understanding your target audience and setting up effective advertising.

It can be:

  • Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok 
  • Chatbots 
  • Walk-in customer from the street 
  • Calls to the reception 
  • Appointment referred by an agent 
  • Company website 
  • Recommendations from acquaintances and relatives

For each customer, when they contact you, add them to the database and record the source from which they learned about you. Periodic reports will help you track where more customers came from.

In the report, consider and add information on whether any advertising campaign was launched during this period of time.

Based on the report, you will understand how profitable the advertising campaign was, whether it needs to be continued, and what amount the customer brought from a specific source. 

For example, if there were 1,000 clients referred by a doctor, and they brought a total of 54,000 in revenue, then working with referring doctors is set up well.

If you spend several thousand hryvnias on advertising per month, but only 5 clients come to you—then something is configured incorrectly.

Or if you have many requests on social media, but they don’t turn into your patients—look for the internal problem.

It makes sense to increase the booking rate both through referral agents and through satisfied clients. A sincere recommendation is the best advertising.

Important! If you launch ads for certain promotional offers, be ready to process all requests. The promotional product must be available in the required quantity, and the doctors must be able to consult or provide the specified services for all those who want them.

The formula for success is quite simple: improve what works effectively, stop working on what doesn’t work, and constantly try something new.

Why doesn’t a potential client go to you?

The patient doesn’t know about you and your services, or doesn’t know what exactly they need. 

If you don’t have a permanent doctor who works in the ophthalmology office or the optician’s shop, it may be more profitable to find such a doctor at a hospital.

Establish communication, discuss cooperation, and they will be interested in sending patients to you for a certain fee. The doctor can recommend you, issue a prescription on a form with the optician’s address, schedule the necessary examinations, or immediately book the patient with you. 

This kind of scheme is especially effective in the area when a person needs everything done as quickly as possible in a specific location without wandering around. So, just in case, keep a couple of open time slots. The check-up doesn’t take long, but those 10–15 minutes are important for the patient. During the consultation, the doctor can identify which additional examinations will be needed and book the person for them. If there are no referral requests from referring doctors—offer this time to patients from the waiting list.

Who are referral agents?

Referral agents can be those who do not work for your competitors:

  • ophthalmologist doctors at a hospital, polyclinic, including district hospitals; 
  • family doctors; 
  • related specialists who may need ophthalmologist examinations. 

Agents do not have access to your patients’ personal data, but they refer patients to you. Working with agents is beneficial because you don’t spend time on advertising that brings no benefit, you make minimal investments, and you receive patients who trust the doctor and came to you based on their recommendation. Therefore, the foundation of trust in you is already in place.

In MARVI, when booking a patient, you can record which agent is responsible for them in the appropriate tab. At any time, it is convenient to check which of the doctors referred them in order to clarify information or pass examination data to the doctor.

The report includes filtering by commission percentage, by doctors, examinations, product categories, etc. Each service, each doctor has their own bonus percentage, so you can build a very flexible financing system accordingly. The director or accountant will not need to calculate this, because all the data is already in the report—and the productivity of each agent is clearly visible.

Automation and Setting Up Message and Reminder Campaigns 

Very often, clients forget about the visit because they book in advance. Many of them would like to receive reminders. During booking, ask whether you need to remind them about the visit and which method would be more convenient. Whether the client agrees or not—make the appropriate note in the profile card.

For convenience, you can add to the database reminders for all scheduled visits assigned by the doctor. The best way is to inform the client about the visit one day in advance by phone call and by SMS a couple of hours before the visit. If the client cancels the visit, we can reschedule it to another time or day, and fill the freed-up slot with someone from the waiting list.

Remind about the scheduled replacement of the MCL! 

If glasses or lenses need to be waited for—for example, a week—inform the client 2 weeks in advance and notify them about the scheduled replacement, agreeing on the date and time of booking. This kind of care increases client loyalty.

In MARVI, the mailing is done automatically; you can create different reminder scenarios and attach birthdays, remind men or women, etc. 

You can group clients into a family and remind a specific person about family visits. 

You can attach birthdays to the scenarios as well.

Soon, new functionality will appear—an additional waiting list—so you can organize appointments for clients who didn’t manage to book or need an appointment as soon as possible. Set priorities, give preference to responsible people who are guaranteed to come at any time, who need help faster, and will bring you more profit.

Important! The quality of services must be the same for everyone, but the financial aspect is necessary for the business to function and to provide high-quality services.

Do you need to automate and simplify staff work?

Increasing the flow of clients definitely requires automation. A client who sees a clearly established process begins to trust you and the company as a whole.

In MARVI, a doctor can see all information in their daily schedule and calculate how much time they will spend on this or that patient, and what volume of work there is for today.

A doctor, administrator, or consultant—this is your coordinated team.

  • The administrator enters the booking into a single database that the doctor can see and they use it to ориентize themselves by appointment time; 
  • Basic patient data is entered when booking by the administrator: full name, date of birth, contact details, basic complaints; 
  • Add notes about the patient: it is easier for the doctor to understand who will be at the examination; 
  • All data about previous examinations must be in the database: specifically glasses and MCL, and the doctor must have access to them so they don’t have to search for this data through the administrator; 
  • If there are changes to the prescription, the doctor обязательно enters them into the system, and the administrator immediately sees the changes;
  • If the patient needs additional examinations, the doctor can immediately guide the patient about their cost and add them to the visit history; 
  • If the patient was booked for one examination but several were performed, then in the visit history the doctor records all provided services, and the administrator at reception immediately sees it. 

If you scan barcodes on prescriptions, the corresponding visit and the client’s profile card open automatically. There’s no need to search for what and when the patient purchased—this significantly reduces service time.

This automation saves time; the doctor doesn’t need to repeatedly ask for data or collect medical history.

By saving 3 minutes from each appointment, you gain 2–3 weeks of working time per year! 

Correct use of MOH forms.

All opticians whose doctors or optometrists work there have a license to provide medical practice. Logically and more client-friendly would be issuing examination conclusions on branded forms.

In MARVI, you can add your own examinations and customize the program to your needs, insert your logo, etc.

The doctor’s conclusion form looks more authoritative if it is generated according to the MOH forms of Ukraine: 

  • Form 027/o — extract from the medical record of an outpatient patient; 
  • Form 028/o — consultative opinion.

The client perceives a properly completed form as an official document and treats it, and the clinic as well, accordingly.

There is a large amount of medical documentation, such as consent to the processing of personal data, consent for surgical intervention, etc.

Soon, MARVI will have a tool that will automatically generate the required documents and pull data from the client’s profile card. You’ll only need to print them.

The only asset that can be protected from any danger and grow in price year after year is your relationship with your clients.

The most important impression is made up of small details. The staff’s work, documents handed over to the client, and overall care for the patient both before and after the visit—the key to increasing loyalty and profit.