Get Physical Therapy Customers: Speak Their Language

The Get Physical Therapy Customers series is designed for outpatient therapy business owners and leaders. Over the next several weeks, we will explore strategies focused on your clinic’s most prized asset – its customers.

Alphabet Soup

It takes a lot of work to become a physical therapist. To follow this journey to completion takes not just successful schooling and clinical experience, but a passion and a commitment to a lifetime of learning.

And sometimes with said learning comes professional credentials that can best be described as a bowl of alphabet soup. What often starts with DPT will follow with such character combos as CAFS, COMT, PCS, MTC, MCS, SCS, OCS, FAAOMPT, and so on.

While these acronyms offer meaning, a sense of pride, and perhaps even tell a story to those within the physical therapy profession, such alphabetical arrangements can leave the consumer thinking, “Huh?”

Which is why from a marketing (a.k.a. storytelling) standpoint, it helps very little to serve alphabet soup to a consumer who’s in the mood for something a little more substantial.

Sure, as a physical therapist, you strive every day to build trust and establish credibility with consumers. And often, for the sake of simplicity and brevity, this can lead to the use of clinical terms and phrases which have strong context to you as a health care professional.

But, consider the audience. The same credentials that have meaning to you can, if used in excess, drive a wedge between you and a potential client who’s looking for answers – not more questions.

The Solution

Build trust and credibility more effectively by relating to the health care consumer on her or his level. Educate, inform, and tell stories based on the meaning of your certifications, but only as they relate to the lives of your optimal clients.

When you talk of injuries, treatments, prevention and success, always do so through the eyes of the consumer.

“Show, don’t tell,” is the age-old mantra. Such an approach ensures better understanding, stronger connections, and a sure-fire way to get more people through your clinic door hungry for solutions.

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