To Understand Your Strengths and Weaknesses You Must Track Where Your New Clients Are Coming From.
Intravet and many other vet software programs allow your receptionist to note how the customer heard about you when setting up the new record. This is an invaluable method of getting an idea of your return on investment. Otherwise you are “flying blind”- a good way to lose money. Any good veterinary practice marketing includes accurate tracking of where your new patients are coming from and a plan to push for referrals as hard as possible.
Here is how you do it:
1. Make sure that your system has this option and set it up with choices for the various kinds of advertising you are doing.
2. Make sure your receptionist knows how to find this option, and let this person know that you are spending thousands of dollars on advertising, and that their job security depends on helping you find the most effect form of advertising.
3. At the end of 1 month, generate the report showing the new clients and where they came from. You should also be able to print out how much income each category generated.
4. Also run the report of total new clients. You will probably see there are more new clients total than those that your receptionist marked! This tells you how seriously you receptionist is taking the job.
5. Look over the paid advertising categories. Internet, Radio, TV, Yellow pages. You will see very quickly what is pulling and what is not. Also you will know how much you are spending on each so it is easy to see where you are getting value for money and where you are getting ripped off.
7. Fill out this short form and get a free consultation on your marketing with recommendations from an expert!
Referrals Are FREE! How You Can Get More Referrals to Your Veterinary Practice
1. Survey Your Clients: Create a simple customer service satisfaction survery. Get your reception to give it to each person as they check them out and ask them to fill it out. Make sure these completed surveys come to you and the good ones get copied onto your website and the bad ones get contacted and addressed.
2. Address All Complaints: Keep a record of all complaints received and ensure that either yourself or your office manager contacts and speaks to each person. Survey after survey has found that simply contacting a dissatisfied client makes a huge difference in what they say about you later. In fact, one survey showed that a percentage of those contacted would continue to use the same provider even though they were not 100% pleased with the service, just because they were contacted and their complaints listened to!
3. Offer A Referral Incentive: A simple printed card offering a small discount on products for referring a friend can increase your referrals significantly. A card or sign is cheap to produce and can do as much as thousands of dollars of more expensive advertising.