Look close for your appointment time
Imagine you are working and your neck is killing you. You call my office and make an appointment for 11:00. Of course at 10:50 one of your customers calls and you run a few minutes late taking care of your business. You hurry off the phone and set a land speed record getting to the office. You run it at 11:07, out of breath and apologizing for being late. Is this anyway to start a visit where I am going to ask you to relax and let me do some work on you? Of course not!
After a few years of having set appointments I noticed people were coming into the office a few minutes late and were stressed about it. Now I gotta tell you, stressed out patients are not ready to receive adjustments, they are in a word…stressed. It is no way to to get your spine worked on.
After a couple of years of this, I decided to radically change my office and we took out the appointment book. Gone are the phone calls if you are running 10 minutes late. Who isn’t running 10 minutes late from time to time?
In oder to better serve our clients, we now give them times when we are in the office. If I am in from 8-noon on a Monday, why do I care if you come in at 8:11 or 9:02?
Well Doc, what happens if there are a few people in front of me? The reality is, the initial office procedure, the adjustment, doesn’t take that long. 99% of our patients are seen within 10 minutes. 10 minutes!! People almost can’t believe it.
Are there times when we are busier than others? No doubt, but it really seems to work out. If you have ever seen our office, it is an open environment where people actually, GASP, talk to each other. As a matter of fact, one of my stated goals is that 2 people who meet in my office will get married. It hasn’t happened yet, but we are working on it!!!
If you have ever sat in a doctors office stressed that you were 10 minutes late, then they make you wait another 20 minutes, I want you to remember what we are doing here…stress free, little waiting, people having fun, chiropractic.
I see a chiropractor who runs their office much like yours and it is great for me. Nice to hear the back story of why and how it works for you and your patients.
Cindy,
Thanks for the comment. I am always surprised when patients come in and tell me about waiting 20-30 minutes at another chiropractors office…who has time for that!!