Ask your customers frequently what they want, and deliver it.  Even if you decide not to, it's better to have that discussion with them acknowledging why you're not able to accommodate fully what they seek, that conversation will tell your customer that you care enough to try, and if you could accommodate you would.  That will endear the customer to you in other ways for other services.  

Customers want to know how much you care.  If ever they sense that you don't care, they will go somewhere else.

Much of the dissatisfaction comes from the customers' expectation to be able to reach a veterinarian in a timely manner and to get their questions answered that will lead them to seek the solutions they need.  This statement should not sound unreasonable.  But in the veterinary world, we've talked about 'compliance' for many years.  Compliance means, 'do what I say' in the veterinarian's words, not 'do what I want' in the minds of the client.  

Is it possible to turn this mindset on its head and to revolutionize our veterinary service model to consumers?  Consider the facts.  The modern veterinary practice is built on the premise that it must drive client traffic as frequently as possible in order to drive revenue and growth.  This is the compliance model.  In other words, the practice needs to drive clients to the practice.  In the minds of clients, they wonder if they truly need to make all of those visits and to pay those fees.  What would happen if the practice actually aligned their incentives with those of their clients?  What if the practice got paid to minimize client visits to the practice?  Isn't this what the client wants?  What if client visits actually increased the costs of the practice without increasing revenue?  Wouldn't practices want to minimize client visits?  This might be the case if monthly subscription wellness plans were in place that provided free exams and client visits.  If clients paid for being advised appropriately regarding pet care, wouldn't it be in the best interests of both the practice and the client to minimize visits?

What would be the impact on a veterinary medicine if our business model actually aligned with the incentives of our customers?  Ponder this.  It's what clients want.

Let's start by first defining the terms, 'telehealth' and 'telemedicine'.  The AVMA defines them as:

• Telehealth: the overarching term that encompasses all uses of technology geared to remotely deliver health information or education.
• Telemedicine: the use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve a patient’s clinical health status.

The distinction between these two terms involves the delivery of information or education (telehealth) versus the delivery of medicine (telemedicine).  The Veterinary Client Patient Relationship (VCPR) limits telemedicine from being used to establish new client relationships, but it is important for practices to understand how technology can help them serve clients and even reach new clients.

Animal owners want to use technology to receive simple answers and animal care services similar to how they recieve services to meet their daily needs.  If practices want to remain relevant to their clients, they should identify those telehealth services that meet client needs and also allow them to deliver appropriate care.

Many practices will not answer simple questions over the phone.  This process puts questions in clients' minds regarding motives for not answering questions via phone.  Clients have gotten suspicious that veterinarians only want them to come in so that they can charge them big fees.  It's not a positive situation when the incentives between service provider and the service recipient are not aligned.  If veterinarians make clients come in to the practice to get questions answered, then the incentives are not aligned.  Veterinarians should get paid for helping clients not have to come in to the practice, which is known as 'wellness'. Clients don't like coming to the practice when it's not absolutely required.  It's inconvenient and expensive.  

Telehealth technologies actually help align the incentives by providing a way to screen patients to reduce unnecessary visits.  Telehealth also helps clients connect with their veterinarian earlier and more frequently in their cycle of need.  Therefore, it will drive valuable clinic visits, and reduce wasted use of staff and facility resources when a visit isn't necessary.

These are just a few reasons to explore optimal use of telehealth.  Use telehealth to optimize the care you provide.  There are many opportunities to improve customer and patient care through the use of these modalities.  Find those that are a fit for you and use them to provide exemplary care and to stay relevant in a changing world.

To do so, veterinary practices should implement proven inventory management protocols.  One of the best ways to accomplish this is to work closely with your distributor partner, as they have every incentive to help you improve profitability.  If your practice is profitable, you will be a good customer for them.  If not, you will not be a worthwhile customer.  In addition, managing inventory is how they make money.  They operate with small profit margins, so inventory management is crucial to their success.  Most distributors will make commitments of their knowledge and resources to their most loyal clients.  Therefore, identify your best distributor partner and work closely with them to optimize your purchasing and your inventory controls. 

Your supplier partners are crucial to a profitable practice.  Develop a close relationship with your best suppliers to improve your inventory management and your profitability.

• Marketing and communicating to existing clients what they need to ensure healthy animals.  This is the greatest opportunity to grow a practice internally.  Many veterinary practices perform poorly at recognizing current patient opportunities and communicating them to their clients to ensure that most are followed up as planned.  High percentages of planned services and product sales go unrealized due to poor systems or suboptimal system use that is intended to identify and communicate them to both the client and the practice.  Ensuring that your data is accurate and complete in your management system is crucial to being able to use that data to generate business.  This should be a priority in every practice!
• Attracting new clients through education and marketing efforts to both existing and new clients.  All practices need and want new clients.  As many as 20% of clients turn over each year due to loss of pets, client relocation, and other reasons.  Therefore, it is important to consistently acquire new clients to replenish your customer base for steady growth.  However, many practices invest all of their marketing efforts in reaching new clients and they fail to invest in reaching their existing clients adequately. 
• Acquiring another veterinary practice or a group of clients from another practice.  The most rapid way to grow a practice is to acquire another practice.  Using historical financial records, it is relatively straightforward to value an existing practice, and therefore, with knowledge of your management capabilities and systems, you should be able to project the impact of your management on that newly acquired practice.  In this manner, given proper transitional strategies and processes, it is a reliable and valuable way to grow a practice.  Leadership and management are crucial to ensure success with this growth strategy!
• Identifying new services and products to offer to all clients that are currently not being offered.  Most practices are constantly searching for ways to provide better services and better medicine, and the profession is well-trained to purchase new pieces of equipment in an effort to develop new service options.  These opportunities are adjunctive to and requisite to steady growth, however, many pieces of equipment that are purchased do not result in profitable growth.  More emphasis needs to be placed on evaluating these opportunities financially to make them more reliably positive for veterinary practices.

Identify the strategies that will work best for you and pursue them consistently to ensure steady growth.

Keep it simple.

Get a competent bookkeeper and accountant and ask them to prepare and keep current your financial statements for your practice.  They should be able to produce accurate reports called the Profit and Loss Statement otherwise known as an Income Statement, a Balance Sheet, and the Statement of Cash Flows.  Provide them the data or access to your data that will allow them to produce these reports and start learning about them.  Go online and read simple references such as Investopedia or Entrepreneur.  There are many simple resources to get you started.  Just keep it simple and get started.

Get started.

Get these reports and begin to read them frequently.  Compare them to previous months and years to get a feel for your business over time.  Identify and utilize a handful of financial measures that will tell you at all times the state of your business quickly.  Refer to the financial dashboard at IsMyPracticeHealthy.com for an example.  If any measure is abnormal, or moving in a negative direction, ask your financial team to find out why.  Once you know why, then you can decide what to do about it.  If it's normal and trends are good, then keep going.  It really is that simple.  The key is to get started, and use your data to examine results and make decisions.  

Keep learning.

Most veterinarians tell me that once they got started and began learning about practice finance, that they get invigorated and excited to learn more.  There are a lot of resources such as Veterinary Study Groups and others that will provide great professional business education and a very invigorating professional experience to improve your business and to prolong your enjoyment of veterinary practice.  Keep learning!

What is important to you in that situation?  Perhaps you’re envisioning seeking health care for your child.  What matters to you in that situation?   Is cost the most important criteria in that situation?  Usually not.  You typically want transparency and as little financial pain as possible, but you are usually willing to pay for the best care.  What defines the best care?  Is a grumpy, non-communicative doctor a positive experience for any customer to deal with in this scenario?  Is a doctor who dismisses how much you care about your child appealing? 

Most people would say that they want to be communicated with clearly, with mutual respect, and they want the best medicine.  Providing the best medicine amidst a rude, inconsiderate experience would not be satisfying.  A satisfying experience to most clients would be one in which they know you provided your best care, and that they were treated in a manner that tells them how much you care in every way possible. 

Remember, successful practices have a lot of satisfied customers.  They deliver exemplary veterinary care and exceptional customer care as well.  Your team’s goal should be satisfied customers.

Marketing Monday:  Education to help you grow your practice

Team Tuesday:  Leadership development, team building, and human resources management

Supplier and Inventory Wednesday:  Inventory is the second largest expense in most practices.  This content will help you optimize inventory and supplier relationships.

Service Thursday:  Lesssons will help you provide both exemplary customer service and veterinary care.

Financial Friday:  Learn how to get your financials in order and how to use them to grow profitability and practice value.

Join IsMyPracticeHealthy.com to ensure that you receive Summary Saturday by email each week!

However, when you examine their success and talk to those who are part of the team or who compete against them, a different picture develops.  We hear about the work ethic and discipline with which the team’s leaders approach every day.  They outwork their colleagues and competition every day, not just on game days.  They have as part of their fabric a desire to succeed that is beyond the understanding of most people.  Their desire to succeed, or perhaps their distaste for losing, fuels them to work harder and smarter to accomplish their goals.

In sports, they have something called a ‘compete level’ that exceeds others.  Their tolerance of pain, discomfort, and sacrifice is much greater than of those who are less successful leaders.  Though all of these qualities are very instrumental to the success of strong leaders, the quality known as ‘humility’ has much greater impact.  Great leaders will lead by example, performing tasks for their team that many would never ‘stoop’ to perform.  They do whatever is needed for their team, and their team sees it.  This selflessness inspires teammates to do similar work and deeds for the benefit of the team.  And thus the team has the opportunity to reap the rewards of being on a great team, rather than being of bunch of great individuals.  The effective team will beat the great group of individuals 99 times out of 100.

And great teams are inspired by strong and humble leaders.

Be humble.  Be strong,  Be a team player.  And you can accomplish great things.

Consider that how you do business with them matters.  Many distributors will provide optimized pricing if you agree to certain levels of loyalty, purchase specific days of the week, paying within certain time periods, and paying via specific methods.  All of these criteria and others, when done correctly, can provide money-saving opportunities for both the supplier and the customer.

Here is how to take advantage of these opportunities:

• talk to your distributor representative 
• ask about optimizing your business relationship to improve your purchasing power
• consider days that you purchase, how you pay, shipping requirements, loyalty levels, and payment terms as a start to improving your cost of goods from your primary supplier.

Reduce your Cost of Goods by optimizing your supplier agreements today!