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We all love to receive good service and most of us are happy to pay for good service. But what is good service? Is providing the very best veterinary care good service? Absolutely – but is it enough?
That’s one of the tricky parts of working in the veterinary industry. You can offer the very best veterinary care for your patients – but at the end of the day they’re not the ones who pay for the treatment, make the follow-up appointments or share their experiences with their friends – face-to-face and online.
You and your team know how to treat the pet, after all that’s what you’re trained to do. But what about the people? How do you go about factoring their needs into the services you deliver?
Some of your clients want information and lots of it. Some need time to process information before making a decision and others want the basics. Some like to read information and look at diagrams or pictures, while others need things verbally explained to them.
Offering a high standard of service to your veterinary clients is a challenge – different people have different needs and it’s often difficult to determine exactly what these needs are.
For example, approximately 65% of the population are visual learners which means when you verbally explain something they may appear to understand but are just as likely to forget most of what you said the minute they leave your practice.
To effectively remember information, visual learners need to see as well as hear and appreciate diagrams and pictures that support your verbal explanation. These should preferably be in colour and definitely professionally presented.
You’ve spent years developing your knowledge and this may be the first time your client has heard of something and many will struggle to take in everything you’ve discussed in one go. This is why handouts and eBooks are also fantastic ways to improve your service to the ‘people’. But just like your diagram, handouts need to be clear, easy to read and professional. Unprofessional, dodgy, old handouts might make your clients think these descriptions apply to your veterinary practice.
If your clients believe that you and your team are the ‘Go-To’ people for everything veterinary, then you’ve gone a long way to establishing trust in your relationship with them. Offering a professional-looking website that includes authoritative information in the form of blog posts, handouts and links to useful information goes a long way in establishing this trust.
Of course, delivering a high standard of veterinary care is an essential component of the service you provide but unfortunately, it’s not the only indicator your client uses to judge the level of service they have received.
If you’re successful in delivering both high standards of veterinary care when treating a pet AND a high standard of care when communicating with the person (client) then they are far more likely to tell everyone how fantastic you are and far less likely to complain or question the cost of the service.
This post was first published in the AVNJ Vol 23 No 2
After a career in HR working in a range of service industries and teaching at TAFE for several years, I then (somewhat accidentally) found myself in the veterinary industry and here I’ve stayed because I love the people and what they do. I created the Vetanswers Community to provide the support, resources and solutions to help our members build happy, successful, profitable businesses and careers.
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Love the website– very user friendly and whole lots to see!
You’ve got one of the greatest internet websites.
That’s a fairly big call Leonore, but I appreciate your enthusiasm!
Thanks very valuable. Will certainly share website with my buddies.