Chiropractic Marketing - What is a Patient Appreciation Dinner?

The purpose of a Patient Appreciation Dinner is to connect you with your patients on a heart-to-heart level. This dinner is to show your patients and guests what your vision is for the town, what your vision is for the world and most of all why you became a chiropractor.

It's not about the food at the restaurant (although you will obviously need to choose an adequate restaurant with an appropriate menu). It's not about making friends and socializing, although there will be some socializing going on. It's really, more than anything, about allowing your patients to become excited about your vision. You are recruiting them into your passion for chiropractic. This deep level of connection and understanding will build your practice in a profound way.

Keep in mind, this event does not always have to be a dinner. You can do the same exact format as a lunch or you can do a breakfast. Those people with families or who have late office hours may better respond to a lunch. Do what you feel is best for your practice. You can even change it up occasionally to fit the needs of your patients.

The last and most important purpose of holding a Patient Appreciation Dinner is to get your patients excited about telling everyone they know about your practice. This creates a massive flow of referrals into your office.

When Should You Hold a Patient Appreciation Dinner?

One of the most common questions chiropractors ask me is when they should hold their first Patient Appreciation Dinner. Should they hold a dinner when they first open?

My advice is to create a Patient Appreciation Dinner right away. I did my first one within my first month. I just basically took my whole practice out to dinner. I actually was able to do it within the first two weeks as I had enough patients. So, if you're just opening, just take everyone out to dinner. Recognize everyone during the evening. If you have been in business for a while and have already established a small or large practice, you will want to choose who you invite to the dinner more carefully.

Choose patients who meet the following criteria:

• make all of their appointments

• refer people to your office

• receiving impressive changes on their XâEUR'rays

• receiving impressive changes on their scans

You may also want to invite patients to the dinner who made a comment to the front desk or to you personally that they're going to be a patient for life, or that they're going to tell everybody they know about chiropractic. You want to invite patients who are already engaged in your practice and in your mission. Why? Because what you are building is a team of patients who are going to drive referrals into your office and help you grow your practice. It is the most enthusiastic of patients who will partner with you, who will want to tell their story to as many people as possible.

Picking Your Restaurant

It is a good idea to find a restaurant that is willing to work with you long term. As far as prices go, I have found that $9 - $12 per person is usually what you can negotiate. Make sure you get a fixed price. It's a good idea to create a special menu with only three items that your guests can choose from. You don't want to give people too many choices.

We do not provide desserts with the dinner. And obviously we do not include or make available alcoholic beverages of any kind because that's just not the environment you want to create while you are hosting your Patient Appreciation Dinner.

As far as the room goes, you should get a closed room where it's quiet and where there will be no interruptions. You want to have servers that are dedicated to you, and you want to prep the servers as to the timing of the meal. For instance, if you're going to get there at 7:30pm, you tell them exactly to the minute when you want the food brought out, when you want the servers away from the table, when people are going to be showing up, and when you want the dinner to be concluding. In other words, you tell the servers when to bring the salads out and when to bring the drinks.

Everything needs to be timed properly so the servers know what to do so you're not interrupted while delivering your heartfelt message by the arrival of the dinners. I've had that happen before, and believe me, it's no fun competing with a stampede of sizzling steaks!