When was the last time you stopped to consider how to improve your client journey?
Your client’s experience with your veterinary practice starts from the moment they begin researching local vets and continues long after they leave your practice after their first visit.
Along this journey there are multiple touchpoints outside of an actual consultation which many veterinary practices fail to make the most of, this is a real missed opportunity!
The importance of getting the customer experience right cannot be underestimated, the likelihood is that word of mouth powers a huge part of your business, what your clients think of their experience of your practice can quite literally have new clients queueing up at the doors or avoiding you like the plague.
Our Veterinary IT Experts have years of experience helping practices to make the most of their client journey, using the simplest tech that they already have access to (because no one wants to spend additional time and money on additional software).
In doing so we’ve identified four stages that’s are commonly neglected which could be improved with Microsoft 365:
- Choosing a Vet
- Preventative Health Questionnaires
- Arriving and Waiting
- Admission into Hospital and Discharge
In this article we’ll be focusing on the second experience your client will have of your practice, Preventative Health Questionnaires. It goes without saying that when designing your preventative health questionnaires that they must be as simple as possible, whether done on the website, an app on a smart device or in person. You need an easy to use data collection tool enabling you and your team to capture information electronically.
Before any patients come in for a preventative health consultation their owner should complete a Preventative Health Questionnaire, which can help to build a picture of the realistic risk of infectious disease and parasites for your patient.
We’ll refer to two different Apps within the 365 Suite, Microsoft Forms and Microsoft Sway both generally available to Office 365 Education customers, Microsoft 365 Apps for business customers, and users with a Microsoft account (Hotmail, Live, or Outlook.com). So, if you have any of these subscriptions you already have access to these Apps.
The App: Microsoft Forms
- The electronic forms that you create offer expanded convenience for your clients as they can be completed anywhere on any device, which means the questionnaire can be done in practice on a tablet (perhaps whilst waiting for the vet to be ready) or at home or in the car park on a phone or on a computer.
- Forms is fully customisable and is capable of capturing a variety of information and asking different types of questions. This means that no stone is left unturned, ensuring that your vets are fully informed prior to the physical appointment. This wont go unnoticed by your clients.
- Don’t forget that, as stated previously, Forms offers simple and powerful analysis.
Pro tip: This can be followed up with recommendations for vaccinations and highlight areas for further discussion with the vet. It might even be advisable to create a personalised preventative health care plan for the pet based on the animals actual risk. This service is a real value ad for the customer and shows that your practice will go above and beyond to care for their pet.
The App: Microsoft Sway
- Sway enables you and your team to quickly and easily produce professional, interactive, and visually appealing preventative health plans without the need of having high level IT or design expertise, so is perfect for your average vet.
- You can easily embed video and audio, which means that your content is far more dynamic. An example of this to use in a preventative health care plans would be basic videos on how to administer worming treatment, search for and remove ticks and cleaning dogs’ teeth. All of these seem simple enough to professionals but might be daunting for a first-time pet owner.
- An added benefit is that you can see how many people access and view these documents in real time, so you will know before the appointment which owners have read the information you’ve provided.
Pro tip: Why not add value for your client with new puppies by sending them a digital ‘puppy pack’ once they’ve filled in their first Preventative Health Questionnaire. You can use Sway to create this and include simple puppy training videos, and puppy care hints and tips. They’ll love it. (You can even use Power Automate to set this up to be sent automatically)
A bit about us…
As a Microsoft Partner we are fully equipped to advise you on how best your veterinary practice can utilise your Microsoft 365 suite.
The Apps included in these articles are only 4 of many. And each one can seamlessly work together to help your team focus on patient care, your practice run more efficiently and can assist you to provide fantastic value adds to your clients. It’s even possible that making use of the technology you already have as part of your Microsoft 365 package will save you time and money.
If you would like to talk to an IT expert on how your practice can get the most from Microsoft 365, just get in touch.
