AI:
Hi guys and welcome back to the Med spa growth and profitability podcast. Right now we're joined with Jamie Lowary. She is the Channel Relations Manager for PATLive. It's a 24/7 live telephone answering service.
PATLive has answered phone calls for thousands of businesses over the last 28 years using their top notch, top notch agents and proprietary technology. PATLive helps their customers provide wow worthy customer service. So welcome Jamie.
JL:
Thank you so much for having me today.
AI:
No problem. You know, it was important for us to get you guys on because we've heard really great things about your love telephone answering service. Believe it or not, this is a service that most med spas don't utilize.
For that reason, Implementing a live telephone medical answering service into their practice will really is going to up their customer service game. Not to mention, it will also increase patient loyalty and satisfaction.
Jamie, can you tell us a little bit about what pat live is and what you guys actually do?
JL:
Totally. Yeah, I would agree. I we spend a lot of time explaining to business owners what a live telephone medical answering service is. It really is such a great fit for Med Spas! With PATLive, we're 24/7, 365 days a year, live telephone answering service.
Therefore, that means we never close! No calls are ever, ever sent to voicemail. We can really serve whatever type of receptionist purpose you want. Sometimes we just take messages, sometimes we'll schedule appointments for our clients. We can do live transfer.
So we really try to serve as the receptionist as if we were in the office and you get to know the business so that we do sound like we're in the office. Needless to say it's a really great service.
Just like you said, to really up that, that customer service game for your practice.
AI:
Again, that's another reason why I wanted you on today. Because sometimes when people think of live telephone medical answering service, it's like those weird, after hour type people you get on. You know the ones...
They just take your information and then maybe, eventually, somebody else will get in touch with you. You guys have really mastered the live telephone medical answering service! It's like your team is actually in the Med Spa office.
JL:
Right? Right. Yeah. And that's a difference, there's the big box call centers. And then there's kind of a more boutique answering service and that's kind of the difference there.
AI:
Jamie, can you give us some examples of how med spas would use your services?
JL:
Yeah, definitely. So like I said, we can be used whenever you want to use us. So it's all based on how you have your calls routed to us, some of our customers' have it sent to, they completely outsource their receptionist service to us. We take 100 percent of their calls.
Some may forward their calls to us during lunch, during holidays, over the weekend and after hours. We even have some that have set up an overflow situation. So if they're on the phone, it rings a few times without an answer the system knows to then route it to their PATLive system.
AI:
That's so important because that's where a lot of opportunities are missed when they're going to a medical answering service or when it's just continuously ringing. So that's a really important service.
JL:
Yeah, definitely. And you want that, you want those calls answered quickly, definitely. But as far as the type of calls we take, sometimes we just take messages, but sometimes we will get into your software, that's what you choose and schedule, reschedule, cancel appointments.
I think the goal on a call is to get a consultation scheduled and we know that that's your goal. We can script it accordingly and then we can even transfer calls live over like we had said earlier.
So let's just say someone's looking for their results or they have an emergency question for doctors. We can make sure that it's scripted appropriately, so that call was sent where it needs to be as soon as possible.
AI:
Perfect. In the Med Spa space, people are getting procedures. More often than not, they experience side effects. Even if they're not side effects, maybe it's just something that's very normal, but raises a concern for the patient.
It usually happens a few hours later when the patient's at home or in bed. And the patient may be realizing something is not quite right. As a result, they want to address their concerns right away.
So I would imagine that's really where you guys are also going to shine. I mean, I'm sure you shine all over.
Hence, that's another great reason why med spas would want to utilize your service. So they're your patients not calling at 6:00pm only to get an voicemail.
I know that you do at after hours if there is an issue and it is an emergency, you could get in touch with somebody in the office. Maybe even directly connect the patient to doctor. But if the, the office didn't want that, but you would be able to ring the doctor, is that correct?
JL:
Yeah, definitely. It's very, very customizable and flexible how we can configure a service like that.
AI:
Perfect. And the top three things that most businesses look for when they're looking for an answer or what should they look for or be aware of when they're looking for an answering service?
JL:
That's a great question. So there are three main things, you want make sure you're answering service... obviously you get what you pay for, cheaper is not always better, but there are some really great competitively priced answering services out there, but what you really want to look for is someone experienced someone who's been doing it forever.
Most noteworthy, we've been a live telephone answering service for 28 years now. Not just experience overall but experience within your industry. You, that's a whole part of us wanting to sound like your business.
First of all, we would want to use the right verbiage.
We don't want to call your them "customers" we want to call them "patients".
"Are you a new or existing patient?"
You would want us to be familiar with the common types of software that med spas use. Um, so that's something important to look for.
Secondly, I would always ask when, when kind of shopping around how they measure their, they're called their answer rate, how quickly they answered the phone. I'm sure everyone has their own measures of it.
We monitor our service levels very heavily. As a highly recommended live telephone medical answering service, we strive to answer all our calls under 20 seconds. We audit this pretty closely all the time.
AI:
I'm glad you said that, that's not normally something that pops into mind when people are looking for answering services because I've had a few in the past and I never asked at that metric like how quickly you know, because you assume that they're doing it quickly and the response time is great. So that's awesome.
JL:
Yeah. Yeah. We never assumed it's so important to answer it quickly. We, we as consumers, I'm guilty of it, you're probably guilty of it. We're, we're less patient than ever. In addition, when people call and they require a call back, call them back immediately. While you're fresh on their mind.
Because research shows that people tend to call when they're, in a buying mode. They're ready to spend money. It's just silly not to take advantage of that while they're on the phone or while you're fresh on their mind.
JL:
I think it's about 80% of people don't leave voicemails anymore. And 85% of those people don't bother calling the business back... EVER. So yeah, you're totally right about that.
I'm back to the third thing- scripting.
This is probably the biggest difference between, live telephone medical answering services. How much time did they spend up front with you to learn your business?
We want to know every single question callers ask and how we can be prepared for it if we can. Then, it's important to make sure that the answering service isn't just using templates. There's a lot of templative live telephone answering service companies out there.
You know, it's an answering service right off the bat. So that's something that's important to pick someone who's flexible. Someone who is willing to learn about your business so that they can sound like your business.
AI:
Absolutely. What are the concerns that your clients come to you with or you were prospective clients come to you with before hiring you?
JL:
It would be exactly that, you know, are you going to sound like you're reading off of a screen? How quickly are you going to answer? Um, there are some that you have concerns and what all can you do? That would probably be the main thing. What all can you do on the call? We're, we like to know, we'd like to be able to answer all of the frequently asked questions.
At that the end of the day, we're not a part of your business, so there are going to be questions we can't answer. We'd like to be as prepared as possible.
From the feedback we keep getting is that having flexible scripting has allowed us to be as close to sounding like a representative from that business as, as we can.
AI:
Wonderful and with not knowing questions, um, or not having the answers to the questions that are coming in, what I know it's going to be scripted a little bit differently for each business, but what generally is your response to something that you don't know?
JL:
There is a couple of different canned responses out there. And sometimes ...we never lie. Sometimes we just have to be upfront and honest. We will say, we are the after hours live answering service. I've noted here that this is exactly what you need.
As long as it's not an emergency, we're going to submit this request or inquiry. The Med Spa opens at this time. Someone from the office will get back to you right away.
In most cases...
With reasonable people, they're, they're fine with that. They're just happy to be talking to a live human ( live telephone answering service ) that at 9:00 PM at night.
The representative from the live telephone medical answering service gives the caller peace of mind that someone is going to call them back the next day.
AI:
Yeah. One of the concerns I would think people would possibly have is, are the receptionist or the people answering, um, do they have accents or are they going to be very fluent in English?
JL:
I'm glad you brought that up. That is a question we get a lot of. We are our answer is we're all located under one roof and North Florida. Our answer is you may get a couple southern accents. All of our live telephone medical answering service representatives definitely all fluent in English.
Understandably, that's a huge concern when choosing the right live telephone answering service for your med spa. As a result, it is a big competitive advantage for us. That is why all of our staff is under one roof for quality purposes.
We're in the states, all US based agents will always be that way. Um, and that's just, there's just a level of quality that comes with that that you just can't get elsewhere.
AI:
It's funny, I'm actually in south Florida. Most of the people that have been on the podcast so far have been located in Florida.
Apparently, we have a very big, a med spa population here. Although, you know, all of our businesses are worldwide.
However, it is very interesting that we have been located in centrally, in the same area.
JL:
Yeah, that is interesting.
AI:
Very cool. I highly encourage you do some research on PATLive.
They have an amazing reputation! Because I always encourage our listeners to do their due diligence, where could they learn a little bit more?
JL:
Thank you, our website is our best source of information. We answer calls for all types of businesses...Med spas included.
So we do have some pages that kind of break-down by industry how our services a little different and we even put real call recordings up there and some scripted examples. There's just a wealth of knowledge on our website: PATLive.com.
AI:
I'll also put it in the show notes for everybody too.
JL:
Yeah, that's the best way. Our phone number is on there as well because we're answering 24/7. We're here to answer your questions 24/7. Another thing of note is that we offer a 14 day free trial.
It is completely free to you! Hence, this is a great way to "test the waters". See what types of calls will be taking. You can get your script kind of perfected.
We always, always want our customers to test their service ourselves and keep us honest and, but yeah, that's completely free.
You don't pay a dime until after your 14 days. Then we kind of make a recommendation on what type of package is best for you. Ideally we like to have a couple of weeks worth of call data there.
AI:
Awesome. Yeah, I highly encourage everybody to go check them out. Sign up for that 14 day trial! You can't afford not to have an answering service. Most importantly, you need to select the right live telephone medical answering service for your Med Spa.
Thank you Jamie. I appreciate all of the information and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.
JL:
Sure. Thank you again!
