Why the templated win-back fails
- It is timed to your calendar, not theirs. A neurotoxin patient who was in six weeks ago is not lapsed; one who was in five months ago is, on the interval practices commonly plan around.
- It says nothing specific. The patient cannot tell it was written for them, so it reads as a promotion.
- It asks for a phone call instead of offering a time. Every extra step loses people.
- It goes to everyone, including the patients who are already booked, which trains the rest to ignore you.
The intervals practices commonly plan around
Practices commonly plan around these ranges; your own records will give you the numbers for your patients, and those override anything on this page. This is scheduling guidance, not medical advice; your medical director sets the clinical interval.
| Treatment | Interval practices commonly plan around | The comeback window |
|---|---|---|
| Neurotoxin | Three to four months | From about week ten |
| Dermal filler | Six to eighteen months, by product and area | From the low end of the product's range |
| Laser hair removal | Series of sessions, several weeks apart | When the next session in the series is due |
| Facials, peels, microneedling | Four to eight weeks, or a planned series | From about week four |
| Memberships | Monthly | The month a credit goes unused |
How to build the comeback calendar in five steps
- Export every patient with their last visit, last treatment and provider from your record system.
- Assign each one an interval from the table, then replace it with your own averages where the records show them.
- Mark each patient as due, overdue or long lapsed, and remove anyone with a future booking or a do-not-contact flag.
- Confirm consent for texting. Treat the comeback as marketing: send it only to patients whose written consent to marketing texts is on record, and keep that record. What counts as consent for your practice is for counsel to confirm.
- Write one message per treatment and per stage, in the provider's voice, with the provider's name and a booking link that opens on the right service.
What each message says, by stage
- Due: the treatment by name, the provider by name (Dana, not 'the practice'), and two open times this week.
- Overdue: the same, plus the one reason to come back now that is true for that treatment, not a discount.
- Long lapsed: a shorter note, one question, and the booking link. Then stop; three unanswered messages is enough.
- Never a generic sale. A sale to a lapsed list teaches your best patients to wait for the next one.
How to do this on Monday
- Monday morning: export from your record system every patient with last visit, last treatment and provider. One spreadsheet, four columns.
- Monday midday: add a fifth column, the interval from the table above, and a sixth, days past it. Sort by the sixth.
- Monday afternoon: remove anyone with a future booking, a do-not-contact flag or no marketing-text consent on record. What is left is your due list; count it.
- Tuesday: Dana, or whichever provider the patient saw, writes one message for the due stage of their highest-volume treatment: two sentences, two open times, the booking link. Priya at the desk sends it to the top twenty by hand.
- The rest of the week: log every reply and every booking in a seventh column. By Friday you know the reply rate for one segment, and that is the number the whole calendar gets built from.
How to measure it
Count reactivated patients as anyone who had no visit in longer than their interval and booked within 14 days of a comeback message. Track the revenue of that visit and of the visits in the 90 days after it, separately from new-patient revenue. The number on your dashboard is then the money that was already in your system and came back.
What to do next
NorthCore's Bring patients back and Time the comeback solutions build this calendar on your record system: segments by treatment and interval, one message per stage in the provider's voice, every reply handled. Scoped in writing and covered by the promise on this site: results in 90 days, or we keep working until you have them.
