Communication is key to maintaining patient relationships, but what happens when your telephone services go offline? Phone downtime in a cosmetic dermatology practice isn’t just an inconvenience — it’s a major disruption that can damage your patients’ trust and your practice’s brand if left unaddressed.
When your practice’s phones go silent, it means more than just missing a few calls. It can easily lead to lost appointments, interrupted patient care, and a damaged reputation. Ensuring continuous communication is a top priority in a field where trust is everything. Without it, your practice risks immediate financial loss and long-term patient relationships.
Phone downtime is a critical situation that demands an immediate and effective response strategy to mitigate potential negative impacts on your practice’s workflow and reputation.
Since phone outages can occur without warning, it’s vital to have a robust contingency plan in place for when disaster strikes. Here’s what our team at Goldman Marketing Group recommends to help practices overcome phone downtime and maintain communication with their patients.
4 Ways to Work Around a Phone Outage
Here are some of the key strategies our team utilizes to help dermatology practices overcome phone outages.
1: Immediate Website Notification
The moment your phones go down, your website becomes the frontline for patient communication. We recommend adding an attention-grabbing sticky banner to your website, clearly stating that phone lines are temporarily unavailable and offering alternatives. This could include a direct link to book appointments online, filling out a Typeform for specific queries, or enabling a text message service for real-time assistance. The notification should be pre-programmed and ready to use immediately should an outage occur.
At Goldman Marketing Group, we facilitate swift updates to our clients’ websites when phones go down to ensure minimal disruption to patient communication.
2: Proactive Patient Communication
It’s essential to keep your patients well-informed and reassured when communication issues arise. We strategize a dual approach: sending a mass text message and email to your entire patient list that notifies individuals of the current phone issue and provides clear instructions on how they can continue communicating with your practice. This transparency maintains trust and directs patients away from the frustration of unanswered calls.
3: Call Rerouting Solutions
For prolonged outages, we can facilitate the rerouting of phone calls. By tapping into call tracking systems, we can redirect incoming calls to a standby phone line to ensure your practice remains reachable. Our expert team can manage this process end-to-end, from identifying the alternative numbers to rerouting calls and testing the system to ensure seamless communication.
4: Leveraging Social Media Channels
Social media platforms are an invaluable tool for immediate patient outreach. When phones go down for our clients, we use their platforms to post regular updates regarding the phone outage. At the same time, we also direct patients towards alternative communication methods, such as online booking or text messaging services. Our content team is skilled at creating these alert messages, taking care to ensure they are consistent with your brand voice and reach your audience effectively.
How Goldman Marketing Group Can Help
Goldman Marketing Group specializes in offering tailored marketing solutions to healthcare providers, focusing on dermatology and plastic surgery practices. When phone outages occur, we’re prepared to implement the contingency strategies we’ve recommended above, helping to ensure your practice continues to operate smoothly.
Our philosophy is to provide CMO-level strategy and execute multi-channel marketing initiatives seamlessly. We offer a suite of services, including but not limited to website development, SEO, content marketing, and social media engagement, all designed to keep the lines of communication open between you and your patients.
With Goldman Marketing Group, dermatology practices can focus on what matters most — their patients. That’s because they know they have a dedicated partner acting as their in-house marketing team, adept at handling crises like phone outages with swift, strategic actions that preserve their brand’s reputation. Contact us today to learn how we can support you in delivering the high-quality care and communication your patients deserve.
