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Matching your staff resources to fluctuating veterinary client demand can be a tricky balance.
You might have a frantic Monday morning packed with urgent visits, for instance, then just a trickle of clients booked between 1pm-3pm midweek.
If you want to fill those quieter patches with pre-scheduled bookings, ask your Virtual Vet Nurse to do it! Here’s a great example from one of our clinics in Australia.
They scheduled free arthritis checks using their Virtual Vet Nurse, Vivienne. (This clinic didn’t have a slow patch, quite the opposite, but we thought their idea would translate brilliantly to that scenario).
Fill the quiet spots with scheduled free visits
Most clients love a “free visit” opportunity. It’s a great way to get them back through the clinic’s doors, particularly for lapsed or budget-conscious clients.
But from your perspective, you want to schedule free visits at the optimum time – i.e outside of your busy periods and only when your team has the capacity.
Scheduled free visits allow you to:
engage staff proactively during the quiet times
attract lapsed clients back into the clinic (and reward regular clients)
Through Vivienne, the clinic offered free arthritis assessments for two weeks in July. The offer was restricted to 5 free spots per day – at specific times that suited the clinic – on a first-come, first-served basis.
Here’s how it worked:
Vivienne publicised the promo as part of an arthritis conversation.
A quick hyperlink that ‘jumps’ to that particular arthritis conversation was sent to clients via email, SMS, or social media.
Once they’d seen the offer, clients could click on the ‘free arthritis assessment’ button, which took them straight to the clinic’s booking schedule.*
Vivienne was instructed to only offer 5 available timeslots per day. Accordingly, she automatically removed each slot as it was filled.
*Vivienne’s clinic uses ezyVet, which fully integrates with Virtual Vet Nurse, allowing real-time bookings into the clinic’s calendar.
This meant the entire promotion could be automatically run via Vivienne. She not only launched and publicised the offer, she also handled the bookings within the clinic’s calendar and closed the promotion at the set date.
And by ‘ring-fencing’ the offer to pre-selected days and times, the clinic could schedule the free visits at a time that suited their own staffing needs.
Some other door-swinger ideas
Of course, your Virtual Vet Nurse can run any type of promotion you choose.
But some other common ‘freebie’ consults include:
general wellness checks
dental checks
weight/body condition score
eyes & ears check
nail clipping
whatever you’d like to offer!
Free visits are also a great idea when you want to introduce a new piece of kit to clients (such as the therapy mat in our clinic’s example).
Similarly, you may have free supplier samples or giveaways to offer clients who swing by the clinic to pick them up. Your Virtual Vet Nurse could also allocate these on a first-come, first-served basis.
The beauty of using your Virtual Vet Nurse
By using your Virtual Vet Nurse to run your promo, you can get it up and running immediately.
it’s quick and easy to set up; it literally takes minutes to create the jump link and hyperlink
you can easily share the hyperlink via your social posts, emails, SMS, or QR code
all bookings are automatically managed by your Virtual Vet Nurse (so your front-desk won’t have to field phone calls or fill the slots)
you can ‘ringfence’ the days and times the free visits are available (e.g only Mondays and Wednesdays, between 11am – 1pm) so that you’re targeting your quieter spots
you can choose to target certain clients for the promo (e.g lapsed clients only)
it’s set-and-forget; you simply choose your timeframe and your Virtual Vet Nurse will automatically end the promo for you
your Virtual Vet Nurse can also have conversations on the relevant topic e.g if you’re promoting free dental checks, invite your clients to have a chat about teeth
Marketing promos are just one feature of Virtual Vet Nurse
Marketing promos are just one of 10+ automated workflows provided by your Virtual Vet Nurse.
All for an affordable monthly subscription (see here), with no minimum term. It’s a plug-and-play offering installed on your website in under 30 minutes.
Virtual Vet Nurse has a special offer for Vetanswers readers: 50% off the standard monthly subscription cost for your first three months. Use the promo code: VETANSWERS when you book a demo.
James, Co-Founder of ClinicWise (Formally Virtual Vet Nurse), brings extensive experience in veterinary software and a passion for using technology to improve clinic operations and client communication. He is dedicated to creating innovative solutions that enhance care and streamline workflows for veterinary professionals.
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