E559 | The Number 1 Customer Success Metric

On today's episode of the P.T. Entrepreneur Podcast, I am taking a look at what is considered the number one customer success metric. The more people you can get through an entire plan of care, and help them get back to the goals they have, the more likely it is you're going to have this compounding referral base of clients that will go out of their way to get people through the door for you. Enjoy!

• How a software company measures customer success
• How a Cash-Based Practice should measure customer success
• Growing your reputation

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: Hey, I've got a question for you. Do you know if you're tracking the right data, the right metrics, the right key performance indicators in your practice? This is something that's huge for us and really helps us make solid decisions within our business, but the prior software that we're using to run our practice made it really challenging.

To actually get that data out and use it in reports. Since we've switched to PPG everywhere, this has actually become way, way easier for us to be able to have the right data. We have a dashboard of all the things that we actually want to see, the metrics that we want to pull, and it makes our life a lot easier to pull the information that we need to make the right decisions within our business.

So if you're running blind and you're not tracking the right things, or you're having a. Hard time actually pulling everything together. I highly recommend you check out our friends at PT Everywhere and see what they've got going on with their software platform. It's what we use for our practice. It's been a game changer for us.

You can check 'em [email protected]. I think you really like it. So here's the question. How do physical therapists like us who don't wanna see 30 patients a day, who don't want to work home health and have real student loans create a career and life for ourselves that we've always dreamed about?

This is the question, and this podcast is the answer. My name's Danny Matta, and welcome to the PT Entrepreneur Podcast.

What's going on guys? Doc Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and today we're talking about customer success, or in this case, patient success, client success, whatever it is that you call the people that work with you. In most cases, we consider our people, our patients, right? That's what they are.

But in the world of software, in the world of big tech companies, there's something called customer success. And customer success is relatively new. It's only a couple decades old. And a lot of it has to do with success of software companies in particular, which really aren't that old, if you think about it.

So this is coming from a conversation I had with a buddy of mine that is a director of customer success for a pretty big, like it's. It's a service software platform, I guess you'd say. It's a platform that service-based businesses run their business through. So scheduling appointments invoices, all kinds of stuff like that for traits like plumbers and anybody's doing like home services and things of that nature.

So anyway, I caught up with him. He's moving. And we grabbed lunch and we were talking about what he's doing with customer success and he's running a team of, I think it's 40 or 50 people at this point for the software company. And we were talking about his job and the metrics that they look at.

And it's really interesting because a lot of what he's doing is in a different, it's in a different type of business than what we have, right? This is, it's not a. Like a cash-based practice or a hybrid practice or whatever, anything like that. It's software, but what is similar is the metrics that they look at in terms of success of those people.

And the number one thing that they actually pay attention to more than anything else is utilization of the software. How effectively, how regularly are their clients utilizing the software? Because if they can help them use it better, if they can help them get more out of it, if they can help them better integrate it into their business, the stick rate that they have, the amount of people that stay, and frankly the amount of revenue that the company makes is significantly higher because they're retaining people more.

But retaining people comes from success of utilization of the software. And this is something like he said, when he meets with their manager. So he, the, in his position as a director, he has managers that are then managing specific teams that are assigned a certain number of of clients. And many of them usually have, multiple businesses, multiple shops I guess you would call it around, different parts of the city or state or wherever they're at.

So they're managing these big. These big groups, they're helping them integrate the software that they have to make their lives easier, to make it more repeatable within their businesses. And if they can do that, then their lifetime value skyrocket. So the length of time that they stick around and they keep paying for this.

The other thing too, with his software in particular, is it, part of it has to do with. The amount of money they make is based off location, but it's also based off of the number of technicians they have and I believe there's even a component of the amount of revenue they run through that because of processing.

So the bigger the more they can help this company grow, the better it is for them because they get more revenue per business when they do that. So as I was sitting there chatting with him, I was thinking about this in terms of our practices as well. And if I think of. Software utilization, u utilizing the actual software and the service that comes along with it to help them.

I implement that. I, for us, the way I think of it is it's compliance and actually completion of a plan of care. So if you think about customer success is proactive and customer service is reactive, right? So you talk to customer service, if you have a problem, customer success reaches out proactively to make sure that you are on the right track to, be able to get the outcome that you want to hit the goal that you want.

And, When we look at customer success or patient success, in our scenario in our practices, it is about them doing the work. It's about them being bought into the plan of care. It's about communication, being simple, consistent, repeatable, and being able to actually get them either. In the office to do what they need to do.

If there's things that require, in-office time or to be able to have them be compliant remotely, if that's what they need to do, as well as say they're following like some, digital program or something like that, that you've built out for them. And they're not coming in as frequently.

They're on the tail end of their rehab. And the ability to help them best complete those things is customer success. That's patient success. So when you think about this is one of the variables that I think make such a big difference in terms of whether a practice is going to be successful and be able to scale or have mediocre success.

And it is how many of your people are actually finishing their plan of care are actually getting the outcome that they came in. To get, they told you that they wanted to get, and if you do not have a high percentage of the people that come and see you finishing their plan of care and having success with whatever goal it is that they wanted to have, the likelihood that they're gonna tell other people about you is low.

The likelihood that they're gonna wanna stick around and do ongoing, whatever, continuity based program service, whatever it is that you have with you, is low. And the business is gonna be really dependent on. New volume, new business that's tied directly to your marketing efforts and not your marketing efforts, plus this massive amount of com compounding credibility and reach that you have from other people that are, Bringing you up with their friends and family.

Anytime they talk about their knee, giving them a problem. And it is it compounds at a significant level. If you really think about the number of people that you see and the number of people that those people know, how many of those people are sending friends and family members in to see you?

Because if the number is not a lot, then you're missing the mark somewhere in customer success. They're maybe they're not like, As sure of what they should do or sure of what's going on. There's an education component there. Communication component that's dropped off maybe once you see them that first visit.

You're confusing them. You're trying to get them to do too much. Maybe they're busy and you're not following up enough, or your team is not following up enough to get them back in the office. This is actually a huge one that we would see with our front desk. Them being able to follow up with people to then get people back in after they have canceled and needed to reschedule.

Let's say they canceled cuz their kid is sick and they're busy, right? They have a job, they've got kids. They're feeling a little bit better, right? Let's say it's a knee issue and they're back to playing tennis again and their knee feels pretty good, and they're like 80%. They're like, all right, I think I'm pretty good.

And you're thinking, man, all right if they don't come back in, they've got three visits left that they haven't used, but they've already paid for. So it's a win for me. But in actuality, it's not a win for you because they're gonna remember that they're, they haven't completed whatever you told 'em they needed to do, so they're not fully back to whatever it is that, that you intended them to do.

Maybe there's still things that they need to work on over a whatever additional period of time. And what you've done now is you've. Partially completed the plan of care, partially completed the goal that they have, and you want to make sure you're following up and you're reaching out to them and you're getting them back in so they can complete that, and you have to be proactive about it because they've got a lot of other things going on.

And sometimes we feel like we're a, we're being a burden to people where we're annoying them. It's Hey, I wanna get you back in for this, and this. But if it's really something that they need to do, then you're doing them a significant service by getting them back in, by following up with them, by being persistent to help them achieve the goal that they set forth with you, and you want to be able to achieve that with them.

And the more people you help. Build through or get through an entire plan of care, help them get back to the goals that they have, and even hopefully exceed what their expectations were. The more likely it is that you're gonna have this compounding referral base of clients that are out there that just go out of their way to tell their friends and family about how awesome you are and that they should stop complaining about their back pain and just go and see you and they will sell.

Your service for you if you do the right thing. So keep that in mind. Completion of Plan of care is probably the number one customer success metric that you can keep an eye on and make sure people are coming back in, they're getting the results that they want, because that is going to then compound in terms of new business your way, your reputation is gonna grow, you're gonna grow trust with people in the community, and that's gonna do amazing things for your business long term.

So hope this success or this helps a little bit of customer success. Knowledge bomb from my buddy in the software space. This is a multi-billion dollar company. Just to be clear, this is a huge company and I appreciate him sharing some insight with me. I hope that this helps you out and you can apply it to your practice.

It's a pretty straightforward thing to track, and it just takes time and effort on your part to make sure people are coming back in and actually finishing their plan of care. So as always, guys, enjoy the weekend. I will talk to you next week.

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