HARVESTING YOUR LOW HANGING FRUIT Dr Diederik Gelderman Diederik Gelderman (BVSC, MVS) P.O. Box 3312 Exeter 2579 NSW Australia Some bog-basic facts: opportunities are slipping through our practice fingers every day we need to start learning to capture them. In this session we don t have the time to go through all of the areas that are so commonly overlooked in practice, so how about we start off with some low-hanging fruit which will immediately turn your practice around provided of course that you use them. Note: many of these strategies will apply equally well to both small animal practices as well as large animal practices. Phone Answering and Making Appointments Are your receptionist trained in how to have an EFFECTIVE phone call or are they just having NICE phone calls. The difference is an appointment versus no appointment. The purpose of the appointment is to help the client and the pet and secondarily make a profit for the practice. Do you track and measure your conversion rate of enquiry phone calls? These calls go something like this; What do you charge for..? or What s your price on? or even What does it cost to..? By conversion rate I mean the number of in-bound calls to appointments made. If not then why not? You need to train your receptionists in how to have an effective phone call. Let s briefly discuss the 6 points involved in having an effective phone call; Greeting Identify the practice and the person speaking Positive feedback Ask a question to get into the call Give the price Make it easy to make the appointment In order to convert an extra 30% of clients who say I ll get back to you or I ll think about it or I m shopping around develop and then send an Information Packet in the mail. Don t think about discounting it s not necessary. These packets can be ready and waiting to go no effort required. By The Way just some recent Veterinary Receptionist Studies ;
79% of clients think you are rude if you do not stand up when they come in or are speaking to you 65% of clients would like receptionists to come out from behind their reception counter 87% of clients want everyone to wear a name tag and a uniform 59% of clients are happier if you use your full name when answering the phone (EXCEPT in boutique practices and in rural areas) 75% believe that a person answering the phone using their first and their last name is more able to answer their questions Revisit Appointments Studies show that for a small animal practice performing good medicine that about 31% of patients (after you remove all vaccinations and wellness type patients) should revisit. Similar studies are not documented for large animal practice. Realistically, there are many revisits that slip through the cracks both from our side as well as the owners. In one of your Team meetings, make a list of EVERY medical and surgical condition that needs a revisit. At the same time decide on WHEN that revisit is to occur. This creates a consistent pre-booking Standard Of Care to be used by EVERYONE in the practice. Ensure that there is a safety-net in place. This may be the receptionist at reception or a tech for outcalls. Make your clients life easier for them by (pre)booking these appointments in at the time of the original visit and they accept responsibility to remind the client of this appointment and then ensure that you automate the process through your computer software so as to make it seamless. Create scripts to handle every objection or push-back the client may use to not comply with these standards of care and role-play them. Commonly clients may say; I don t have my roster or I don t have my diary with me or That s a long time away. No matter what they say, there is a great answer which ensures that they make that required appointment. This strategy is equally valid for large animal as well as small animal practices. Pre-Booking Spays And Castrations I d suggest that you measure the number of pets that have had their final vaccinations with you and then look at the percent that are recorded as spayed/castrated by you at the appropriate time say at 6 months of age. You ll generally find that the percent of pets recorded as spayed or castrated varies from 12% to 95%. Now ring the ones that are not recorded as spayed/castrated and you ll find that 1%-2% have died or been rehomed or even surrendered and some have been retained for breeding purposes.
However most have been desexed elsewhere simply because life got in the road. It wasn t that they didn t like you or had a problem with you; they just elected to go elsewhere. What a loss! You need to also consider did you just loose that one off procedure, or did you lose that client for life. I d suggest that at least 50% are gone. For life! Develop a pre-booking strategy that ensures that EVERY pet that comes in for its final vaccination has a desexing appointment pre-booked before they leave. Make your clients life easier for them by booking these appointments in at that last vaccination date and accept responsibility to remind the client and then automate the process through your computer software Create scripts to handle every objection or push-back the client may use to not comply with these standards of care and role-play them. Another strategy is to use bundles don t discount though, it isn t necessary! Vaccination And Other Recall Whether this is for your large animal patients or for small animal patients do you track and measure your recall and reminder percentages? If they are not running at 65% or above then there is a whole world of opportunity available to you. This is a whole one-hour session in itself but some of the important elements include; Personally addressed letter and envelope with a stamp Personalized greeting Letter looks good on letterhead with interesting layout and design Personally signed by someone (scanned signature acceptable if of good quality) Use a P.S. Life-Time Of Care Rarely if ever do we map out the Life-Time of Care for our patients from Day One. Mostly we come back to them cap-in-hand whenever that patient needs something. At this stage the client has the opportunity to use us, use someone else or to not have the service provided at all. Whereas when we emotionally engage the client initially and map out the life-time of care, the client is emotionally engaged with US and all we need to do then (in order to provide the service) is to give the client a simple memory jogger. Missed Charges Missed fees and charges are the bane of EVERY practice all over the world. Many studies have estimated these to be in the area of $50,000 per practitioner per year. Realistically in many multi-vet practices, if ALL they did was capture these missed charges then they d have acceptable levels of profitability. There are many strategies that can be used to help accomplish this. These include; Non-Vet staff doing the billing
Correct estimations (again generally better performed by non-vet staff) Estimation sheets Use of Dictaphones in car Travel sheets Surgical usage sheets etc When Was The Last Treatment given? There are a huge number of opportunities to help the patient / client every day with all the common health care matters; flea control, heartworm, worming, tick, senior screen, chronic meds screen, vaccination, etc This is in both large and small animal practice. Usually we ask the wrong question; Is <animal name> up to date with whatever. All good owners will give you the same answer Yes of course Ask a better question and you will get a better answer. Watch their eyeballs spin as they try and access the answer to this question. When did you last do X for <animal name> and what product specifically did you use? This gives you the perfect opportunity to provide whatever it is that they need. Train your staff how to use this technique. Bonding Your New Client To Your Practice Studies show that the average three-year new client retention is 50%. However when a new client receives a Welcome to The Practice Pack, this new-client retention increases to 85%. A new-client pack consists of; Welcome letter Frig magnet Practice brochure (even DVD or CD) And if possible a recall device which gets them in through your door again within 30 days. A well-crafted and well-delivered New Client Pack will also increase future compliance with all your client s pet-health care or farm-care needs and requirements. Giving The Client What (you assume) They Want Unfortunately, most of us (at least at some time) fall into the trap of giving the client what WE assume they want; Assuming they want the cheaper option rather than the best result Assume they are buying on price Assuming the client has the knowledge and skills to make an informed decision (and wants to) Failure to provide a wholistic (no this is not a typo) solution (up-selling and crossselling) The majority of your clients want VALUE rather than PRICE and the majority of your clients simply regard price as one component of value.
Most Veterinarians do not understand this. Your average client is saying; make it easy for me, I m confused, fix it the first time help me I m happy to pay (a premium) in order for this to happen An Unfocused Team It s an undeniable fact that practices with a focus for their; Vision, Values, Targets and Goals (focus) (also tracking, monitoring, benchmarking and posting trends within the practice to the staff) are significantly more profitable than those without them in place. These items are of course greatly helped by regular (at a minimum fortnightly) staff meetings with a structured format including agenda & post-event minutes. Vision, values and the like give your staff the ability (and the expectation) to solve problems at the coal face. Regular praise and feedback of team members also helps the above. How do I know when I m doing well is a common outcry from Gen Y employees. No Marketing Plan Actually No Plan At All How would you have gone at school if you didn t know what the plan was for that term or semester or the year as a whole or even when your examinations were scheduled for? How would you go with your cases if you didn t test and measure the outcomes? Most practices have no plan for their practice with respect to; production, growth, marketing, profit, income and expenses, types of clients, demographic, etc. Most practices have no marketing or promotional plan in place. If practices use website marketing strategies, Facebook or other forms of social media then it s generally very hodgepodge in nature; certainly not thought-out or thought-through. It simply happens as people think it s needed. Maybe that s why (for most practices), most marketing doesn t work very well. A twelve-month practice development and marketing plan (including reception area displays, product of the months and point of purchase displays) is highly desirable, necessary, cheap and easy to develop.
Senior Programs Such a program can involve; Annual health check and appropriate vaccinations Dental examination (and treatment if required) Blood screening Faecal flotation Anything else that you consider appropriate This program can be scheduled to run during the quieter times of the year and ideally involves the use of a car-nurse. Seminars / Focus Groups Client educational seminars are easy to run and need not cost you anything. All costs will be borne by your sponsors. For very low to no cost, these events can be videoed and a product developed. This can then be given to clients who could not attend or to new clients and also used for other marketing purposes. Client focus groups are one of the quickest ways to determine what clients want from their Veterinary practice. All you then need to do is to provide it/them. Again these events can be run at very low cost or no cost at all if you obtain a sponsor. Targeted Client Mailings Targeted (to specific clients and/or client groups) newsletters, mailing, blogs, e-zines and the like can be used to keep clients abreast of topical matters, alerts, required treatments, procedures and action steps, etc. Done in the right manner, these clients will then purchase the needed services or products from you. With large animal clients you could even give a free or discounted professional service (faecal egg count, feed analysis, etc) away with every product purchase. For example; if a client buys drench from you then they get before and after egg counts at no charge or you help them develop a twelve month deworming and pasture rotation program. Identify specific herd maintenance activities that are required and send reminders (seasonally or on a production cycle based). For example; pre-breeding vaccination, preweaning vaccination and deworming, etc. Slightly Higher Hanging Fruit Health profit programs large animal practices (the economics of production, farm management, budgeting, agribusiness, nutrition, etc. A demonstration farm developed with one of your producers - a success model. This need to be a longer term objective Regular reports to clients on various production indices and matters Media Relations
Radio spot Articles in newspapers Implementing these strategies should keep you busy for the next little while. Remember don t recreate the wheel find someone that s doing it and talk to them or copy a tried, proven and functioning SYSYEM. For copies of templates and examples please contact me. Diederik Gelderman (BVSC, MVS) P.O. Box 3312 Exeter 2579 NSW Australia Office 02 48834938 or mobile 0408 793337