Building up a practise
Thank you for the suggestions for increasing the number of clients attending our new shiatsu clinic in Southwick. Even though our clinic treatments are assessed by the College and form part of our final grading it is important not to regard it as a homework exercise. This may be a student clinic but it is our first practise and we need care for it as if it was our own business.
There is an interesting article on the Advance My Practice site on How to Explode the Number of Referrals From Your Patients. Its main points being:
- Clients are people and want to feel important
- Most clients leave a practise because they feel ignored or unappreciated
- If clients feel like they matter then they will be willing to refer friends and family
As a small, monthly clinic I don’t know if we can implement all of the model that this article suggests. But we can ensure that we don’t regard our clients as just another case history in treatment log. Perhaps we should:
- Ensure the client is offered water or tea after the treatment (we do have access to a kitchen)
- Follow up treatments with a call later in the week.
We advertise low cost shiatsu treatments but we do need to offer a service beyond that one hour shiatsu.
Tony Brown @ November 23, 2007
Follow up is a great idea.
You do have to protect yourself from patients asking for too much of your time and energy, but you need to be open and available.
My shiatsu practitioner doesn’t seem to answer phone calls or emails. He gave me his mobile phone number, but it looks like it’s more for me to be able to tell him if I am unable to attend a session rather than to ask a question related to the treatment.
I really don’t like this attitude and I think in some cases it can be dangerous. When you get your first shiatsu treatment, a lot of things change inside of you very fast. Your state of mind changes, emotions rise, and physically there’s a drastic change as well.
Who can deal with all that on their own?
I’m lucky I was strong enough to look for answers on my own. But I could have given up and drowned. I’ve spent quite a few hopeless and helpless weeks. You cannot turn somebody’s life upside down and just disappear.
I will go and see my practitioner again because he’s really good at what he does, but I hope I’ll be able to regulate my anger so that it doesn’t interfere with the treatment. I’m learning qi gong, this should help!