Veterinary client communication | Channels, Best Practices and more

Introduction to veterinary client communication

A seamless and meaningful exchange of information between veterinarians and pet parents is the most important aspect of improving animal health outcomes. A means for strengthening the veterinarian-client relationship, promoting excellent animal care, and enhancing patient satisfaction and patient engagement; veterinary client communication has taken centre stage in the present client-focused world. 

If you own a veterinary practice, you’d know how important it is to communicate effectively with the pet parents. Whether it is educating the client about preventive care, explaining diagnosis and treatment options, or communicating about chronic conditions; effective veterinary client communication is a prerequisite to ensure the well-being of your animal patients, and the overall success of your practice.

But What is the best channel for veterinary client communication?? How do they differ from each other?  What aspects of veterinary client communication can be automated? We’re going to address all these questions in this article. Stay tuned for some real-time insights! 

Top channels for veterinary client communication

Text Messages

Text messaging is among the most popular communication channel for veterinarians, due to its ease of use, accessibility, automation possibilities, and real-time communication. Text messaging provides direct communication between the veterinarian and the client, is convenient and non-intrusive, fosters client engagement and satisfaction, and is cost-effective and time-saving. The best part is that it also offers seamless and secure communication if you’re communicating using HIPAA-compliant texting software.

Here are some ways to use text messaging to ensure seamless veterinary-client communication:

• Send personalized and automated appointment reminders to your clients
• Send appointment confirmation texts to clients
• Communicate the test and lab results of your pet patients
• Send payment, medication, and vaccination reminders
• Educate clients about preventive care, nutrition, grooming; etc
• Communicate emergency information
• Following up post-surgery
• Answer client queries on the go
• Send promotional offers or discounts
• Communicate changes in clinic hours, new services offered, holiday closures, etc
• Send surveys or feedback forms
• Send quick updates

Text messaging as a channel for veterinary client communication allows you to communicate with your clients with utmost ease, at your convenience in real time. You need not be present at the clinic to be able to talk to your client, as you can communicate via text on the go at your convenience.

Phone Calls

Phone calls are also a popular channel for veterinary client communication owing to the benefits they offer. Since it is a traditional form of communication, a lot of people still prefer it over any other means. For effective veterinary client communication, here are some use cases of phone calls as a channel:

• Conducting detailed conversations
• Communicating amid urgent situations that need immediate attention
• Sensitive discussions requiring emotional support
• For appointment scheduling and communicating changes in the appointment
• Providing advice/insights in the case of complex issues
• Having personalized interactions

Phone calls are a great channel for building lasting relationships with clients and ensuring client satisfaction. However, as effective as they may be, they are not everyone’s preferred choice. Some people prefer texting over calling, Some might prefer in-person consultations with the veterinarian. 

Emails

Emails are an effective channel for veterinary client communication as you can document conversations, reduce administrative overheads, and improve overall efficiency. Pet owners and veterinarians can reach out to each other at their own convenience, which makes email a flexible channel of communication. Here are some use cases of emails for veterinary client communication:

• Sending diagnostic reports and lab test results 
• Sending educational content and newsletters 
• Sending invoices and billing details 
• Sending survey forms
• Sending appointment reminders 
• Sending prescription refill details 
• Sending detailed follow-up care instructions  

Even though emails are great for detailed discussions and keeping a written record of conversations; they aren’t the best way to communicate urgent communication or get in touch in real-time.

Though emails are a flexible communication channel, they fall back when it comes to communicating immediately and securely. 

Also, the low open rate and response rate associated with Emails make it a difficult channel to boost patient engagement.

Patient Portals

Patient portals are a valuable channel for veterinary client communication especially if you want to communicate securely, share important patient information, and reduce administrative burden on the staff as they can manage multiple conversations at once. Here are some top use cases for patient portals as a channel for veterinary client communication:

• Accessing medical records 
• Scheduling and managing appointments 
• Facilitating prescription refill requests 
• Sharing and accessing educational materials 
• Delivering and accessing text results 
• Accessing online forms to reduce paperwork
• Sharing feedback forms 
• Sending automated reminders for health maintenance 

Patient portals are a great channel for asynchronous communication and are secure too, but when it comes to communicating immediately, they aren’t the most convenient.

Moreover, patient portals require some degree of technical knowledge, and many clients may not possess the same, which is why they might find it hard to use the portal. This creates resistance on the part of the client. Hence using patient portals purely relies on the convenience of both the veterinarian and the client. 

Are you wondering which channel would be the best for you? Well, let’s compare all the veterinary client communication channels to understand better: 

Veterinary Client Communication | SMS vs Email vs Phone Calls vs Patient Portals

Veterinary client communication | Texting Use Cases

Here are some Veterinary client communication scenarios that can better help understand why text messaging would make the most sense based on the type of information to be shared.

Appointment reminders 

There are multiple ways to send appointment reminders to your clients; you can either call them, send them an email, or drop a text. Let’s say you have to remind 20 clients about their appointments scheduled for the next day. Calling each client would mean spending roughly 5 minutes on each call. This means you’d end up wasting more than 90 minutes of your time! This doesn’t even include the no responses, follow-up calls, etc. Instead, here’s what this process looks like with text messaging:

Create a list of all those 20 clients and send a personalized text message that would say, 

“Dear {client}, this is to remind you of your pet’s appointment scheduled for {date, day} at {time}. Please type ‘C’ to confirm.” 

What’s even better is that you can automate this entire process with text messaging software, you can customize the frequency, timing, content, etc. on reminder texts and also give your customer rescheduling options which will directly block and unblock your business calendar in real-time.

For appointment reminders, with text, you’d end up investing no time at all, and generate more responses and engagement as well

Review requests 

Sending review requests is a tricky path to tread as you’d want as many reviews as possible from your clients. 

Did you know that around 69% of customers prefer interacting with businesses via SMS, including leaving reviews? 

There are multiple ways you can ask for reviews from your clients: 

• Ask the client on the spot, right after the appointment 
• You can call the client and ask for a review. They might or might not act upon it as you have to send a review link from an alternate communication channel making it difficult for the customer to leave a review. 
• You can send an email asking for a review. Since emails have low open and response rates, you might or might not get reviews through this channel 
• You can send automated texts to your clients with the review link soon after the appointment. There is a high chance that they’d leave you a review. 

Payment follow-ups 

If you want to send payment follow-ups to your clients, then the most actionable way to do it is through texts. You can simply send them a text message that says,

“Hey {client}, your payment for the grooming session is due. Please complete your payment by clicking on this link: Enter link.” 

Texting for payment follow-ups is the most effective channel as it’s extremely actionable for your customers they can just click on a link and be done with the payment in 30 seconds or less – compare this to calls and emails that not only take a lot of time but also drive poor results.

Recall/reactivation 

There might be clients who had gotten their pets treated at your practice at some point in time. If you want to recall those patients, texting is the best medium to do so. Using automated schedule-based texting you can always be in touch with your past patients without spending any time whatsoever on patient communication

Surveys 

In order to collect the maximum feedback from your clients through surveys, you can utilize text better than any other channel for veterinary client communication. All you need to do is create a list of your clients, design your survey, and send it out as a broadcast text message. Doing so will save you a lot of time and will also bring in a lot of responses.

Updates 

Let’s say your area is affected by bad weather and you won’t be able to attend to any clients. If you have, say, 50 appointments scheduled for that day, how are you going to share this information with those clients? Calling all those 50 clients would mean spending hours on the phone. A better and more efficient way of communicating such information with your clients is via text, you can simply craft a mass text saying that your clinic will be closed for the day and then also share a link for the pet parents to reschedule the appointment. It’s that simple! You’ll be able to reach out to multiple clients at once, without having to spend so much time or resources. 

Patient Engagement 

If you have to send out medical reports to the pet parents, share quick updates, or send out discount offers, or seasonal greetings; text messages prove to be a great medium for such communication. It is quick, efficient, and cost-effective. Texting can replace calls, emails, and patient portals in a variety of ways, based on the kind of information that you want to share. 

While there are certain situations wherein in-person consultations and calls cannot be replaced, such as sensitive discussions and emergencies; text messaging can replace all other repetitive and time-consuming tasks for you. As a veterinarian, it is important that you use secure text messaging software to communicate with your clients. 

When it comes to driving patient engagement owing to the best open and response rate, texting is the best solution to ensure you retain your patients.

Manage veterinary client communication with Emitrr’s capabilities

Emitrr is a client communication and engagement software that allows you to achieve operational efficiency and build strong relationships with pet parents. Here’s all that you can do with Emitrr: 

• Allow clients to schedule appointments on their own 
• Schedule appointments for your clients 
• Send appointment and payment reminders 
• Automate the patient journey by integrating Emitrr with your current EHR/EMR
• Send automated reminders and confirmation messages 
• Send group texts and mass texts 
• Send scheduled text messages to drive overall engagement 
• Ask for reviews and manage reviews from across different platforms on a single dashboard 
• Send quick alerts 
• Share sensitive information 
• Share medical reports 

Our customers have managed to:

• Reduce phone calls by 40% 
• Reduce no-shows and cancellations by 90%, 
• Improve Patient engagement by 40%
• 3X growth in revenues
• 5X growth in organic review generation
• Significant boost in operational efficiency
• Reduce Patient acquisition costs by 80%
• Generate 1.5-2X referrals (word of mouth) and a lot more

Not only that but Emitrr also integrates seamlessly with your EMR/PMS software, to help you automate your processes and achieve overall efficiency. 

Here are some top PMS software that Emitrr integrates with – Advantage, AVIMark, ClientTrax, CornerStone, DVMAX, HVMS, ImproMed Infinity, eVetPractice, Intravet, OpenVPMS, RxWorks, StringSoft, Vetech, VetSpace, VIA etc. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

If you’re looking to reduce administrative workload, improve operations, acquire more patients, retain existing patients, and above all, provide the best possible care to your furry patients, then it is time to invest in texting software like Emitrr. Book a demo to explore the features in detail and ensure uninterrupted communication in veterinary practice.