August 2025 Monthly Mastermind – Patient Retention Tactics
Lisa Faast discussed strategies for patient retention, emphasizing the importance of creating an “iron cage” around valuable patients. She highlighted that losing patients is costly, with pharmacies typically losing 1-2% annually, and stressed the need to identify high-profit patients and prescribers. Key tactics include thank-you cards, birthday celebrations, and follow-up programs. Faast also suggested diversifying offerings, offering special services, and using technology like newsletters and texting to enhance patient engagement. She underscored the importance of emotional connections and continuous improvement to maintain a loyal patient base.
Action Items
- [ ] Implement a monthly newsletter program to stay connected with patients.
- [ ] Establish a thank you card program where each employee sends out one card per shift.
- [ ] Organize a patient birthday celebration program to recognize and appreciate patients.
- [ ] Explore “surprise and delight” tactics to create positive emotional connections with patients, such as games, gifts, and random acts of kindness.
- [ ] Host customer appreciation events, open houses, or other community engagement activities to strengthen relationships.
- [ ] Continuously monitor trends and evolve the pharmacy’s offerings to provide what patients want.
Outline
Patient Retention Tactics Introduction
- Lisa Faast introduces the meeting on patient retention tactics, emphasizing its importance despite being less glamorous than other aspects of pharmacy management.
- She highlights the goal of creating an “iron cage” around valuable patients to prevent them from leaving.
- Lisa asks participants to consider how much business they would have if they kept every patient who ever used their pharmacy.
- A reminder is given about the upcoming price increase for member tickets and the upcoming event in Dallas, where two new speakers have been signed.
Delegation and Office Hours Support
- Lisa discusses the importance of delegation, especially for pharmacy owners whose teams expand or open new locations.
- She announces a new speaker who will talk about delegation at the upcoming event.
- Lisa explains the availability of office hours and implementation support hours with Coach Mike, providing details on how to access these resources.
- She emphasizes the importance of these support sessions for essential and unlimited members.
Patient Life Cycle and Retention Focus
- Lisa outlines the patient life cycle: awareness, consideration, first purchase, retention, and turning customers into raving fans.
- The focus of the meeting is on retention and creating strategies to keep patients loyal.
- Lisa introduces the pharmacy profit matrix, which helps create a continuously profitable pharmacy without chaos.
- She explains the concept of patient churn and how it affects businesses, noting that pharmacies typically lose less than 2% of their patients annually.
Cost of Attrition and Customer Responsibility
- Lisa explains that it is five times more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one.
- She stresses that customers leave voluntarily and it is important to take responsibility for maintaining relationships.
- Lisa discusses various reasons why patients leave, including forced attrition, feeling unappreciated, and not receiving the services they want.
- She emphasizes the importance of complaint recovery and creating emotional connections with patients.
Identifying High-Value Patients
- Lisa advises identifying which patients are the most valuable and should never be lost.
- She shares examples of high-value patients like David, who had multiple prescriptions, and Louis, who brought joy to the pharmacy.
- The importance of retaining high-profit prescribers and referral partners is highlighted.
- Lisa suggests thinking about who else is important to the success of the pharmacy, such as local businesses and media personalities.
Retention Strategies and Implementation
- Lisa recommends being present in patients’ lives as much as possible and diversifying offerings to create more touchpoints.
- She suggests giving patients reasons to love the pharmacy, such as providing free water, balloons, and special services.
- Lisa emphasizes the importance of going above and beyond when it counts, sharing a story about delivering a biophy cream to a patient.
- She advises being different from other pharmacies, whether through personality, special products, or unique services.
Thank You Cards and Emails
- Lisa starts with thank you cards as a simple but effective retention strategy, recommending that every employee sends one thank you card per shift.
- She explains the importance of thank you cards in creating a positive impression and building relationships.
- Lisa discusses the use of emails for newsletters and other communications, emphasizing the need to provide value and educate patients.
- She suggests starting with small, manageable email campaigns and gradually increasing the frequency and complexity.
Birthday Celebrations and Special Services
- Lisa recommends celebrating patients’ birthdays with cards and special services, such as delivering flowers and balloons.
- She suggests offering special services like point-of-care testing and drug reviews to create value for patients.
- Lisa advises making it easy for patients to access information and services, such as creating shelves for recommended products by prescribers.
- She emphasizes the importance of following up with patients to ensure their medications are working and to address any concerns.
Follow-Up Programs and Emotional Connections
- Lisa discusses the importance of follow-up programs to differentiate the pharmacy from others and build emotional connections with patients.
- She suggests using technology and automation to streamline follow-up processes.
- Lisa emphasizes the need for positive surprises and random acts of kindness to create emotional ties with patients.
- She advises creating fun and exciting events, such as customer appreciation events and scavenger hunts, to engage patients and build loyalty.
Advanced Retention Strategies
- Lisa suggests creating specialized retention strategies for different segments of patients, such as high-profit compounding patients.
- She recommends using loyalty programs and VIP clubs to reward loyal customers.
- Lisa advises staying up-to-date with trends and offering products and services that patients want, even if they are not necessarily the healthiest options.
- She emphasizes the importance of never staying stagnant and continuously improving retention strategies to maintain a strong foundation of loyal patients, prescribers, and referral partners.