Your Practice Grows Faster When Your Front Desk Leads

Your next wave of new patients might not be on Facebook or Google at all. They might already be sitting in your CRM, already called once, already raised their hand and then disappeared somewhere between the first “Hello” and walking through your door.

We get brutally practical about chiropractic marketing and the part most offices ignore: front desk conversion. I break down why the fastest-growing practices aren’t always the ones with the best ads, SEO, or websites. They’re the ones that convert the opportunities they already have by protecting trust at every touchpoint, especially the phone call. We run the math on lifetime patient value so you can see what one missed call is really worth, then use that number to change how you train, coach, and measure performance.

You’ll hear the seven front desk mistakes that kill bookings: low energy, talking instead of guiding, getting trapped by price shopping, lack of urgency, weak follow-up, poor appointment confirmation, and letting cancellations disappear without a save. We also talk systems that make this easy, including a simple nurture sequence (call, text, email, repeat), fast response time that keeps motivation high, and ways to use your CRM automations without sounding robotic.

Want a reality check? I even offer a “secret shopper” phone call to help you hear what patients hear. If this helps, subscribe, share it with another chiropractor, and leave a review so more practices can stop leaking new patients at the front desk.

1. Join Marketing 101 for Chiropractors Facebook Group here
2. Learn more at EnricoD.com
3. Book a free discovery call with Enrico to level up your business

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Your Next Patients Are Waiting

SPEAKER_00 0:22

What if I told you your next 20 new patients are already sitting in your CRM? They're not waiting to click another Facebook ad. They're not searching Google right now. They're already reached out. And somewhere between the first phone call and walking into your office, they disappeared. Today we're talking about the most overlooked marketing asset in every chiropractic office, your front desk. Welcome back to Marketing 101 for chiropractors. I'm Dr. D. And this week we're diving into your front desk. With all the talk with AI, call centers, automations, front desk receptionists across the healthcare industry are quite aware that maybe their positions are on the end here or on the cutting board because of AI. And maybe so with call receptions, however, not in the chiropractic world. Having that front desk person, you know how it works. They can do a lot of things for you. They can be a certified CA, or they could just be a front desk receptionist that's trained as a CA in your office. They can do multiple things for you, and having that friendly face plays a big role, especially in chiropractic in our industry. So your front desk matters. I've spent years helping practices generate leads through Google, Meta, SEO, AEO, websites, AI search. But here's something I've learned through that whole time. The practices that grow the fastest aren't always the ones with the best marketing. They're the ones that convert the opportunities they already have. People have asked me, um, I can't believe I've been doing this for 19 years as a chiropractor. Over the 19 years, how'd how'd you do this? How'd you get to your point? And I'm not this, I'm not, I'm not running a $2 million practice or anything of crazy or anything like that. But you know, how do you get there? And I'm sorry, I don't know if I'm getting older and more humble. I start to think, look, I thought I knew stuff. And then I try to apply it to all my friends and colleagues and clients over these years, and it's not always a home run. I'm like, well, if I truly had the cheat code to a million dollar practice, why isn't everyone else getting to a million-dollar practice? And I'm starting to think maybe I'm just lucky. I don't know. What's going on there? The practices that grow the fastest are not the ones with the best marketing. And I've learned that through helping many clients. Marketing doesn't end with when someone clicks on your ad. When does marketing end? We have to think about this. When does it end? Think about it. You create a Facebook ad, you create your website,

Marketing Is The Whole Patient Journey

SPEAKER_00 3:00

you create leads through there. Maybe people get to your website and fill out a form, the lead, it's done. But the reality is it doesn't really end there. Facebook, website, lead, then the phone call, then the appointment has to be made, then the appointment has to show up. Then we need to do a report of findings if they show up. Then there's a financial agreement, right? Whether it's the $85 just for the visit that pay as you go, or it's a financial agreement moving forward, a care plan, whatever way you practice, uh patient experience afterwards, after the third and the fourth and the fifth visit, what's going on? What's what's their experience moving forward? Then the referral, then the reviews. Marketing continues through every one of these steps on a cyclical basis for every single new person that comes to your practice. Every interaction either increases trust or destroys it. And subconsciously in chiropractic, we destroy our own trust every single day across the United States, across the world, in every chiropractic office. Patient comes in for their seventh visit, their 77th visit, whatever it is, and the experience is subpar. For whatever reason it is. Poor front desk, a dirty office that day, problems, uh hurricane came through, you have no power, subpar, right? These are things you can't control. But there are things you can, and that's what we're talking about today. And I'm going to stay with the front desk on this. We need to calculate what one missed phone call is worth. That way you can multiply this by five missed phone calls, 10 missed phone calls, 20 missed phone calls, and what happens with this? Let's walk through the math. An average new patient value, let's say initial visits 150 bucks. A care

The Real Cost Of Missed Calls

SPEAKER_00 4:55

plan is 2,000. I'm just giving you flat numbers here. Family referrals are worth $1,500. Future care worth $1,000. Let's say you see them another 20 times after the initial phase of care, whatever it is. Lifetime value per patient, $4,500 for you acute practices, $8,000 for your corrective practices. Um, wellness practices are a completely different thing. They've got marketing on lock. So every time your office misses a call, just with those numbers I gave you, care plan work to, you know, uh initial visit, 150 bucks, you're potentially potentially losing thousands of dollars with each call. We know this. Ask yourself how many calls go unanswered every week? Multiply that by 5,000, just take the low end of this, and watch everyone start paying attention to this podcast episode. So that's where your front desk value is at, whether you pay them $20 an hour, $40 an hour, whatever you pay them at the front desk, that's their value, is making sure that every call comes in. The gray zone in marketing now is leads. These these phantom ghosts, I call them ghost leads that are coming in from social media because of your advertising, have to be sift through and nurtured in a way. Those will turn into actual calls. That's what we're talking about, not the amount of leads. And what we're doing to our front desk is we're giving them all these leads as well. And then they feel like a failure because their conversion rate on someone calling the office wanting chiropractic, they do a great job. They follow the script, they know the what answers to give to the questions that are going to pop up. Do you take insurance? Are you guys open on weekends? You know, they answer them really well. And uh they close them. But when it comes to leads, they don't. So we're talking about the phone calls today, the phone calls today that come through. And these are the seven front desk mistakes that you as a CEO of your practice can go over and train on to make sure that you minimize them and hopefully eliminate them, which will make your conversions and your flow at the front desk so much better, and your CA will feel so much better, uh or your front desk person will feel so much better uh doing the work that they do at the front desk. Number one is no energy. No energy. If you hired someone with no energy, then it's your fault. But if you've got that energetic front person, this is what you need to do. You got to make sure that they know their job is to walk through that front door in the morning and just turn on the energy. Thank you for calling, right?

Seven Front Desk Mistakes

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Versus good morning, thanks for calling calling full life chiropractic. This is Sarah. There's a different way to uh to answer it. Hello, good morning, full life chiro. How can I help you? Good morning, thanks for calling full life chiropractic. This is Sarah. I can help you. That's in our script, not how can I help you? Right? I can help you. I remember it. I told this story a few times back in when I first started, it was probably second year in practice. I picked up the phones uh for a couple times when our part-time CA wasn't in. I picked up the phone, I followed the script. Hello, Krophiropractic, Dr. Enrico, I can help you. The guy didn't listen to a word I said. He's like, hey, I need a double pepperoni cheese, large, and then a regular cheese. Pizza. He called the wrong number. And I'm like, no problem, I can help you. Uh, what's your favorite pizza restaurant? And he's like, What? Isn't this uh I forget what it was in our in our little plaza there? Oof, I don't remember the name of the pizza play. He was trying to call them and we had a similar number. Ours was like something, something 3,000. And that guy was something, something, I think 6,000, but he called 3,000. Called us, and I'm like, no problem, I got I got it for you. Give me your address. I got it. He's like, No, no, no. Wait, what's going on here? He's like, I'll I said I can help you. I can order these pizzas for you and I'll get them to you. He's like, Okay. And he leaves me his address. The guy calls me back like two hours later. He's like, dude, the pizza is like showed up. I'm like, yeah, you called. I said I could help you. I wanted to help you. And it was I was coaching at the time, and it was about following through. And we did it, it was hilarious. It worked. He called me back. It was it was a great little exercise for me that I start teaching every CA that started with me ever up until today has heard that story. That I'm like, this is what I did. Like, that's that's kind of crazy. I'm like, yeah, the easier thing back then, there was no phones, there was no iPhones, there was no uh scrolling and clicking the buttons. It was literally going through the yellow pages or searching, maybe in 2009 online, maybe on Google, you looked for the pizza number. But the pizza places didn't have websites, right? So we did that, and that was just the energy I wanted to bring. I own the place to my practice. So number, so number one, energy. Number two, talking instead of guiding. People want confidence, not interrogation. You want to guide the conversation, not talk. Not talk. I have sometimes at the front desk, as they get more comfortable the longer they work with you, these conversations for some reason get longer. New patient calls in and they get longer. I'm like, what's happening? Why did it take so long to get there? And it's even more frustrating when they don't book the appointment. You you talk them so much into why you don't take insurance in your office and you're cash base that they're like, I'm gonna call back, I'm gonna go look for an insurance office. Thanks, click. How did you how did you go from like following the script to this whole conversation about super bills and we can give you the receipt? And if you haven't hit your deductible, then they may not cover it. But if you have hit your deductible, you may get some out of uh you that's not your problem. That's not our problem. That's their they chose the insurance that they have, that's their problem. I tell this to all our Humana Medicare patients. I'm like, you're the idiot who chose Humana, not me. You could have just stuck with Medicare and you would have had coverage with us, but you chose Humana for whatever reason you chose. We're not in network, they won't let me in network, and uh you got to deal with it. I tell our Medicare patients that all the time. The ones that are in Humana, I'm like, that's your fault. Your healthcare is your healthcare. You could. We help Medicare patients all the time. They have 80% coverage. I have no clue why you chose Humana. And then guess what? Humana probably hates me because at the end of the year, all my Cairo patients or Medicare patients are switching away from Humana. So, price shopping. That's mistake number three. Not your CA's mistake. How much is an adjustment? The wrong answer is $85. It is what the adjustment's worth. The better answer is happy to explain that. First, tell me what's been going on. You won't believe where that conversation goes with your CA. They they they don't feel like you're distracting. How much is it? How much is our pay our front desk knows? A new exam is 200. It includes everything that day, x-rays, scans, your chiropractic examination, and your first adjustment. If we can adjust that day, if you're clear for an adjustment, it includes your first experience with us, it's 200. Then after that, we have plans for people to fix the issues with. So tell me what your issue is. It it goes a whole different way with your scripting when you do that. People are just price shopping. So they're literally calling. And guess what the last two chiropractic offices did? We're 75, we're 65, and then you're like, we're 85. They're just gonna call maybe one more office and then go back and call who? The 55 or the 65 office. That's what they're gonna do, right? So those are the price shoppers, but no one asked them, tell me what's been going on. Mistake number four, there's no urgency. We could probably get you in next week versus we actually have an opening this afternoon. It's it's funny in in my office. I have the associates and I got my front desk, a newer front desk person, and uh they get more stressed about my schedule than I do. And they know this, it's cultural now. They're like, just pack Enrico's schedule, he's gonna deal with it. I don't know if that's my Gen X millennial like 1983 thing growing generation of just put your head down and work and get it done, or what's going on, but they get stressed for me, and then they won't pack my schedule. I'm like, guys, I I want to see a hundred people a day. Like, I mean, why are you stopping me at 70? Like, what's going on? Why you why are you stopping me? Like, I'm and it's confusing, and you can just see how they pick up that energy because you really haven't set the KPIs and the goals and the culture, and this is where I'm giving you my failures here. So you're listening to my therapy session today for myself, but of what's going on, and it transcends to them. They get stressed out with my schedule because I'm too busy, but then I've got the wrong team around me. Makes sense. These are little clues, but then you got to train your team. And if it still keeps happening, you need different people in your office. That's just how that's how it works. So they get stressed out with this because it drives me nuts when they're like, Oh, Dr. D's fully booked today. I hear the conversation. And tomorrow he's got no new patient times. His next availability is next week on Tuesday. I'm like, Are you are you nuts? Like, we are not uh a hip replacement orthopedic office where we're booking months in advance. Like we are a chiropractor. Let's just be honest here. Let's be honest about chiropractic. You got to get them in today. Like, that's the convenience of them calling you. No, they do not think you're not a busy office. No, they don't think this whole wait wait list game, uh, go, no, you gotta wait two weeks to see them. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're gonna get you in today either for a virtual consult so the doctor can call us today, call you today. Uh, but you just say, yeah, let me, is it okay if the doctor calls you before you come in for your appointment? Yeah, sure. He's got a break uh when he's done today at 11 on his break, and then he's done at six as well. Is it okay if he calls you at 1115 or 615? Which one's better for you during one of his shifts when he's done so he can talk to you about what's going on? Oh, great. They're connecting with you. They're connecting with you. And then if they pick the 615, then obviously they know they're not getting in today for the appointment. And then when I get on the phone with them, I'm done OPQRST. I'm squeezing them in tomorrow morning because I got the exam or the verbal exam done. When they come in tomorrow, I can squeeze them in for a 30-minute new patient appointment at some time in the morning. I can do it. They're in within 24 hours, they're in. So, no, we can probably get you in next week. We can get you in this afternoon. We can get you in today. What time can the doctor call you so that he can find out exactly how to help you to the best of his ability or her ability today? Well, now you just created a whole new culture and experience. You completely blew all the other offices out of the water that they just called and price shopped at. Wait a minute, time out. You're not gonna book my appointment, you're gonna get the doctor to call me. Like, right, what is happening? Right? There you go. Number five. No follow-up. So, yes, we got the call. Yes, we got a good script. Yes, maybe we got them booked, but there's no follow-up. What's your what's your nurture sequence for the follow-up? Not the text reminder that they get for their new patient appointment. What's the follow-up? You know, they now the lead maybe never answers when you're doing the leads. Do we move on? Uh do they call? Do they text? Do they email? Do we repeat what's going on there? We need to call, text, email, and repeat that process continuously with the new patient, uh, with the new patient client or a new patient potential on repeat, on cycle. It's called a nurture sequence. You can have an initial nurture sequence until the appointment shows and the report of finding is done, and then that sequence is cut, and now they're on a new patient sequence. But either way, we have to have these nurture sequences on autopilot that are automatic. Mistake number six: nobody confirms appointments. A simple confirmation text drastically reduces no shows for your new patients. And a lot of you have CRMs that automatically do that. You set it for four hours before the appointment, one hour before the appointment, 24 hours before the appointment, you got it. So if they book today, you know, it's it's uh Friday today, they book the appointment today for Monday on Sunday at some point. They're gonna get a text reminder, and then an hour before, they're gonna get that's probably your Sierra Cairo Touch, Jane. All of them do this, maybe SCED or review wave, whatever you got going on, they're gonna do it for for you. And then nobody saves cancellations. When somebody cancels, do they simply disappear? Or does someone try to save the appointment? In our office, if it's a call in, which is respectful from the patient, they're like, hey, I need to cancel my appointment for tomorrow, whether it's a new patient, an adjustment, whatever it is. Okay, no problem. I can cancel that for you. No problem. When can I get you rescheduled? Do you want to come in? Hey, I got to cancel tomorrow's Wednesday appointment at four. Great. Do you want to come in? I'll get you in at Thursday at four at the same time if you like. No, you know, I it's got an emergency, I got to head out of town. Okay, well, what's the next time that works best for you? Uh, let me call back. I don't know my schedule right now. Are you sure I can get something on the books now so we don't forget? Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sorry. I just don't have my books in front of me. Okay, I'm gonna book you in for Monday on my calendar. Uh, the front desk says this on my calendar at 9 a.m., just to remind me to call you or text you, and then you can reply back and we'll get you on the books for Monday or Tuesday. Oh, that sounds like a plan. Thank you so much. You have a plan, the patient has a plan, you move on. Otherwise, do they simply disappear? And a lot of chiropractic offices, unfortunately, a lot of these things get missed and they disappear. Okay, there's the seven mistakes. The seven mistakes I'm seeing. I wrote them down. Like I'm gonna do a podcast on this. Now I'm gonna tell you how the marketing works. Speed wins. Speed wins for all your leads, your new page, anything that's coming in from online, from your website, from your Facebook ads, from your wherever you're doing advertising,

Speed Wins With Follow-Up Systems

SPEAKER_00 18:55

speed wins, five minutes max. If someone fills out your website form, how long until somebody contacts them? Five minutes, one hour, tomorrow. We need to understand that speed builds trust while motivation is highest. And the motivation is highest there, especially when you're doing social media ads. Social media ads, you have seconds. People are emotionally into it as they scroll. And as they scroll, and I'm gonna pull out my phone and look at the one that I had yesterday. On my high level, I have a notification. Um, I have a notification that comes in whenever somebody responds on Instagram or Facebook to my phone. I wanted this on my phone because my team doesn't want to answer it, you know, 10 o'clock at night. So once that comes in, the automation kicks in for our we have a decomp ad going on right now, comes in, they respond to one of the autoresponders through either text or uh email. As they respond, usually text, they're like, hey, I do have an MRI uh recently that I can bring to my uh first console with you. Boom, I'm on there. And I had a conversation last night with somebody and I responded, I'm like, oh, that's so great. That makes this so much easier. You're uh when can we get you in? She's like, I'm going to go talk to my ortho about the MRI, and then I want to come in and see if it's there. Does chiropractic have adjustments have to be done with the spinal decomp? And I responded, uh, no, they don't. You can just do spinal decompression to treat the disc. She's like, fantastic. This is great. Um, I'm gonna get back to you. Like, great. Then my stupid autoresponder, two minutes later, sends in, Hey, do you have a recent MRI that we can see? And she responded, she actually, yeah, I did it last week. She responded, I'm like, great. Uh recent MRIs help us so well uh on diagnosing this. Your x-ray is still gonna be included on your first ex when you come in because we want to see your discs in real time before we put you on the on the table. She's like, this is fantastic. I will call you back. I put it, I go to the office today, I put it into the scheduler to call this patient and stay up with them. They're hot lead. They move from the cold lead to the hot lead, and our team will follow through with them. That's just it. Uh a 24-hour example just happened today. So that's that. A big I would hire someone, your mother-in-law, uh a cousin, a good friend, someone in town to secret shop your office. There are people you can hire, they're expensive, but you can hire them and they will secret shop your business for you. They will come in as a patient, uh, they'll challenge every every

Secret Shopper Your Own Office

SPEAKER_00 21:34

owner, they'll call your office, they'll pretend to be a patient. I've never been to a chiropractor before, I'm nervous, I have headaches. And then they'll ask these questions and they'll record everything, write it down or record it for you. And they may even wear uh a camera when they come in. They may actually, you know, some of these are really pro. They'll come on in, they'll record for you, and then they'll listen. And then they'll tell you their experience as well. Was it warm? Was it professional? Was it confident? Was it clean? Uh, would you book? You know, would you actually be a patient here from the secret shoppers? So maybe your mother in law might be too nice, but having someone secretly come in, calling your office, writing things down, doing this stuff is a great way to do it. If you want, you can get me to do it. I can do The calls from anywhere in the country, I can call your office and pretend to be a new patient. And I can rate your CA if you want. Let's do that. Hey, there you go. I just created a little thing on the podcast. If you're listening to this podcast, respond back to me via email info at enrico d.com and say, Secret shopper. There you go. That's the code. Secret shopper. And I will contact you via email. You give me your office phone number free of charge. I will do this during my coaching hours, and I will call your office and I'll give you a report. I will record it. I'll put it into AI to give you a nice clean report for you. And I will send you that report and I'll add my own thoughts in there as well. There you go. Well, that sounds cool. Maybe I have a new side gig. But let's do that. Secret Shopper info at Enrico D.com and I'll help you out there. Your front desk is your highest ROI employee. Please remember this. You can spend 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 a month on advertising. If the front desk converts poorly, none of it matters. One amazing CA can outperform another office spending twice as much on marketing.

Five Changes To Start Monday

SPEAKER_00 23:28

They're doing the recalls, they've got systems downpacked, they follow the SOPs, they they stay on it. They are immersed in your practice to make sure that the calendar stays full, that your scheduler stays full. That's their job, right? And if they take it seriously and to the max, they will stress out when numbers go down. They're like, what is going on? I'm doing my job really well. You mother effer doctors are screwing this up. What's going on with you guys? And they can bring it to the meeting. And they'll bring it to the meeting. They're like, your conversions went from 64% down to 47% doc. I'm like, whoa, what the heck? Well, there you go. And then it's now a conversion issue, not a front desk recall issue. That's what a rock star will bring to you. The non-rock stars will come to your office, sit in the meeting, not say a word. Five things to implement this Monday. Answer every phone call with energy. Return missed calls within five minutes whenever possible. If your team can't do it, hire a call center that can. Record and review phone calls weekly, at least a few of them. Mystery shop your office by the end of the month, or email me at info at enrico d.com, secret shopper, and I know what you mean. We have the inside scoop on that. Track conversions, not just leads. Don't buy another Facebook lead. Don't increase your Google budget. Don't blame Meta. Instead, become a patient in your own practice. Look at it through their eyes. Call your office, fill out your website, schedule online, listen to the phone, read every email, walk through the entire patient journey. Marketing is not, isn't getting people to call your office. That's not what it's about. Marketing is making people feel confident enough to walk through your doors, to choose you compared to others, all others to choose to choose you over acupuncture, massage, physical therapy, other chiropractors, osteopaths. Every phone call, every text, every email, every smile, every interaction tells a story. Make sure your front desk is telling the story you want your community to hear. They are the megaphone to your business. Plays a big role on there. So Secret Shopper Info at EnricoD.com. I'm excited to help you with that. Give you a real scoop from a business owner myself, from a fellow chiropractor from myself, from all the mistakes I've seen in practice. I'll give you a juicy and real report on that. That's that sounds like a fun little task. Um, share, like, catch you next week. Keep doing what you're doing. I know it's a grind. There's no glory in the grind. Keep keep going. You can do this better, you can do this smarter. Um, and it all takes the right people around you. But as a CEO, it's you that holds them accountable. Remember that. At the end of the day, and I know you already do, we are all like Atlas, the Greek guy, holding the world on our shoulders. I know this practice is a thing. It's always on your shoulders. Sometimes you just want to throw this boulder off and be like, somebody else carry this for a little bit. But in reality, it's yours. It's yours, and you're the one that needs to carry it. And uh, you can make it lighter by having the right team around you. But inspiring them to be the best helps you in the end. Catch you next week. Stay well, stay healthy.