Most veterinary practices put a lot of time, effort and money into obtaining new clients. This pays off initially, by building your customer base and injecting some healthy revenue into your business. However, you ignore existing clients at your peril. The veterinary industry is highly competitive, and your loyal customers are ripe for the picking by competitors if you fail to look after them adequately.
In fact, the IBISWorld report Veterinary Services in Australia comments that “Veterinary practices compete with each other on the quality and range of services and facilities provided, including opening hours. Customer loyalty appears to be low in practices in the cities. Industry competition is increasing due to an increase in the number of practices, which limits pricing increases and reduces profit.”
In this article, you’re going to learn a client communication, reminder and engagement strategy and the tools that can help your veterinary practice retain happy clients.
Develop a client communication strategy and reminder schedule
Here are some important reminders which you can communicate with your veterinary practice clients:
Remind 30 days ahead of service due date
Send an email reminder. While Rapport® does offer text reminders – and some clients will prefer to receive their reminders via this channel – email reminders allow your practice to include more information about the services due, as well as any special offers and promotions. (Rapport can automate these reminders so they are sent exactly 30 days ahead of the service due date, rather than running them once per month.)
Remind 15 days ahead of service due date
For those who haven’t responded, send a follow-up email plus a reminder postcard. Postal reminders seem to generate better responses when they are used 15 days ahead of the date rather than 30, perhaps because there’s a greater sense of urgency. In addition, using automated reminder cards in conjunction with automated email reminders, spaced 30 and 15 days from the service due date, creates less of a burden on the front desk. Appointment requests come in consistently all month long rather than all at once.
Remind past service due date
For those who miss their service due date, we see the best results when clinics send postcards and email notifications at 15 days past the date, and a final email notification at 30 days past the due date.
It may seem like a large number of email and postcard reminders are being sent at any given time. However, following this protocol actually decreases the number of reminders sent overall because response rates increase prior to service due dates.
Remind for seasonal marketing campaigns
The concept of combining emails and postcards for maximum results can also be applied to seasonal marketing campaigns, which are sent to all patients (or targeted to specific groups of patients) to drive clients and patients through the doors at specific times during the year, such as:
- Dental month in February
- Flea and tick prevention in March/April
- Pet nutrition in January (tied to healthy weights) or summer (tied to outdoor activity)
- Senior wellness in fall
- Holiday cards in December (which can tie to wellness for the following year)
In working with practices to create targeted marketing lists and create effective campaigns, we find the following formula most effective:
- Send an email three to four weeks ahead of the season
- Send a postcard to clients who have not responded one week ahead of the season
- Send an email again to clients who have not responded at the start of the season
What are client communication tools?
Client communication tools are software solutions that connect to your practice management software with a secure connection. They use your patient and client records and history to send personalised messages to your clients that are relevant to their pet’s immediate or intermediary needs. Practice owners and managers can set and work on strategies to:
- Minimise no shows
- Improve compliance
- Promote best practice client experience
The right client communication tool can help you achieve better compliance via fully automated reminders and recalls using the best practice approach combining post, SMS and email. This not only allows customers to schedule appointments online, but it also helps you increase staff efficiency, market, and grow your practice. When we talk to our clients using client communication tools with their RxWorks™ and VisionVPM™ vet practice software we hear the same benefits around practice compliance reported time after time.
Here are five ways client communication tools can help you boost your practice compliance:
1. Increased reminder compliance
Consider this typical scenario. A client is due for their next appointment, so you give them a call to remind them of the date and time. They’re busy at work, so your call goes through to voicemail. You leave a message but get no response. A few days later, you give them another call and get their voicemail again.
As this example reflects, trying to contact busy clients can be time-consuming and often ineffective. And, while attempts to make contact even once by phone can be a struggle, industry best practice suggests that recalls are most effective when clients are reminded more than once and through multiple methods: text, email and post.
Automated scheduling and confirmation can free up your staff to focus on value-add tasks, increase reminder compliance and reduce no-shows by up to 50%. Having integrated software that automatically recalls clients through each of the key channels of communication not only reduces staff time and effort significantly, it also means that clients can respond to reminders at their convenience.
2. Reduction in no shows
Your practice compliance goes hand in hand with the percentage of pet parents successfully attending their scheduled appointments. It’s also no surprise that appointment no-shows and cancellations can negatively impact your practice revenue, can cause inefficiencies in operational performance and create financial pressure. Our recent study found that losing a single appointment each day can cost a practice over $34,000 in revenue per year.
Client communication tools are designed to help reduce fail to attend and findings have shown that sending an automated SMS on the day or day before the appointment can reduce no-shows by up to 50%. Our team are on hand to set up your reminders system start to finish based on what your practice needs, providing you with a system of automated communications scheduled at pre-set intervals and sent at the most effective times. Depending on which integration your vet practice chooses, reminders and recalls can be designed to your brand as well, which are highly effective and carry your look and feel for consistent, on-brand communications.
3. Stronger client relationships
As well as bringing customers back through your doors, a strong bond between client and veterinarian is also likely to increase compliance. Just as we listen to the advice of our close friends, if a client feels a bond with their veterinarian, they are more likely to follow their recommendations for care. In this respect, bonding with your clients is not just important from a customer service point of view, it can also impact on the overall welfare of your patients.
Additionally, bonding can increase compliance; not only through trust but also through a better understanding of animal care. Part of having a good veterinarian-client bond is open communication, where clients feel comfortable asking questions about their animal’s care. If clients understand the reasons behind certain treatment options – and these can be discussed in the context of a good relationship – compliance follows far more naturally.
Building trust and commitment through effective communications is key in showing your clients that you care about what matters to them most. Rapport is a tool that many of our VisionVPM practices have found instrumental in building these stronger relationships and boosting client retention. For any business consistent messaging portraying your purpose and values is key to building a brand and business that customers want to engage with. This is particularly important when it comes to the veterinary industry and earning the trust of pet parents. We know that engaged clients visit more, promote more and stay with your practice longer.
Rapport’s integrated communications via email, SMS and postcard facilitates this engagement and can act as an extension of your brand, helping you get closer to your clients. Communications between appointments such as a practice newsletter containing news, updates and promotions are a great way to keep your clients aligned with and loyal to your practice.
4. Time-saving automation
Many practices continue to rely on traditional channels and manual methods to contact customers and schedule appointments – all done during business hours. It’s easy to forget that this effort takes the focus away from customers in practice. We have been working with our clients to help them make the move from time-consuming manual operations to an automated practice management solutions to improve their business processes, save time and streamline the day-to-day. In a recent client story, Churchfield Vets explain how they have benefited from Rapport’s automated communication tools as part of their daily operations:
“It is immensely easy, there is no more toing and froing. The time saving has been the biggest benefit, and the cost savings that accompany this.”
With Rapport, your clients will receive relevant and fully automated communications at exactly the right time within the reminder or recall cycle. This means your practice can retire manual reminder runs, increase efficiency and promote a steady stream of appointments and product sales throughout the year.
5. Convenient online booking
In today’s time-pressured world, not only are your practice staff busy, your clients are too. Client communication tools give your clients the power of choice and simplifies things dramatically for your team. With an online booking system, clients don’t have to commit to an appointment date and time during their visit – they can do this at a time and place that suits them, using their device of choice.
In fact, practices with an online booking facility report that 50% of all appointments made using an online booking system are made outside of regular business hours, and 17% are from new clients. With an online booking system, your reception desk becomes available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. These online client communication tools help your practice increase compliance by capturing appointments which might otherwise be ‘lost’ by offering your clients booking convenience and saving your practice valuable staff time. Having an online booking system need not replace traditional methods but by providing your client with more options and the power of choice, you are already on your way to increase compliance.
Your practice management software + Client communication tools = Your new strategy for boosting practice compliance
Do you want to learn more about what our Client Communication tools could do for your vet practice? Contact us today.
Engaged clients visit more, promote more, and stay with your practice longer. Building trust and commitment through effective communications is key in showing your clients that you care about what matters to them most.
Rapport™ is a client communication solution which offers a better approach to achieving client engagement which delivers business results.
Rapport has been designed to increase practice efficiency, improve client experience, enhance practice image, and ultimately boost the flow of clients into your practice. Integrated with your practice management system, Rapport utilises integrated marketing communications and automation to help your practice:
- Increase visits
- Improve practice efficiency
- Increase animal compliance
- Strengthen client retention
Available with VisionVPM.
Rapport Scheduling – Take appointment bookings at any time with online booking
Scheduling a single appointment takes about 3 to 5 minutes. Multiply this by the number of appointments you schedule each day, and this ‘quick task’ grows into a time-consuming activity. Integrated with RoboVet™, Rapport Scheduling frees up staff time with an online booking system which makes it easy and convenient for clients to make appointments.
Rapport Messaging – Increase practice appointments and free up staff with automated messaging
Increase practice efficiencies with automated reminders and recalls, increase reminder compliance and reduce no-shows by up to 50%. Rapport can help you build your practice image and client relationships with consistent messaging and integrated marketing communications via Email, SMS and postcard.
Bespoke marketing services – integrated marketing campaigns tailored to your practice
Rapport Messaging clients have a team of specialist Campaign Consultants on hand to deliver effective integrated marketing communications via email, SMS and postcard. Our team can translate your brand and identity into stand-out visual communications which engage and deliver on your business objectives. We can work with you to create, refine and execute your annual marketing communications plan.
Dedicated reminder system – automate your reminder and recall process
Appointment no-shows and cancellations can negatively impact your practice revenue and overall operational performance. Rapport is designed to free up staff time and increase reminder compliance by automating the reminder and recall process. Our dedicated Campaign Consultants will set up your reminders system so that your communications are automatically sent from the program at preset intervals and at the most effective times.
Our packages
- Rapport Scheduling: Online Booking System
- Rapport Messaging: Automatic reminders, recalls + integrated marketing campaigns
- Rapport Connect: Rapport Scheduling + Rapport Messaging
Contact us to discuss our packages and learn more about how Rapport can help you achieve your marketing & communications objectives.
“It is immensely easy, there is no more toing and froing. The time saving has been the biggest benefit alongside the cost savings that accompany this.”