Managing referrals: incentivising and referral programmes

Recently, Dr Tim Pearce welcomed his apprentice winner, nurse Charlotte to a podcast to reflect on managing referrals for your aesthetic business.

In this blog, we share the key points from their conversation and Dr Tim explains why incentivising referrals works for some people, but not all, and how referral programmes can be a useful tool to bring in new patients to your clinic.

Do you feel anxious about causing complications? Many clinicians feel so overwhelmed with the thought of causing a vascular occlusion that it stops them growing their aesthetics business. Dr Tim is currently hosting a webinar series to help you overcome your fear of complications so that you can uplevel your knowledge and increase your CPD-certified learning to build a successful aesthetics business. Sign up here >>

Word of mouth referrals

Nurse Charlotte recalled how a lady that she goes to for eyelash treatments has recommended her aesthetic services and brought in at least four new patients to her clinic business. The lady in question visits nurse Charlotte for botulinum toxin treatment, feels thrilled with the results and consequently cannot help but extol the virtues of Charlotte’s services to every eyelash client that she treats – something of a captive audience when they spend an hour having their lashes done!

This is, of course, wonderful news and a great source of referrals for nurse Charlotte. Trouble is she feels like she owes this lady, owes her a commission almost for talking about her all the time and bringing in so many referrals.

Dr Tim explained that managing referrals and the mechanism of their creation is quite an interesting topic and does require some thought.

For example, nurse Charlotte’s lash lady probably just really likes Charlotte and loves the results she has achieved from her treatment. She refers others as a gift to her to help her to succeed. Dr Tim noted that sometimes if you try to incentivise people in this situation – if nurse Charlotte offered her lash lady some money for each referral, for example – they do not like it, and will be less likely to refer because now payment is involved. This makes them feel uneasy because their reason for referring was not for personal gain.

Referral programmes

Some people are very money driven, stated Dr Tim. For example, anyone who asks for a discount when wanting treatment is very money driven. This does not make them bad patients, but rather than give them deals or discounts, it is better to offer them a referral programme. They seek money off their own treatment and this drive can make them very good at referring others to your services.

Dr Tim implemented a referral programme in his clinic for many years. It worked well, but as he explained to nurse Charlotte, you must work out your profit margins first before offering any incentivisation for referrals. It also helps to know how long you keep your average patient because that tells you how much you can afford to incentivise.

At his clinic, they used to make the reward for referrals a £100 pound gift voucher, which is a large discount off treatment, but this is related to profit margins which will vary by clinic. He understood that the patient would be coming in to spend more money anyway, thus, all he was are really giving away on that occasion was the cost price of a treatment. If, for example, they had earned £300 in three vouchers of £100 each, he was giving away £100 worth of filler and his time. That equates to £33 plus his time to acquire three new patients that were referred by this one patient, a cost that is well worth it.

Read more of Dr Tim and nurse Charlottes’ conversations, including:

• Making clinical and ethical decisions as an aesthetic injector
• How to move out of the NHS and into medical aesthetics
• Leaving the NHS to go into aesthetics: dealing with judgement and guilt
• Promoting your aesthetic business with videos on social media
• Pricing: how to charge for your aesthetic services

You can find Dr Tim Pearce on Instagram if you have any ideas for things you would like to see him discuss and you can also follow aesthetic nurse Charlotte on Instagram at Refined Aesthetics.

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Aesthetics marketing eLearning courses

For tips, advice and support in medical aesthetics marketing, Dr Tim Pearce offers the Dream Customer Attraction Method (DCAM) eLearning course by Miranda Pearce. The course contains a wealth of advice about building and growing your aesthetics business.

In addition, browse our FREE business and marketing resources.

Free aesthetics marketing webinar

Join Miranda’s latest webinar, available at: https://www.mirandapearcemarketing.com/marketing-webinar-registration to learn more and receive some free marketing tips.

The introductory webinar by the creator of the Dream Customer Attraction Method (DCAM) eLearning course will include free tips on how to effortlessly generate 75 killer content ideas that will lead to bookings, the secret 3-step formula to make social posts that will stop the tumbleweed forever, and the surprising truth about how many followers you really need to make a 6-figure income from aesthetics.

Please sign up for the marketing webinar below:

Dr Tim Pearce eLearning

Dr Tim Pearce MBChB BSc (Hons) MRCGP founded his eLearning concept in 2016 in order to provide readily accessible BOTOX® and dermal filler online courses for fellow Medical Aesthetics practitioners. His objective was to raise standards within the industry – a principle which remains just as relevant today.

Our exclusive video-led courses are designed to build confidence, knowledge and technique at every stage, working from foundation level to advanced treatments and management of complications.

Thousands of delegates have benefited from the courses and we’re highly rated on Trustpilot. For more information or to discuss which course is right for you, please get in touch with our friendly team.