PatientNow Returning Lead Calls

When an old lead picks up the phone

Aesthetic decisions take time. A caller who asked about a breast augmentation last spring may be ready this fall. A patient who did one laser session and stopped may decide to finish the series. A consult patient who said she needed to save up may call once she has. When they call, they often open with something like: I talked to someone there a while ago.

That sentence is worth a lot, but only if someone answers and knows what to do with it. Without that context, a returning lead gets treated like a brand new caller, asked the same questions again, and sometimes quoted a different price than she heard the first time.

Catching the return call

If your practice runs its own re-engagement, a coordinator working through old leads or an email from your marketing tools, those efforts produce return calls. The return call often arrives when the coordinator who sent it is with another patient.

Katie answers those calls immediately, including when every line is busy. A lead who calls back does not hit voicemail and lose interest a second time, which would waste both the original inquiry and the effort that brought her back.

She also answers the returning leads who call entirely on their own, with no outreach involved. Those callers are often the most motivated of all, because the decision was theirs.

Context the coordinator needs

A returning lead is not a new patient, and the summary should say so. The questions are short, Katie asks them naturally, and a caller who does not remember the details is not pressed for them. Katie asks and records:

• When and how they last contacted you, in their words
• Who they spoke with, if they remember
• Which treatment they were considering then, and whether that has changed
• What prompted the call now, such as an email they received
• What they want next: a consult, a price, or a question answered

Outreach and answering, side by side

Your team decides who to contact and how. Practices that turn on Sallie, MedReception AI's outbound scheduling agent, can have her call past leads and offer open times, and Katie makes sure the inbound side, every call that outreach generates, is answered and documented.

MedReception AI is live with practices on PatientNow, so your coordinator can match each summary to the existing lead record there and pick up where the conversation stopped, instead of treating a warm lead like a stranger.

Over a few months, a coordinator reading those summaries also learns which kinds of old leads tend to come back and what brings them, which can help your team decide where its own outreach time is best spent.