• Written by Michael Noah
• Tagged as Blog

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This article is the sixth and last in the series: grow your veterinary practice and dominate your market.

If you've not read them, here are the links to the earlier articles:

   1. Developing the key performance indicators for your veterinary clinic (with the actual process of KPIs development)

   2. Client retention - the key to bring massive profit for your veterinary practice (and yourself)

   3. Make your practice team a part of your growth (because they are the one who'll make the client experience delightful)

   4. Everything you need to know about client experience (make your practice the ultimate choice for pet owners)

   5. 4 highly effective tactics to market your clinic (& double the number of your clients in less than 12 months)

Your goal as a business owner should be the GROWTH of your veterinary practice.

And since every veterinary practice has required knowledge, equipment, and experience to run it daily, then why do only some clinics reach to the level of growth that every business owner dreams of?

Here is what Alex Schultz, VP of growth at Facebook has to say on growth:

source

Did you see how he summed it up?

Growth is optional.

While every practice owner dreams of growing their clinic, how many of them actually take the pain and effort?

A very few.

...And those are ones who actually live their dream.

Since it is very difficult to do everything right in one shot, it is necessay that you constantly do multiple small scale (& risk-free) experiments for growth.

This is where the importance of a practice management system comes in: it allows you to do more number of growth experients with a dashboard to show you the experiments results. While there are other benefits like operational efficiency, it is the ability to do growth experiments which is at the core of your growth. It frees up your time for the thing that matter the most: growth.

How a Practice Management System Helps You In Doing Growth Experiments?

Growth experiments for:

1. Data measurement & analytics for KPIs

2. A delightful client experience

3. Building and nurturing a growth team

4. Client retention and marketing

#1 Data Measurement & Analytics

How will you know that the experiment you did to increase the number of transactions, or average transaction value was successful? Or where you need to tweak in the experiement to increase your client retention rate?

(We call it an experiment unless the results work for you. Even if it did, you would have had learning from your previous experiements that you would like to include. Hence, it's better to see every iteration as a fresh experiment.)

Since you need data to see the results of these experiment, you would not like to waste your time meauring and collecting these data. It is the job of the practice mangement system to collect and organize the data for you.

Here is how this dashboard looks in VETport:

Average transaction value and average number of transactions

There are many more metrics that you would like to see based on your objectives. We have chosen these two metrics as they are the key performance indicators relevant to the series goal.

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#2 Client experience

For a better client retention rate, the foremost thing to be ensured, is a satisfactory client experience. This leads to increase in profit. We have already discussed on this in the 2nd article in this series.

Now the question is, how a PMS can help you improve your client experience? And how you gonna measure it?

A practice management system having the following features will help you as follows:

First of all, the client would be able to book an online appointment from your website. In the clinic, it makes very easy for the receptionist to quickly book the appointment during the rush hours since the patient and client records are already available once registered on the system.

Second, in a veterinary clinic, the hassle of managing the pet is taxing. A practice management system that ensures a proper boarding system for pets will reduce the client’s and your teams' time.

With VETport boarding module, you can create different cages according to building, floor, and room types. You can see the live status of the number of pets boarded, their cage number, and admission date. You can visualize cage availability and do not need to worry about manually the managing charges. It gets automatically added to the invoice.

Boarding management with VETport is chocolaty smooth and time-saving.

Thirdly, since veterinary industry has shifted focus toward patient-centric care, it is vital that your clients can view invoices, print certificates and view appointments at their own convenience. With VETport, they’re able to check lab results, request prescription refills, manage any unpaid balances and more.

Fourthly, the mode of payment should be available for the clients to choose from. All of these features that will enhance the client’s experience are available at one spot of VETPort’s Multiple Payment Gateway Integration.

Automatic feedback after every client visit will help you measure the experience your clients are experiencing. We've discussed here how to set this up.

Several companies like Ritz-Carlton, Buffer App, Trader Joe’s, Harley Davidson are in Forbes most Customer-Obsessed Companies by employing these simple things. So why not try this and let it do the magic for you.

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#3 Building and nurturing a growth team

Growth team always keep their focus on client expereience. What clients experience in your practice largely depends on upon your team, and not a single staff.

As communication is at the core of teamwork, you should have a tool that facilitates communication between your team members.

The following quote is very helpful while thinking teamwork:

Tell me and I forget.

Teach me and I learn.

Involve me and I remember.

- Benjamin Franklin

Having a bulletin board like this where any of your team member can speak their mind is a great way of involving your team member:

It can also be used to keep your team on the same page. For example, your receptionist can update that the client has arrived. It can be read by your entire team. And hence there won't be any delay in the services.

Private messages can also be sent in VETport.

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#4 Client retention and marketing

We've already discussed on the things you can do to retain your clients like using reminders effectively, having a feedback system, testing with fees and discounts, and, through promotions and loyalty programs.

Do you think it is possible with pen paper to quickly visualize your sales vs discounts graph?

A PMS will help you optimize for sales. You'll be able to find at what fees and discounts are you able to generate the highest revenue.

Be it sending an email or a SMS, a PMS can quickly do it for you at a lightening fast speed. At VETport, you will get ready-to-use plug-and-play templates.

Related Articles

1. One simple way to find the clients who, you are on the verge of losing...(And 2 ways to bring them back to your vet practice)

2. 4 Highly Effective Tactics to Market Your Clinic (& Double the Number of Your Clients In Less Than 12 Months)

3. The Ultimate Communication Tool During the Pandemic - Part I

4. Improve Client Communication for your Veterinary Clinic with SMSe

5. 8 Reasons to Send Postcards to the Clients of Your Veterinary Clinic