Veterinary practices are facing increasing pressure from industry regulators, who are concerned about rising costs, and clients themselves. While surveys show that over 90% of people trust their veterinary team (source: Boehringer Ingelheim), many people don’t understand or appreciate what is involved in pet care or what vets are facing on the other side, and this is where the disconnect can become apparent.
That’s what makes vet work tricky. You need clients to trust you with their beloved pets to make your practice successful. If you want to strengthen vet-client relationships, these 7 tips can help you move things forward with ease for a mutually beneficial relationship.
Be Clear About Money
Veterinary care is expensive; everyone knows this, but the issue for clients is when the numbers are cloaked in secrecy. People should know how much it costs before they need to pay as standard.
Instead of administering treatment only, discuss the pricing upfront. Explain what’s needed, the cost, and what that cost covers. Try to give ballpark figures and alternative costs in case things change mid-procedure. Break it down into consultation fees, medication fees, treatment, and procedure costs, etc. The more the client knows about what they’re paying for and how much it can cost them, the easier it will be to settle up.
The more transparent you are about your pricing, even just having charts up with standard fees for the most common appointments and treatments, the better a relationship you can build with everyone, regardless of why they’re visiting you.
Make Routine Care Predictable
Here’s the thing: Life gets busy. People mean to stay on top of things like vaccinations and flea and worming treatments, but sometimes they slip under the radar. And maybe people want to come in for regular check-ups, but the cost prohibits them from visiting you.
This is where a pet health care plan comes into the picture. This monthly or annual subscription can help you attract clients, generate a recurring revenue stream, and build loyalty at the same time.
You can tailor the plan to meet the needs of your clients and your practice, but offering benefits such as free worming and flea treatments, free consultations, reduced prescription or medication costs, or specific tests for free per year can make life easier for clients to manage online healthcare costs and keep them coming back more. Studies suggest that clients with a health care plan with their vet spend 120% more than those without a plan.
Regular Communication
Communication shouldn’t just end when the appointment ends. To build beneficial relationships and make your clients trust you, you need to maintain contact. This can be done via regular emails, sending out news updates, tips, and reminders. You can send follow-up texts to check on pets post-procedure or reminders for repeat medications.
But the trick is to keep it natural and informal. A “hope Bella is feeling better today” or “how is Bertie coping with his new meds” text between appointments can work wonders.
Sending messages that are applicable to each client, e.g., pet-specific, ailment-specific, e.g., allergies, or weight management, will ensure your client knows you care about their pets more than blanket messaging will.
Make Booking and Paying Effortlessly
Even the most loyal of clients can lose their patience if it’s hard to pay or make an appointment. If your phone lines are always jammed each day and they can’t get through, or you’re not responding to alternative forms of inquiry, i.e., emails, people will move elsewhere to providers who can meet these demands. And it’s not too much to ask for, is it, that you make the admin side of things seamless?
It’s not about chasing modern tech for the sake of it; it’s about streamlining everything so it works, it’s simple, and it takes the stress out of booking appointments or making payments.
You want contactless payments, self-check-in screens, split billing for bigger procedures, easier insurance applications, or assistance for making insurance claims.
Take it one step further by allowing patients a portal to upload details, check their pets’ health records, and add new symptoms or issues, so the entire team is on board with current concerns and changes, so everyone is in the picture at all times.
Calm in the Chaos
Veterinary receptions aren’t the most calming of environments for all pets, and this is how those extra touches can be massively beneficial.
Swap harsh overhead lighting for softer light options, infuse the room with relaxing music that helps calm pets, use calming scents to maintain a relaxed atmosphere, and have separate sections for different types of pets or areas for reactive dogs or wait in so they don’t get too stressed before entering the examination room.
A lot of the time, the impression of the entire visit is judged not on your skills but on how the whole experience felt and how calm the pets were during the visit.
Ask for Feedback
The reality is you can make all the changes you want, but if you don’t ask for feedback, you’ll never know what is or isn’t working, what people think, or what you need to focus on.
A simple question on a receipt or text post appointment to ask how they felt things went can be all it takes. Having a feedback form in reception people can fill out anonymously is a good idea too, as are questionnaires through emails or on social media.
However, it’s no good to ask for feedback if you’re not acting on it. If people are mentioning wait times, you need to address what is going wrong and where to address this. If there’s confusion at reception, you need to implement better procedures or training to help make things run smoothly. Find the issues, make the changes, and then let people know you appreciate it and have acted on it. By sharing the improvements you make based on feedback, people will have more confidence that you have their best interests at heart and are making things better for everyone involved.