Over the last month we have been providing local phone numbers for some of our overseas clinics. Essentially we provide them with a UK or Irish number (€240 PA) and proxy the phone calls through to their regular clinic number. In doing this we have discovered some shocking statistics.
If a clinic’s phone number is looked up by 100 unique individuals it results in 25 unique people trying to call the clinic. You would think that this means the clinic gets to talk to 25 people, but we were shocked to find out that only 45% of the phone calls made result in a conversation with the clinic.
Patient To Clinic Phone Call Statistics
- 30% of all calls are made outside of office hours or during lunch hour
- 10% of calls result in a busy signal
- 15% of calls are not answered
- If there is a voice messaging service available only 30% of people will leave a message
- The average length of a call that is answered is 2 minutes and 20 seconds
Typically a caller who gets a busy signal or no answer will try again immediately and if they don’t get through the second time they give up. All of this suggests that there must be serious frustration amongst consumer trying to call clinics. We plan on monitoring this area closely over the coming months and will keep you updated on our findings.
Have you had problems getting through to companies by phone? Share your experiences of calling businesses in the comments below.
Well done guys. This is very valuable research. It is great that you provide the figures to back up the suppositions.
For me, this highlights while there is a lot of talk about ‘disintermediation’ online – there is probably as much opportunity to ‘intermediation’ in businesses which previously have generated their own leads. Handling sales requires specialist expertise and something they don’t teach at doctor/dentist/programmer/lawyer/plumber school. Surely there is a chance for a big win here. Simply providing cover for unanswered/busy/out of hours calls would produce over 100% more leads. That could translate into a lot more billable hours.
I think you’re right, however I haven’t got a strategy yet.
Really interesting Post. I was wondering which solution did you use to do the tracking ie. know calls were busy etc? Is this some kind of VOIP solution?