Client Experience

The experience a client has within a practice determines whether they will return, and what they will tell their friends, families and social media. While all hospitals want to provide excellent service, they often don’t give their team the tools they need to ensure the client has an exceptional experience in the practice. Client service training is one of the most important things that a manager can provide to their team, and without it, client complaints and attrition become rampant.

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Client Experience Case Study

Case Background and Challenges

Despite having seven doctors and being open six days a week, this hospital was experiencing stagnant revenue and ATC for the previous three years before working with iVET360. Part of what helps enhance a practice’s revenue is having friendly, knowledgeable staff. This hospital’s front office was in dire need of client service skills training, and they had a significant lack of knowledge of strong financial conversations with pet owners.

Fun Facts

$3–4.5M annual revenue ($137 ATC)
7 DVMs
1 location practice in the Pacific Northwest
Open 6 days a week
Small animal practice

“I work at the front of the house and didn’t really realize how much I impact the hospital’s client experience and overall feel. Our HR and Training Manager worked with me to emphasize little things, like remembering a pet’s name and gender to prepare for their visit to the dreadful veterinarian. Pet owners love when people are friendly to their fur babies, and that, combined with subtle recommendations for additional services, really improved the atmosphere of our hospital.”

Analysis

Client service training is one of the most important things that a manager can provide to their team, and without it, client complaints and attrition can become rampant.

Action

One of the many strengths of iVET360 is to assist veterinarians in developing a helpful, knowledgeable, client-friendly and persuasive staff. After consulting with this hospital and analyzing the results of their initial survey, our HR and Training specialists determined that their staff was not reaching their potential regarding client support—employees’ actions and attitudes go a long way in client happiness and this hospital desperately needed improvement in these departments.

We decided that a full new-hire training program was necessary for the front office and for the doctor assistant teams. Since the receptionists were constantly interacting with clients, we rolled out a comprehensive phone skills training program to them and implemented appointment scheduling best practices training, which taught them how to use active language to book appointments and how to effectively reschedule cancellations and no-shows. After more phone consultations, we were able to analyze their feedback, which led to us rolling out treatment-plan presentation-training to their team to increase client transactions. We also enacted communication training which improved internal and external (team-to-client) interactions.

Results

After our staff at iVET360 recommended the overhaul of their client experience services, we constantly communicated with this hospital and helped them stay on top of their priorities. Over time, we were able to successfully detect a revenue increase of 17 percent, an ATC increase of approximately $155 dollars (11 percent increase) and a 50 percent increase in the positivity of team members regarding the training program. With these implementations in place, the future of this practice’s revenue will only go up, especially since we observed the front staff wholeheartedly believes in the training program, which is half of the battle.

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