CRM

A CRM is not software for its own sake. It is the single place where you can follow each patient from the first message to payment. Calls, website forms and messages from Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp all land there. Every enquiry has a source, an owner on the front desk, a status and the date of the next contact.

How to tell whether your CRM actually works

Open last week's records and check three things:

• every enquiry has a status and a dated next step;
• the record shows what the patient was told and how they replied;
• you can work out what share of enquiries reached a booking, a visit and a payment.

If the answer on any of these points is ‘I’d have to ask reception’, your CRM exists only on paper.

Common mistakes and what to do

• Not everything goes in. Calls are logged, but social media messages stay on the receptionist's phone. Every channel should feed the same system.
• No mandatory next step. A record without a task is a patient nobody will call back.
• Statuses exist but are not defined. Each receptionist reads ‘thinking about it’ differently. Write a short rulebook: what each status means and when to use it.
• Management never reads the reports. Without regular review, a CRM turns into an archive.

Start with rules, not with a new system: which fields are mandatory, which statuses you use, who checks open records and how often. To see what lost enquiries cost you, try the loss calculator.