Veterinary practices and clinics goes over several phases during acquiring clients. After several years we have two big groups of our clients so called active and inactive clients.

I found out interesting per cent count of active and inactive clients in veterinary practices (as well as in human health care). It varies with minor deviations from practice to practice.

Who is inactive client?

Inactive client is client which has not transacted at your practice in the last two years. Note, in some countries there is regulation that some animals must be revaccinated against rabies every year – so I recommend to consider inactive clients those clients that has not transacted in the last one year.
In some especially good working clinics inactive clients are those last seen under 1 year and for the best clinics they are even for lower time period – under 6 months. Usually there is only very very very small count of the greatest practices with period under 6 months in Slovakia and Czech republic.

So what’s the goal of our practice? We don’t need to acquire new and new clients. On the other hand the most effective way is to motivate and invite former clients for the next appointment. We want to reach the point when the same client visits our practice more than 2 times during one year (the more the better).
Some of my colleagues can say “This is not true for all practices” and they’re absolutely right! For high specialized and referral practices this is not absolutely true because they are receiving referred clients from lower level practices where veterinarians are not able to diagnose and treat illness due to lack of knowledge or instrumentation. Important point here:
Don’t forget, it is not shame to say to the client that I am not able to treat this problem and it need higher care level in referral practice. It’s always better to stay good doctor and refer client that trying to treat it myself with lack of knowledge. Of course in modern countries standard is that after examination and treatment referral practice will send back this client to his default doctor of choice. Are you doing it always? Well, try to answer truthfully my dears. (nice theme for another blogpost maybe soon)

Why should I target main focus on inactive clients and try to reactivate them?

Obtaining new clients cost you much more than to keep an existing client.

To be sure your active clients don’t fall in inactive clients’ group simply stay in touch with them even if they are out of your office. Communicate with them – you can remind them vaccination, deworming intervals, appointment reminders, special events such as events for geriatric patients, young animals, etc. It’s up to you which way of communication will you use. You have plenty of options in communication field such as short text messages SMS, emails, by post, phone calls… There are many situations when you should pick up the best info channels for this and not always fit for example SMS or emails the best.

Veterinary management software helps you to select inactive clients only. If you need help with this there are many people and they are specialist for veterinary management in practice and they are happy to help you with reactivation of inactive clients back to active clients’ group

One example from practice

I wanted to show you how you could write message or letter when you need to reactivate inactive client and get feedback. But I won’t. I will show you two examples here :) You can modify it and use it for phone calls or letter too. By the way e-mail is very impersonal way of communication so I don’t recommend it for this purpose.

Text No. 1
Dear Olivia Doe,

It’s been more than a year since we’ve seen you at our Bebee Animal Hospital. Regular visits in our hospital are necessary for continued good health. Animals age much faster than people, so an annual checkup for your pet is like a person seeing the doctor once every five to seven years.

Please let us know why you hasn’t shown at our animal hospital.
Please return your response in the enclosed postage-paid envelope or call us at +1 800 123 456.

Well, I think this is good example how it shouldn’t look like. What do you think – why? How do you feel when you finished reading this? Try to imagine situation when you open envelope. What’s in? Just I, I, I, I, (we’ve seen, me, our clinic, tell me, call me, return me, etc) don’t you think? There is especially what I want and not what my client wants. And this is false.

Try to check this better example – text No. 2
Dear Mrs. Olivia Doe,

You and Casper are our good clients for several years. It’s our honor and privilege to have provided your Casper with medical care in the past. However, we regret to say that it isn’t possible for us to do that because we haven’t seen you in a while. Regular Casper’s health care will bring you many wonderful years together.

We’d be happy to see you in our hospital anytime Casper needs it. We really appreciate your short answer in the enclosed postage-paid envelope or we are here to talk to you at +1 800 123 456, it’s up to you to choose the most comfortable way.

Yours truly,
MVDr. Filip Kovalovský

Try to read both texts again. Which one do you like the most?
Do you see the starting words of the second text? – “you and Casper”! So it is not about me but it’s all about my client and his pet – nice, isn’t it? It is more personal and customer oriented. No sweet words, just words you believe in.

Please leave your opinion in comments. Thanks!

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Better health care

The aim of every hospital is to make our clients satisfied so how you solve troubles with health of your patients is the most important how you can gain and satisfy your clients or you don’t… Bad reputation spreads very quickly. Our aim it to improve and gain very happy clients for your practice. The main idea how we can do that is to build and preserve regular health tasks in preventive care and curative care as well. Disease prevention is much better than treatment. Veterinary service VitalFox will help you to achieve happy clients with positive references.

Appointments on time

VitalFox informs your clients in time that there is prevent care task (e.g. vaccination) or planned appointment time is here (e.g. consultation, surgical intervention or another appointment). People always come to your hospital in time and on time. It eliminates “weak hours” and maximizes effectiveness of your clinic and your staff. Animal keepers won’t forget scheduled appointment anymore. Active vs inactive client ratio increases so active clients will be the major part.

Increase your profit

Time is money. That’s true, we know it. Have you ever tried to calculate how much is it when your clients forget to come on time? Or they forget their pet should be revaccinated… or they miss appointment or surgical intervention or consultation or etc… We have calculated it and loss of profit is huge. With our VitalFox service you can prevent this situation and money lost. Pet holders always come on time and you are able to give them the best care ever. It often happens that you find out during routine clinical examination that this animal has serious health problem and it must be treated before revaccination. His owner is often not able to find it out. And try to imagine pet owner would not come to your practice because he forgets. You wouldn’t have a chance to cure them. You wouldn’t have a chance to provide preventive care. So you would lose your money twice, sorry, more than twice because this client would be counted in inactive client list. It is not good for your practice.
Let’s have a look at situation when your clients come to everything is ok you can vaccinate his pet and offer him various preventive scenarios how to make life of his pet better. Now it is up to you how you communicate with your clients and their pets.
To sum it up, which scenario is better? When your client comes and you can give them the best possible care? Or when your client forgets to come? Which one situation is more profitable for you…?

Save your money

We want VitalFox is so effective as can be. Our service will save you money because you don’t need to pay for phone calls, postage, … and SMS or emails are the cheapest way how to maintain regular contact with your clients.

Save your employee’s time

VitalFox is so smart that you don’t need to allocate your staff to do something. You set all functions of VitalFox only once and then forget it. Your staff is here for patients and your clients, not for VitalFox. Your management is more, your clients stay informed, everyone is happy.

Automatic and friendly

In case your staff must do all this communication maintaining with your clients manually it is really time consuming and ineffective. Leave this work for VitalFox and let your staff to do more important things. VitalFox operates autonomously and fully automatically. Another great feature of our service – it is environment friendly solution. Save rain forests, petroleum, paper, renewable and non-renewable resources too.

Look forward to more articles about the benefits of VitalFox.

“Art of working with clients is often underestimated. And it just makes the minimum effort but the final effect is stunning. I don’t understand why it is not accepted by most doctors. Do you want to change it?”

This way you can check every SMS and email message in your settings and see if everything in your message content is ok (and you can correct your settings then). I hope it helps you.