Doctors and emails 2

The text of an email we’ve just sent to one of our readers.

To me, if a person or an organisation, including doctors, has an ordinary email address readily available and, if you use it to send them an email, you get a good email back, it tells you that:-

  1. It’s someone’s job with that person or organisation to respond to emails – you are never going to get a reply to an email if it’s not someone’s job to reply.
  2. They are more likely to be into communication. Lots of doctors aren’t really into communication even when you’re sitting right in front of them in a consultation.
  3. They are more more likely to stand by what they do and say.
  4. They are saying, “You can scrutinise what I have to say, get second opinions on it and so on,” which you can’t when things are said to you over the telephone, when they’re not in writing. So much of what your’e told over the phone is rubbish.
  5. They are more likely to be helpful and responsive if you ever have a problem with them or their goods and/or services.
  6. They are more likely to be friendly and good to deal with. To me good emails are such a powerful marketing tool – much more powerful than websites, ratings, advertising and so on, which lots of people haven’t realised yet.

Of course lots of doctors will tell you they are too busy to answer emails, that Medicare doesn’t reimburse them for the time they spend answering them etc etc etc and of course that’s up to them. But why shouldn’t we each decide that we are only going to consult and use those who respond with good emails – even though they may be only one out of every four or five.

To me it’s SO significant that, after three days, the doctor you were thinking of using hasn’t even acknowledged the email I sent him, of which I sent you a copy.

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