Research shows that improving customer satisfaction can boost revenues by 80%. About 86% of clients are willing to pay more money to get better services. As a vet or practice manager, you know that most clients rank your office based on the quality of the services that you offer.
Their experiences also determine if they will revisit your practice or refer you to their friends. If you don’t satisfy your customer by serving them well, you will likely lose business. You may also need to spend more on marketing to avoid negative reviews.
Improving your veterinary client experience enables you to lower churn rates and increase revenues. It also simplifies practice management and reduces complaints. Here are four tips to improve services and boost satisfaction in your vet practice.
1. Use Efficient Systems
Slow systems are a primary cause of client frustration and dissatisfaction. They drag out service delivery and make it tough to attend to all patients within allocated time slots. This issue may also anger your clients and cause them to shift to other vet practices in the area.
Avoid losing your clients by ensuring that you have fast and efficient software. First, consult your team to determine the solutions that are slowing down work. Next, contact clients and find out which systems they would like your office to replace.
Once you detect the problematic processes, look for more efficient systems. The best way to do this is by consulting tech professionals in your area.
These experts can evaluate your practice and identify software that will meet your needs within your allocated budget. They will also help you choose tools that streamline and unify tasks to ease work for your vet practice and speed up service delivery.
2. Have the Best Veterinary Practice Team
Clients often judge your vet practice based on their contact with employees. Before hiring someone, ensure that they are friendly by conducting a thorough interview. Determine if they have the various soft skills needed to handle vet practice clients.
Vital requirements include:
- Empathy
- Positivity
- Social awareness
- Proper organization
- Effective communication
Hiring employees with the right skillset can ease interactions with clients. It also avoids conflicts and simplifies solving misunderstandings.
Since finding a candidate with the right soft and technical skills can be tricky, use recruiting software. This can give you a broad range of suitable prospective employees and simplify narrowing your options.
After you add a new member to your vet practice team, follow up to assess if they understand the scope of their work. Request feedback about their services from pet owners. This measure will help you determine if the employee is the right fit for your office. You can also identify issues like poor communication and provide the needed guidance.
More ways to build the best vet practice team include:
- Encouraging client feedback using anonymous surveys
- Conducting regular employee training
- Rewarding well-performing employees
3. Consult Clients before Providing Treatments
One way to improve client experiences is by consulting them before treating their pets. This helps the owner feel engaged in their animal’s health. It also shows that you value clients’ opinions and respect their decisions.
Consulting your clients when considering treatment methods for pets can encourage compliance. It enables them to evaluate the provided options and select therapies within their budgets. This step also helps clients understand the pros and cons of each treatment plan.
More benefits of engaging your clients include:
- It helps you understand the emotional effects of caring for a sick pet.
- You can determine the level of attachment that each household member has with the pet.
- Engaging clients allows you to assess their opinion on sensitive topics like euthanasia.
- You can identify the clients’ goals for their pets’ health.
Engage your clients and improve their experience by adopting solutions that support communication. Get diagnostic software that enables you to share images taken during tests. Such a tool will help you streamline patient-provider communication and speed up the treatment process.
4. Secure Client and Patient Data
Cybersecurity is a significant concern for most veterinary practice clients. If you don’t secure your systems, you may suffer a breach and lose patient data. This issue also exposes sensitive payment and identifying information about your customers.
Invest in secure veterinary practice software to safeguard data and improve client experiences. Ensure that your systems have protocols to limit access to sensitive information.
Develop authentication processes to safeguard medical records. Another way to secure clients and patient data is by adopting solutions with automatic file backups. This will help you retrieve information and avoid pausing service delivery if your systems fail.
Simplify Improving Veterinary Client Experience with Asteris
Improving the veterinary client experience can boost revenue generation and encourage referrals. Asteris offers the ultimate solution to help you manage diagnostic images. The software comes with tools to improve workflow, secure data, and encourage collaboration.
Here at Asteris, it’s our goal to help veterinarians make sound medical decisions with ease, clarity, and confidence by giving them the tools and insights that they need to optimize the way they work.
If you’re ready to stop feeling like there’s not enough time in your day, we can help you optimize your imaging processes and the way you work. Contact our specialists today to get started!