A Day in the Life of a Busy Clinic Owner
Meet Samira, a busy clinic owner managing a team of 20 clinicians across 2 locations. The days are very busy between managing patient care and business results. Growth is a top priority as well, with a third location planned, and SEO and Ads campaigns running. A “Meet the Team Template” isn’t something that is high on the priority list.
Not everything is roses, though. One consistent issue is turnover of clinical staff. Samira runs a mental health clinic, and annual turnover rates can be between 30 and 60% in this industry. This means continual recruiting, onboarding, and offboarding.
It also means frequent website updates. Every month, there are 1 or 2 profiles to add to the website. They also need to be added in the Practice Management System (PMS), like Cliniko, PowerDiary or Jane. For the departing clinicians, the same steps have to happen in reverse.
Samira has a lot on her plate. Keeping team profiles and photos up-to-date seems like another task on an endless to-do list. Yet, it’s critical to convert searchers into patients. An easy way to keep everything fresh is needed, that doesn’t break the bank. One concept that can help simplify the situation is a “meet the team template” for your website. Let’s explore.
Why Your Patients are Interested in Your Team
Imagine this: a new family moves into town and is looking for new healthcare providers. Jennifer takes on the job for the family and starts searching on her phone when in line for coffee. Here, she stumbles upon your clinic’s website. What she finds – or doesn’t find – about your team will determine what happens next.
People love looking at people. We see this consistently when tracking user activity on a health clinic website. Prospective patients spend the most browsing time on pictures of the team. They flock to profiles and photos of individual practitioners. They also like group photos and shots of team members in your clinical setting.
In a world that is increasingly online, healthcare remains a human interaction. Your potential patient is looking for authenticity from you, as well as clarity and simplicity. They want to gauge if they can make a personal connection to the practice, the leaders and the team – before booking. Knowing the faces and names is important to them. They want to understand specialties and availability, and get a glimpse of personalities.
The Impact of Great Photos and Current Information
Clinician information and availability is the core information your patients are looking for. Other website pages are viewed much less often by actual patients near you (if at all). So, your team photos and bios form the foundation of your clinic’s online presence. Busy searchers assess the state of this information. Then, they extrapolate that to an assessment of your practice.
Clinician information is critical when it comes to converting traffic into booked appointments. When patients see that your team is easy to find and well presented, it makes them more likely to book online. Patient trust and loyalty build from here.
Three Approaches Clinic Owners Adopt
We have seen three different approaches that clinic owners take to address the ‘meet the team’ problem.
Option #1: High-Touch Photography and Profiles
Some clinic owners believe their brand is worth a lot of ongoing time and effort. They bite the bullet, so to speak. They take the time to create engaging, detailed profiles for each clinician. They add professional photography as a part of onboarding, and sometimes even create a dedicated webpage for everyone on the team. Then, they create another profile in the PMS, which may have different writing. This approach speaks volumes about your clinic’s dedication and provides thorough information for prospective patients.
Option #2: Meet the Team template with “Book Online” Links
In this approach, a summary table of your team is built. It’s shown on your Meet the Team page, and elsewhere on the site as appropriate. It’s equipped with direct “Book Online” links each time. Collage-style group pictures are used that can easily be regenerated when things change. This method shows your team at a glance but also enables immediate action, reducing the steps a patient must take to book an appointment. It offers a streamlined approach to both patient engagement and website maintenance.
Option #3: Infrequent Updates
Sometimes, the challenge becomes too much and other priorities get the attention. We often see clinic websites where the team profiles are out of sync with the PMS. Sometimes significantly. In this case, the old marketing maxim of “A confused mind buys nothing” can emerge. When someone spends time reading a bio on your website, only to find this person is no longer bookable, they get frustrated with you. They also find broken links to old or removed pages annoying. They can usually tell if your group photos aren’t current. This all forms a part of your clinic’s brand impression.
Challenges of Each Approach
Each method comes with its own set of hurdles.The high-touch option requires a lot of dedication, process compliance, effort, and cost. Yet, the return on this additional investment isn’t always clear. More information doesn’t always correlate to more bookings.
Meet The Team approaches may not be appropriate for high-profile team members who are searched frequently by name. Dedicated website pages may be a good investment for these industry leaders. It’s easy to tell, by reviewing your search data in Google Search Console.
Infrequent updates have self evident challenges. Unmaintained websites lower bookings.
Balancing the need for up-to-date, engaging profiles with the reality of frequent staff changes and limited resources requires a plan and practical solutions.
How to Grab a “Meet the Team Template” to Get You Started
A well-designed “Meet the Team template” is a solution you can consider.
Starting with a template is simpler than you might think. There are customizable templates available which provide a framework that you can start from. This way, you can get your online presence the way you want and allow it to be easily maintained.
HubSpot has created an excellent resource called 24 Best “Meet the Team” Pages We’ve Ever Seen. Although this is an industry-agnostic tool, several of these options are relevant and applicable to a health clinic setting.
Second Spring Digital has a simple template you can reference if you want to design your next Meet The Team page yourself. This tool is built specifically with healthcare in mind, and factors in how patients search and book in private health clinics. Get your copy now.
Moving to a templated approach allows a direct connection to your PMS too, with a bit of tech wizardry. This way, you can auto-generate that pesky Meet the Team content that is always changing. You can create fresh collage-style group photos any time a change takes place, and seamlessly update things as your team evolves. This balance of automation and personalization keeps your website in sync with your clinicians.
Conclusion
The “Meet the Team” section of your website is more than just a list of names and titles. It’s the bridge to your patients. It’s a reflection of your clinic’s philosophy, and a key factor in attracting new bookings. Adopting a “meet the team template” simplifies the process of keeping this section fresh. It lets you use best practices when designing your online presence. This helps you book and provide care for more patients, which then helps everyone involved.
