For many of us, “Curbside” felt like a band-aid way of continuing to offer services to patients during the peak of COVID-19.
But what many of our “Inner Circle” members are now seeing is that many patients actually prefer this quick, safe, and convenient way to receive service, repairs, and care.
That’s why the past month has been heavily focused on building this new offering and core messaging into our members’ websites and ensuring that they are the number one local provider for all curbside services.
In this article, I want to share the five steps to build a powerful curbside offering into their web presence.
#1 – Building a Curbside Page on Your Website
Your curbside offering should be a prominent part of your services and explain why a patient should choose to work with you over all other options available to them.
This was built into a detailed page on the website that shared three key points.
- What curbside service is
- How it works
- How a patient can schedule a visit
This then had simple online forms that patients could use to schedule a convenient time.
The important part of this page that many people miss is the real-life photography of real patients.
We have a rule in our “Inner Circle” – “If you didn’t get a picture, it didn’t happen.”
That’s why many members go crazy with the camera to document happy patients in their vehicles receiving care.
A great example of this is a clinic in Massachusetts that has captured 50+ photographs that feature throughout her “Curbside Page.”
This allowed our Execution Team to create a tiled background of patient images and feature images throughout the page.
This allows somebody that is considering booking their first visit to feel much more comfortable by seeing what happens, what it looks like, and it reduces their risk of stepping into the unknown.
#2 – Collecting Powerful “Patient Stories”
To accompany this page, stories from patients sharing their experience of curbside was essential.
As this is something new that many haven’t experienced before, patients will naturally feel uncomfortable agreeing to do something that they’ve never previously experienced.
By having curbside patients share their stories and how they found their curbside visit, it was simple to capture these testimonials and build them into the curbside page.
This was achieved by creating a printed questionnaire form that asked three questions:
Q: Did you have any concerns before visiting us?
Q: How have you found your curbside experience?
Q: What would you say to somebody that needs our help but is concerned about the safety of visiting us?
Patients were encouraged to complete this form while they waited, resulting in many powerful stories that were typed up, edited, and built into the curbside page to accompany patient images.
#3 – Developing Value Proposition around Curbside
With convenience becoming increasingly important to patients, curbside needs to become a prominent part of your offering.
The next step was to build it into the core value proposition of all the reasons that make a specific clinic unique in their marketplace.
This means that it was added to the homepage as a section of “how we can help” and built into the “why choose us” section of the messaging.
It’s important that curbside isn’t hidden somewhere on your website – it won’t get found and it won’t get the attention it deserves.
Make it prominent and clear to visitors.
#4 – Marketing Your Curbside Offering to the World
With curbside largely being a service that is utilized and appreciated by existing patients, sharing the news with them is important.
They need to know what it is, how it works, and in what situation they should schedule an appointment and when they should have a curbside visit.
This was done by a combination of three communication channels.
- Social Media
- Patient Newsletter
- Blog Article
This included sharing posts on social media to highlight how it works and share images, contacting patients through a regular email newsletter to share the details, and releasing a time-stamped blog post explaining how it works.
It didn’t require a big budget, newspaper adverts, direct mail, or anything complicated – we just needed to use the communication channels between the provider and the patient that have already been established.
#5 – Creating “Wow” Moments
Once all the key online steps were in place, the next step was to explore the small steps that could be taken to deliver a “wow” moment for patients and build brand for overdelivering.
Just like your in-office visit has a methodical process for welcoming patients, offering them a drink, and considering every moment of their experience, the same needs to happen for curbside.
This has included the execution of many ideas including one day per month where patients can also have their car washed, through to a drinks menu where patients can select an ice-cold drink of their choice.
But the simplest yet the most powerful way to deliver a “wow” has been to create a curbside newsletter, better known within the “Inner Circle” as the “Curbside Chronicles.”
This is a simple newsletter that shares the latest news, has a quiz/puzzle to keep them entertained, and introduces ideas to trigger conversations from patients that could lead to sales opportunities.
The Job is Never Done
It’s the early days in the development of curbside offerings, and this continues to evolve with some members working on professional video production and ways to further improve the patient’s experience.
The small touches make a big difference.
If you’re yet to build curbside into your online assets, then use the outline on this page to start working and further establish yourself as the number one provider in your area.
