Vetsolutions
November 2015
How do you compare? Give your business the Vetsolutions Best Practice Check-Up
Are you missing out? Greg Robinson talks about how Sparkline can measure potential and drive success
Onswitch Top 3 tips to make your website work while you sleep
S 0 U T I VIS ND G3 STA N O
www.vetsolutions.co.uk
Vetsolutions Insight
Make a great first impression with Rapport
Maximise your practice’s exposure on the web
87% of potential clients will research your practice online before they schedule an appointment, what does your website say about you?
Email: rapport@vetsolutions.co.uk Tel: 0808 178 4028 2
www.hsrapport.co.uk
www.vetsolutions.co.uk
Contents November 2015
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We can't wait to see you... at London Vet Show 2015.
06 Online Booking
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Microchip Legislation
Johnnie Ingram and Rachel Stevenson talk about the benefits of online booking.
Identify the animals that need a chip in Premvet.
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Are you missing out? Greg Robinson talks about how Sparkline can measure potential and drive success
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Give your business the Vetsolutions Best Practice Check-Up Kingsley Daniels, Head of Sales & Marketing at Vetsolutions introduces the new Best Practice Check-Up microsite.
Meet the Account Executives Our team continue to succeed in encouraging customer engagement.
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Onswitch The top 3 tips to make your website work while you sleep.
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Vetsolutions Insight
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www.vetsolutions.co.uk
Welcome to
It’s been a very busy few months here at Vetsolutions and I am delighted to publicly welcome the new staff that joined us during the summer as additional members of our support team. We have taken all our newcomers through an intensive training programme that has included interacting with practices and as a result our support has improved markedly.
In terms of products we are now in a position to release new Feature Packs for our core software RoboVet far more frequently, meaning our customers can keep pace with the new features on a regular basis. Our emphasis remains on the business side of practice improvement and our work with Sparkline and via the Best Practice Check-Up, both of which you can read about in this issue of VSI, signals our continued intentions in this sphere. Data Vault, our new backup solution is proving very popular as the importance of protecting data grows, particularly in the face of the suspicious malware that is around at the moment. These three solutions are further proof that we are continuing to develop and bring to market tools that have great business benefits for veterinary practices. Whilst we have been busy developing new solutions to deliver benefits we have also been actively seeking ways to improve our existing product range. To this end we have welcomed a number of veterinary practices to our offices in Edinburgh as part of our ongoing commitment to seek customer feedback and receive recommendations for our future product road map. The most recent workshops covered topics such as Accounting and Stock Management.
It’s such a benefit to hear first-hand from those using the software about the challenges they face and working out together how we can develop our product to better meet your practical needs. This structured engagement with our clients will continue on a regular basis. We continue our programme of Local User Groups and are pleased to have changed the emphasis to now include the presence of independent guest speakers for relevant topics. These are proving to be very popular and engaging as we help our clients prosper in a changing industry landscape. Of course it’s autumn, so London Vet Show is on the horizon and we are very excited at the prospect of showing new and existing clients the modules we have available now as well as giving them a sneak peek at some of the things being planned further ahead. We will be on a stand with Henry Schein Animal Health and Veterinary Instrumentation, so you won’t miss us! There will be a team of around ten at London Vet Show including our Regional Business Managers and Account Executives who will be available to show both our core Practice Management Software to prospective clients and new modules to existing clients. Importantly these new modules, such as online booking and Sparkline are available now and are ready to start using immediately for the benefit of your practice. Vetsolutions has an increasing desire to engage with customers, to communicate more effectively and more frequently and become more customer-centric. Our aim is to support the profession with new products and services that offer tangible benefits and provide the resources on which you can build a better business.
Alan Moody General Manager
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Vetsolutions Insight
Online Booking Johnnie Ingram and Rachel Stevenson
The benefits of online booking have been enjoyed by many consumer-facing services including restaurants, airlines, beauty clinics and dentists for a number of years. Now veterinary practices are also able to give their clients the convenience and efficiency offered by online booking, courtesy of the new module available alongside RoboVet. Johnnie Ingram Product Manager and Rachel Stevenson Module Consultant talk about its evolution and the impact its installation is having on practices. 6
www.vetsolutions.co.uk
Developing an online booking solution suitable for the veterinary market is not simply a case of re-badging an existing system, which works in a different sector. The veterinary market has some unique traits and whilst in theory one online booking portal may look and sound similar to any other, developing an online booking solution fit for the purposes of veterinary practices required the combination of software know-how, market knowledge and the integration of customer feedback, all of which has been a vital component of Vetsolutions Online Booking software.
In essence online booking is a relatively simple process, which accepts appointments, made via the practice’s website from both new and existing clients. The online booking ‘widget’ is placed on the practice’s website and with one click clients are able to book an appointment directly with the practice via an embedded form. The benefit of this method is that the widget does not take the client to a third party online booking portal, meaning that the client stays on the practice website at all times. Johnnie Ingram explains how the system works: “Behind the scenes, the online booking system is reading the practice’s RoboVet diary and automatically syncs to it. This has two effects; firstly the online booking software knows which appointments are available according to the criteria set by the practice and secondly when a booking is made online it is immediately replicated within the RoboVet diary. Appointments made online will be colour coded so these appointments can be easily identified.” One of the biggest objections to online booking is that practices feel they are abdicating control of their appointment book, but as Rachel Stevenson explains nothing could be further from the truth: “The practice is able to retain control of which appointments are available to book online, by selecting specific sessions from within the RoboVet diary” Vetsolutions’ Online Booking includes a prompt where the client can add more information about the appointment they want to book. In most cases the practice would not offer an emergency appointment to be booked online, as most vets prefer clients to phone up and speak to someone personally so they can assess the case over the phone. Once a client has booked an appointment online they are provided with a log-in which gives them access to the pet portal which enables them to see their pet’s medical and appointment history. From a practice’s point of view this process engenders customer loyalty. Someone who creates an account and chooses a password is naturally more invested in being a registered customer at the practice and is likely to return for all their routine animal care needs in the future.
Vetsolutions market research suggested that to accept online booking vets would demand an intelligent system by which they would be able to maintain control and have appointments scheduled in such a way that appointment book utilisation was maximised. This is exactly what online booking gives the practice and whilst the illusion may be one of the customer being in control, the reality is quite the reverse, the practice retains control at all times. Johnnie comments, “The online booking software is very intelligent and automatically ensures that appointments are grouped in such a way that small unusable gaps do not appear in the appointment book.”
Rachel is clear about the business benefits of online booking. “If a practice is not offering an online booking solution for clients they are undoubtedly losing business, this is not an opinion it is fact. Currently 47% of appointments booked online are made out of practice hours, and if clients can’t get what they want from your practice they will simply look elsewhere.” The public does not make any concessions because a veterinary practice is a small business, there is now an expectation that professional services will offer some form of online booking and this is now so much a part of the norm that it is worthy of comment if a business does not offer it. ●
The internet revolution has changed the way in which many professions do business, and vets are no exception. There is no doubt that veterinary practices need to embrace new technology and take advantage of every opportunity it offers.
The online booking software is very intelligent and automatically ensures that appointments are grouped in such a way that small unusable gaps do not appear in the appointment book.
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Vetsolutions Insight
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We can't wait to see you... at London Vet Show 2015 RoboVet is purpose built to help you achieve your business objectives and drive practice performance. With innovative features like Online Booking, autoSMS and Business Barometer we can help you stay one step ahead of the competition and improve the health of your business with a best practice solution.
50% off RoboVet training & configuration packs
50% off DataVault set up fees
We can help you review your strengths and weakness to drive growth and efficiency, our practices have seen a significant and immediate impact on profitability - want to know more? Come and see us at London Vet Show, we’ll be on stand G30 with our colleagues from Henry Schein Animal Health. We have some fantastic show offers available including 50% off professional services for new RoboVet installations. Terms & conditions apply. For more information visit: www.vetsolutions.co.uk/terms-conditions
Save 20% on RoboVet training days
Save 10% on Rapport Websites
Not going to London Vet Show? No problem, take the first step in your best practice journey with our Best Practice Check-Up: www.vetsolutionsbestpractice.co.uk and you could win a Linx 1010B tablet
US 30 T I S VI ND G A T S ON
Premvet
Microchip legislation Identify the animals that need a chip From 6 April 2016 all dogs must be microchipped and registered to an approved database by the time they are 8 weeks old. Your practice need to start considering how you will contact your clients to make sure they are compliant with this legislation.
In Premvet, the best option is to use the management related option in DataMajor, this allows you to narrow down your client database to target the records. At a minimum you will need: > > > >
Animals that are alive Still clients of the practice Limit to canines Where they have NO recorded ID Chip
Set the options as per:
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The output will include all animal details and the client name and address, this can be either mailed directly or exported into excel for further filtering via the normal options.
Alert the user when accessing a record card You should also set up the system so that when a member of staff accesses a canine card without a recorded ID Chip the system will alert them and give them the option to enter it. This will save time if the details have not been recorded earlier and make sure the user alters the client to comply with the change in legislation. The system will use the protocols module to do this. First you should make sure you have the latest update (we added this protocol at the start of 2015). If you do not already have automatic protocols enabled then we need to enable it for management record access. Activate in params.txt with: Call_Protocol = * (if you want just IDChip then set that to 6) Then activate with: > F6 to get to Vet> prompt > cd protocols > copy pvschip.pro pvs006.pro
Now whenever you access a canine record card with no recorded ID chip you will get a pop up: The options are: New chip allows you to scan the animal and enter the details. Edit – As the warning will appear if chip number is less than 5 e.g. user entered ‘yes’ then gives you a chance to edit the existing number. Quit – exit Even if you do not use the pop-up to enter the details it does alert you, prompting a discussion with the client. 11
Vetsolutions Insight
Are you missing out? by Greg Robinson Greg Robinson has a long and prestigious heritage in veterinary software, having worked in the sector for over 30 years. Three years ago he became an independent consultant to the profession and using his knowledge and experience he designed a series of metrics against which veterinary practices could measure performance and understand where improvements could be made – the result is Sparkline and in an exclusive interview for VSI, Greg explains the concept in a more detail. Sparkline is essentially a set of KPIs created around the concept of a Balanced Scorecard, a theory that considers businesses across 4 dimensions: customer, finance, staff and process. The theory states that if the processes within a business are improved, it follows that all other aspects of the business will improve in parallel. This theory led me to consider all the various processes that take place within a veterinary practice and determine which could be measured in terms of KPIs. Process has an enormous impact on practices and on revenue. To prove this I used the data generated from Sparkline’s software to develop key metrics around specific processes such as surgery, dental procedures, hospitalisation, general anaesthesia etc. By analysing the data relating to these processes I was able to calculate averages for each area and armed with this knowledge I developed insight into where tweaks to the process would have the most impact on revenue.
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About Sparkline Sparkline software is installed in a day and gives the practice a dashboard of different metrics pulled from the data within RoboVet. Sparkline can analyse data on a vetby-vet basis as well as a broader practice basis and has a traffic light system that highlights where performance is improving or worsening, based on prior year results.
www.vetsolutions.co.uk
Eradicating Missed Charges My research has discovered that missed charges account for as much as 5% of lost revenue for the majority of veterinary practices. Missed charges are one of the most common problems faced by practices and are usually caused by a failure to configure software appropriately. When software is installed there is generally a steep learning curve and sometimes the practice fails to customise the tools within the software correctly. In practice this means that when charging for a surgical process for example, every element of the process needs to be remembered and charged for manually, meaning the potential of missing some charges is inevitable. It follows that the more steps there are in a process the greater the chance of error and in my experience all practices miss at least some charges in every process they complete. My work has enabled me to associate with many different types of practice and without exception they all fall below the 100% charging of which they should be capable. The reasons behind missed charges are complex and can be different for different types of practice. Some simply forget to charge,
whilst others don’t think about every stage of the process. For example, a 30-minute surgery entails both pre and post-surgical evaluation, which can take up to 15 minutes. This is often not considered part of the surgery, but is still time being spent caring for the animal and as such, should be a chargeable item. Similarly, few practices charge for the time of the veterinary nurse who is in attendance before, during and after any surgical procedure. Failure to remember to charge for drugs or materials makes the impact of missed charges even more apparent as these raw materials are a direct cost for the practice which must be recouped. Another fee that is rarely charged for is medical waste disposal - I find this an obvious fee to include as it is a required process within every consultation and surgery. These small additions make a fractional difference to an overall bill, but charging for them every time has a huge impact on overall revenue per year. When I work with a practice I always analyse their missed charges as a first step. Sparkline software clearly illustrates where shortfalls are occurring by listing every element in each defined process (surgery, dental etc.) Following
this analysis, I set up a series of formulations which ensure that all the charges involved in each defined process are accounted for. Some of the processes have as many as fifteen or twenty individual fees and it is impossible to manually remember every charge, every time without some sort of formula. The creation of these formulations transforms charging into a simple one-step process. The result is an increase in average transaction value which has a significant and immediate impact on revenue, without having to increase fees. Furthermore, there is also an argument that if you show more detail on your bill you are demonstrating more value, and it follows that the more value clients perceive the quicker they will settle the bill. Introducing this type of process transforms the revenues of practices and some of the results we have achieved are outstanding. The most successful practices I see have always got their processes sorted out, their software sorted out and they always sell the benefits of treatment to their clients.
Reminders Most corporate and larger practices are sending marketing communication to their clients at least six or seven times a year. In comparison the average practice is communicating a couple of times a year and as a result they are missing out on opportunities.
they will not return for routine health checks, dental checks or vaccines etc. unless they are on a reminder schedule.
I explain to practices that every time a new patient is seen the client should be logged for some form of communication and future reminder. Very few practices follow any kind of protocol around reminders and are therefore missing out on potential additional business for vaccines, worming etc. In my experience at least 30% of a practice’s clients have no reminder set up on their account and in reality this figure is probably even higher.
Changing the attitude of vets in the way in which they think about consultations is key to increasing average transaction value. The first concern for a vet is that clients will react negatively to increasing prices, but I like to think about things a little differently. I explain that by including everything on the bill the value, through perceived benefits, is easily explained to the client. The key is to get the items on the bill in the first place. If a client can’t afford to pay the bill in one go the practice can think about providing financial solutions so that invoices can be split into manageable amounts.
I advise practices to routinely set up reminders for all sick animals that are seen, otherwise they are “lost” to the practice as soon as the pet is well again. Although a satisfied client may return to the practice if the animal falls sick,
The most successful businesses are those which have high transactional values coupled with high numbers of transactions. By engaging more often with existing clients and charging appropriately and by employing marketing
activities to attract new clients a practice can arrest a decline in revenue. Sparkline helps vets to firstly understand where performance shortfalls are occurring and then provides a number of tools to remedy the situation. The smartest vets are always thinking not only how to treat what is in front of them, but also how to maximise future opportunities. Sparkline provides a benchmark level which resonates with practices and provides realistic aims. So if you think you may be missing out on charges or missing opportunities to engage with clients more regularly, why not take a look - you never know what you might find. ●
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Vetsolutions Insight
Day in the Life
Me t the account executives Gayle, Graeme and Elodie
Vetsolutions’ account executives are now a well established team of three, and over the last three years they have proven to be highly successful in terms of encouraging customer engagement.
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Each account executive works within specific geographical areas, providing an immediate and first point of contact for each of their 350 or so clients. Working closely with Vetsolutions team of RBMs (Regional Business Managers) one of the key aspects of their role is to provide a central hub for customers, passing on likely leads and upgrades to RBMs and then having the client returned to them for ongoing maintenance and contact. This flow of information ensures that customers receive a seamless, high quality service and a reliable, regular ‘touch point’, who is familiar with and understands their practice and its needs. The account executives are tasked with making daily calls to their list of Vetsolutions’ existing clients. But their role is not just one of problemsolver, their remit is three-fold: firstly to maintain the client relationship, secondly to ensure they are getting the most from the software and are using it to its maximum potential, and finally to make clients aware of new innovations, modules etc. that will enhance practice efficiency and processes. Thanks to the range and variety of current
initiatives such as Data Vault and online booking, the account executive team is unanimous that the role is now more exciting and fulfilling than ever. An important part of being an account executive is to be confident is providing remote demonstrations of various modules to existing clients. Taking full advantage of available technology the account executive sends a link to the practice, through which they can see the demonstration on their screen and this is an approach that is proving extremely popular. The account executives are able to give a full insight into the features and benefits of each module and walk the client through every stage. This gives the practice manager or vet the opportunity to interrogate the system, ask questions and fully understand how it would integrate into their practice and the benefits it would bring. This year two of the three account executives are attending London Vet Show providing a welcome opportunity for them to chat with clients face-to-face, so in preparation here’s a brief introduction to Gayle, Graham and Elodie.
www.vetsolutions.co.uk
Gayle
Account Executive
Gayle Munro was the first account executive for Vetsolutions, appointed just over three years ago. As a trailblazer for the role, Gayle has worked hard to establish long-lasting and highly successful relationships with her customers.
“I joined Vetsolutions in the office-based role of account executive without any veterinary knowledge whatsoever, but with a great deal of sales experience in everything from retail and finance to IT. The most fulfilling part of my job is the fact that I can develop really close relationships with the practice teams even though we rarely meet face to face. This is perfectly illustrated by an email I received this morning from a practice manager who is leaving one of my practices. She emailed to say thank you for all my help over the past three years. That sort of response gives me great personal satisfaction and makes my job all the more worthwhile. To be a good account executive I think you have to be very conscientious. In a way I am a ‘comfort blanket’ for my practices, an extra level of security that they can rely on, so they don’t worry about being left alone to cope if they have a problem. They know I am always looking out for opportunities that might suit them or would help them become more efficient. All my clients know who I am and I encourage them to contact me directly if they need anything or have a problem that needs to be sorted out and I always do my best to help them. Even for technical queries some clients prefer to come via myself, whereas others go straight to support, it doesn’t make any difference to us and we are happy to deal with queries in whichever way best suits the practice. We have great relationships with our internal support and technical teams and we pass leads and queries between us to ensure that problems and queries are solved as quickly as possible. When I first joined Vetsolutions as account executive I was in a team of one! I like to think that I have proved the value of the role and hence the team has grown and there have been three of us in the team for a couple of years now. This is proof of Vetsolutions’ commitment to providing an immediate and consistent point of contact which our customers also appreciate. It’s an exciting time to be part of Vetsolutions. The steady conveyor belt of initiatives and new modules along with the addition of hardware and support has definitely made the job more varied and interesting, there is never a day that’s the same which is why I enjoy my job so much.”
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Vetsolutions Insight
“Having been in a fairly stressful role working with homeless young people in Edinburgh I wanted to test the water of a new career and decided to attend a Vetsolutions Open Day which was organised for people interested in joining the support team.
Graeme Account Executive
Ex-professional DJ Graeme Ferris followed a number of careers before he joined Vetsolutions in July. As the newbie in the team, Graeme is learning the ropes and just starting to develop relationships with his clients.
I must admit I didn’t realise just how big Vetsolutions was in the veterinary market and also that they were part of a much bigger global entity in Henry Schein. Although this heritage gives us international support as well as research and development resources, we seem to have been able to successfully maintain our close relationships with individual practices, so our customers get the best of both worlds and as a result I feel we are better placed to help our customers think and act more like businesses. I have had intensive training on both our products and in terms of the industry and was fortunate enough to be able to visit a veterinary practice in Chester with Henry Schein Animal Health. This really helped to bring all my previous learning together and to be able to see the practice actually using RoboVet gave me a much better understanding about how all our products integrate to provide practical solutions and drive efficiency.
myself and making sure they know who I am and that I’m here to help. This will form the basis of my routine call rota, which will help me ensure all my customers receive calls on a regular basis. These calls are an opportunity to make sure customers are getting the most out of their software and hardware and are taking advantage of our training days, user groups and other support opportunities. I am already really enjoying this proactive element of helping practices, analysing what their current processes are and seeing where they can make improvements. I was a little bit intimidated on the day I made my first phone call, but everyone was so friendly I just threw myself into it and had a really great first day. Every phone call is aiding my knowledge so even if I don’t get a full depth conversation with a vet or the practice manager I consider all my calls to be worthwhile. Three months in and the job is fantastic. Being office-based is quite different for me but I enjoy the structure, and the fact that I have my own desk! The job itself is very different from my previous career in terms of its day to day function, but essentially I am still helping people to discover and take advantage of opportunities that can improve their lives.”
I now have my own list of customers largely based around the South East of England and also have practices in the Isle of Man. Now I have some product knowledge I am starting to make contact with these practices, introducing
"I am already really enjoying this proactive element of helping practices, analysing what their current processes are and seeing where they can make improvements." 16
www.vetsolutions.co.uk
Elodie
Account Executive
Amateur dramatic enthusiast Elodie Petit joined the Vetsolutions team at the beginning of 2015. With a background in the cut-throat world of external retail sales, Elodie has successfully made the transition to the veterinary industry and is enjoying the chance to help improve vets’ businesses.
“I tend to think about my role as much in terms of client service as it is in sales and I have really enjoyed the slight change of emphasis. My customers cover the whole of the South West and the Western side of England, from Chester Southwards and as far East as Birmingham as well as Northern Ireland. Obviously I have more contact with some of my customers than with others, as I am usually the first point of contact if a practice has a problem or wants some new equipment. The rest are on a regular call cycle, but I don’t think about it as having to call a client every few weeks, rather I call them when I think I have something of interest for them in particular. I always look for a valuable reason to phone a practice as I would never want them to think I was wasting their time, but we have so many new modules and products at the moment it’s not hard to find something that I feel would enhance most of the practices I work with.
For example I wouldn’t call a Ventana or PremVet customer about our online booking as the systems aren’t compatible, but I would call them to introduce Data Vault as this product is of value to every practice. It’s just a matter of knowing your customers and understanding what products would be of benefit to them and this market intelligence is an important part of my role. It is often the case that a practice calls Vetsolutions with a problem and we are then tasked with offering various options to solve the issue, so although my role is essentially one of sales, it is always from the perspective of providing practices with solutions that will improve their efficiency or streamline their workflow. I try and always think about things from the practice’s point of view and upcoming training events are a great reason to make a call. For example I have a practice in North Wales very keen to take online booking and it so happens we have a training event nearby very soon – so this afternoon I will call the practice to let them know that this opportunity is on their doorstep. This kind of ‘thinking for the practice’ and looking out for things that I think will be of interest makes my job very fulfilling. Our customers are genuinely excited about the new initiatives currently coming on-board, there is much more awareness of the need to run a practice as a business and quite often I now deal with practice owners who are business people rather than vets. This is quite a change from the traditional view of the market and I think reflects some of the changes in relation to the growth of corporates. But regardless of the type of practice, all my customers seem much more receptive to the idea that technology can be a positive factor in their business. I enjoy the independence of my role and the fact I can use my own initiative and I find the veterinary environment both challenging and immensely fulfilling.”
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Vetsolutions Insight
Top tips to make your website work whilst you sleep By Emily Eudall Marketing Manager from Onswitch
In an article about the basics of getting your website right, it seems sensible to start at the very beginning, where your potential clients are starting. So, like any good clinician, let's collect some evidence from which we can make our diagnosis: > When did you last look at your practice website? > When did you last search for your practice online? > Is your site easy to navigate around using a mobile phone? (And can you read it easily?) 18
The biggest trap that any small business falls into with its website is approaching it as simply a box to tick off the list of marketing 'things to do'. Once the website is live, many practices forget all about it. This means that team details are out of date, logos and colours may be inconsistent, the 'latest news' is from two summers ago and there is almost certainly no link to the practice Facebook page. None of which tells a potential client that your practice is progressive, friendly and understanding. Which is a big problem when the internet is one of the first places a new owner looks.
See page 20 to find out how a clear and simple website layout can help convert potential customers.
So forget that website box you mentally ticked years ago, and let's consider our own list of online 'must dos'. Don't worry, there are only three...
1. Relevant and up to date content Not so long ago, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) was big business. Companies would pay agencies to write copy featuring key words that would be picked up by search engines, pushing the business up the rankings of options returned when an owner searched for 'neutering'. Often this meant simply hiding the word 'neutering' twenty times behind each photo - unseen by the reader, but positively influencing Google's algorithms. Or writing long paragraphs featuring awkwardly shoehorned mentions of 'neutering'.
RVN explaining the basics of neutering will help to ensure that anyone searching for 'cat neutering York' will easily find you. (Assuming you're in York, of course.)
Fortunately for everyone, Google has learned these tricks and applies more realistic filters. Now you can get your site recognised as a place where excellent care happens simply by writing about it normally. Embedding links to external information sites and featuring a short video of your
An active social media practice presence is essential in order to stay relevant. Every page of your website should feature a link to your Facebook page, or show your Twitter feed. This will be counterproductive if your Facebook page only has four friends and the most recent post is
Adding new content frequently also boosts your position in the search rankings update your website regularly with client testimonials, case studies and short news articles about new techniques or protocols. Take a look at Google Analytics, a very useful tool for measuring the effectiveness of your online marketing spend and presence; the Standard package is free.
several months old, so allocate someone on the team to be your social media guru; updating your page daily with funny stories, appeals, charity news, case studies and client feedback. Respond to comments and address any negative feedback openly and fairly. Print your Facebook details on all client communications and encourage all your clients to become friends - social media is an incredibly fast, free and effective marketing tool. Adding a widget that pulls in your reviews from across the web is also highly recommended so that potential clients can see how great existing clients know you to be (ask your friendly web experts about how to do this!)
2. Responsive site design, adaptive across all devices When you consider that 45% of UK web traffic takes place on tablets and smartphones (Source: IMRG, February 2015) and that Google now actively prioritises sites that are optimised for mobiles ahead of those that are not, it's not an option for any business serious about attracting new clients to have a website that only works on a desktop computer. Mobile-enabled websites allow visitors to simply scroll down as they read, without having to constantly pinch and swipe to be able to see the whole page. Great practice websites allow owners to register their pets from their phone, book appointments on their tablets and request repeat prescriptions in just a few clicks. Your clients are online all the time, using a wide range of websites to buy goods, book services and find advice. If you don't make it easy for them, they'll go elsewhere. 19
Vetsolutions Insight
3. Clear and simple site layout As we've seen, owners don't want to spend ages searching for the price of that neuter, they need to be able to see exactly where they can find more details as soon as they arrive on your home page (a 'Prices' or 'Services' tab should be immediately obvious).
If an owner is panicking, she needs to be able to find your phone number quickly. So many sites have their phone number in tiny font, lost at the bottom of the page. Put it at the top right of the page in large numbers that can be seen without scrolling or squinting. And say if it's a 24-hour number, with an emergency contact immediately below if it's not. Carry this banner across every page of the website, so that visitors can quickly and easily find contact details. Adding a 'click here' button to send an email is easier than asking owners to fill in contact forms or copy and paste your email address into their mail application.
Team details are another area where lots of practices miss a trick. Include a photo and a short biography for everyone, and make sure these are kept up to date as new people join and leave. Include qualifications and areas of special interest (we know that owners look for these) and if the photos are informal shots with family pets, then so much the better. A 'details coming soon' entry, or gushing words about a vet who left a year ago are equally out of place on any website. Featuring plenty of background information on your vet team, with just a name for the receptionists, does not tell potential clients that your practice values customer care.
Owners are increasingly using the internet to find information about the health and welfare of their animals - it's so much better if they can read a balanced assessment of the benefits of neutering on your site, rather than finding something potentially erroneous or inflammatory elsewhere. FAQs and factsheets for common procedures and preventative care are always recommended, as are featuring short videos (or a link to a practice YouTube channel) and links to partner sites.
Make your website work for you When everyone has a website, it's vital that potential clients can find yours first. Having paid for it to be designed and hosted, it's only common sense to make sure that your website is earning its keep. Client expectations, just like technology, have moved on. And now you can ensure your website is keeping up. 20
If you have any questions about getting the most out of your website please don't hesitate to give us a call on 0131 556 0555.
Give your business the Vetsolutions Best Practice Check-Up Kingsley Daniels, Head of Sales & Marketing at Vetsolutions introduces the new Best Practice Check-Up microsite.
“ We have spent some time over the last 12 months considering our market and analysing those areas in which we feel Vetsolutions is very strong and has great insight. As a consequence of this process we have identified three areas where we feel we can really make a difference to the efficiency and profitability of our customers and the Best Practice Check-Up site is a new tool that can help practices pinpoint where they can make improvements and increase revenue." 21
Vetsolutions Insight
Stock Management Stock management has a very high profile within our industry and the impact of poor stock control is one which resonates with most practices. Our ability to demonstrate a significant financial return just by improving these processes is something from which every practice can benefit. Using our experience of 30 years of building software in Animal Health and through aligning ourselves with our sister company, Henry Schein Animal Health, we have been able to show that typically a practice can lose up to 10% of their stock spend, be it through lost or misplaced stock, missed charges or just poor stock taking procedures.
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By understanding the problems that practices face with stock management, we have created a number of solutions to tackle this. RoboVet is particularly strong in this area and has robust stock management processes built into the core software. By adopting our best practice approach to stock management to its full potential we believe we can reduce this attrition to around 3%, which for the majority of practices is a great improvement.
By using these best practice tools, we can help reduce waste, build client loyalty and generate more revenue.
To put this in context, a small animal or companion animal practice will spend on average between 30 and 50 percent of their entire turnover on stock and in a mixed practice the figure can be as high as 60% of turnover. So the return on investment in making a saving of 7% through introducing simple, but rigorous stock management processes represents a substantial figure.
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Recalls & Reminders Traditionally veterinary practices have significant room to improve at client re-engagement. Techniques that are commonly seen in use often include free resources, often provided by pharmaceutical companies which may not have adequate mechanisms for traceability, meaning they are unable to quantify, qualify or measure the success or otherwise of a campaign. From working with our customers and using our knowledge of the veterinary sector, we have analysed the methodology which provides a practice with the best blend of frequency, regularity and media type with which to maximise your client communications effectiveness.
health checks, worming appointments etc. Practices can even use SMS text messages to send product reminders, which prompt an owner that their animal needs medication. This not only encourages the owner to keep to the recommended dosage but also increases future purchases of medications.
By using our best practice approach with RoboVet to manage recalls and reminders the practice can monitor and assess the success of each, be it for vaccines, regular
It is important that we educate the profession about the importance of recalls and reminders and demonstrate the impact that running a streamlined, regular system can have in
terms of additional revenue. In this way we are seeking to build behaviour that ensures practices are proactively encouraging reattendance as opposed to just waiting for clients to turn up.
Healthy Pet Club The Healthy Pet Club concept is similar to that of monthly payment plans, and is being driven forward by the corporatisation of the market, and in these practices membership can be as high as 50% of all registered animals. A Healthy Pet Club is a scheme whereby depending on the type of animal, its age and breed, clients are invited to enrol and in return for a designated monthly fee, the pet has access to all vaccines and a blend of appropriate products. Some practices already have these types of Clubs and Plans but don’t utilise them to the maximum advantage. In reality a practice that has 5 to 7 percent of their clients in a Healthy Pet Club are actually likely to be losing money because of the administrative costs. To make a Healthy Pet Club work financially requires a critical mass of around 20% of clients – once this threshold is reached a Pet Club becomes a substantial revenue generator.
To achieve this critical mass requires significant and consistent client communication and RoboVet is the perfect management system from which to administer a scheme and run integrated marketing campaigns. Once a client is signed up, the practice has numerous opportunities to communicate with them on a regular basis – reminding them about events, clinics and encouraging a sense of loyalty and ‘buy-in’ to the practice.
Our Best Practice Check-Up presents an opportunity for vets and managers to take a survey, which covers all three of these revenue-generating areas. By completing the 5 minute online survey we can assess how, by using these best practice tools, we can help reduce waste, build client loyalty and generate more revenue.
To take the Best Practice Check-Up and be entered into our prize draw to win a Linx 1010B tablet visit: www.vetsolutionsbestpractice.co.uk 23
Vetsolutions Insight
Safe, affordable data backup and recovery Protect your data
Whether through hardware failure, human error, fire, theft or accidental damage, data loss can have catastrophic effect. Imagine the impact on your business if you were to lose all your company accounts, sales records, correspondence, customer records and emails.
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Our new cloud backup solution, Data Vault, is designed to provide safe, reliable backup and recovery. With 256bit encryption, flexible storage options, no additional hardware to purchase and automated backup scheduling, you'll never "forget" to backup again. Data Vault also works in conjunction with your local on-site backups providing you with a best practice backup suite.
For more information or to sign up, call our sales team on 0131 556 0555 or email sales@vetsolutions.co.uk
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