Beyond the exam room: building trust & connection in veterinary care

Care is at the core of every veterinary team, but that goes beyond caring for the pets in the exam room. A healthy relationship between staff members and pet owners is important for creating a strong bond built on trust, empathy, and personalized care. Every team should strive for this type of connection with pet parents at their practice—along with their fellow team members—to promote a positive clinic environment and provide the best possible care to pets. We’ve put together a few key ways veterinary teams can create stronger connections to establish an inviting and supportive practice for every pet (and person) to thrive in.

Reinforcing Veterinary Client Relationships

Clear and Convenient Communication with Veterinary Clients:

Making sure that pet owners have a good understanding of their pets’ health needs at all times is crucial for building trust. Every veterinary team should take the time to set clear expectations for their clients by explaining pet procedures, diagnoses, and treatment plans using common, everyday language. Actively listening to their concerns and answering questions goes a long way in providing a transparent and welcoming veterinary experience.

Of course, your clinic is busy—so offering convenient ways for pet owners to communicate less urgent information with your team will not only help strengthen your relationship, but will also save time for your team. As easy as sending a text message, two-way texting lets pet owners ask and answer questions, send and receive photos, pay their bill, and more without lengthy phone calls or unnecessary trips to the clinic. It’s a simple way to stay connected with clients and keep them informed about their pets’ healthy journeys right from the convenience of their mobile devices.

You can also keep pet parents on top of their pets’ health needs by using mass messaging, a veterinary-specific tool that lets you send custom information to any number of clients in just a few quick clicks. Mass messaging makes it easy for you and your team to automatically spread the word about promotions, discounts, news, business updates, and more without having to manually reach out to each pet owner. You can also use filters for your messages to target specific types of clients or pets, like when offering a special to cat owners during National Cat Health Month. These alerts are quickly delivered through email or a veterinary mobile app to easily reach pet owners wherever they are.

Two-way texting and mass messaging make communication between pet owners and veterinary teams seamless and more convenient. Pet parents will feel much more comfortable communicating with your team through common channels like SMS and email, which encourages an open dialogue and creates an excellent environment for pet care.

Personalized Veterinary Care

While two-way texting and mass messaging help promote transparency and reduce time spent on the phone, there are also powerful tools you can use to provide personalized care when the phone does ring. A VoIP phone system that syncs with your practice information management system (PIMS), for example, will provide a great experience for everyone by making each client call faster and more efficient. Most importantly, equipping your practice with a veterinary-specific VoIP phone system will make it easy to provide personalized care to the pet owners you serve.

Instead of not knowing who’s calling and having to remember names and key details, you can enjoy features like caller ID and a centralized view of all the information you need for every conversation before you answer the phone. So, the next time a pet owner calls up your practice, you’ll see both their information and their pet’s information on the screen, letting you greet them by name, ask specific questions about their pet’s health, and provide accurate advice on the spot. This type of personalized veterinary care will make your clients feel heard and assure them that your team is taking their pets’ health journeys seriously.

Building a Strong Veterinary Team

Open Communication:

A team that is open and honest with each other is a powerful one. You can encourage your team members to freely share ideas, express any concerns, and offer feedback anytime to make it known that their opinions always matter. A team based on culture, respect, and collaboration will boost daily morale and empower your staff to work together more efficiently, which in turn will lead to focused and effective pet care.

Shared Vision:

Veterinary teams are often made up of people from different veterinary backgrounds, each bringing their own unique perspective to the table. That’s why it’s important to establish a clear mission and vision to unite the entire team under one common purpose. Aligning individual goals with your clinic’s overall objectives will collectively guide your team members to achieve success together, and create a resilient bond that promotes even stronger pet care. It’s also important to celebrate any and all achievements and milestones so that your team knows you genuinely value their daily input and hardwork.

Continuous Learning:

Failing to keep up with modern veterinary advancements and technology can significantly slow down an efficient team. Keep your team moving by investing in ongoing training and education, and offering opportunities for learning and growth. Whether through things like certifications, workshops, or conferences, be sure to let your team know that you truly support their career paths and want them to continue strengthening their veterinary skills. This will make them feel valued as a team player, and motivated to provide the best possible service each and every day.

Enhancing the Veterinary Clinic Environment

Welcoming Atmosphere:

First impressions matter, especially for an anxious pet owner and pet. You can set the tone for your entire practice from the first moment you meet a new or potential client, which is why you should always ensure your clinic is clean, comfortable, and inviting for pet owners and their pets. You can paint the right picture by using calming colors throughout your practice, along with soothing decorations and gentle background music (or nature sounds) to make every client and patient feel as relaxed as possible. This will make pet owners walk into your clinic with more confidence, and feel less pressure and anxiety during their pets’ visits.

Emphasize Empathy:

You can’t read a pet parent’s mind, but you can take actionable steps toward making them feel at ease. Whether comforting clients during difficult situations or offering a listening ear, training your staff to show empathy and compassion in tough times is critical for building trust. Providing empathetic care shows that your clinic truly cares about them and the well-being of their pets, and can make a lasting impact that leads them to always choose your clinic for veterinary care.

Leverage Veterinary Technology:

Veterinary technology can do a lot of the heavy lifting in enhancing your client experience. Practice information management systems (PIMS) make it easy to store, access, and manage all of your information in one place, and PIMS-compatible veterinary technology takes this efficiency up a level by directly pairing your tools with your client and patient information. Offering a real-time online booking platform for pet owners to accurately book the services they need when they need it will immediately upgrade their experience at your practice, while also saving you and your team time from scheduling and confirming appointments by phone. Once they’ve booked their visit, you can send them automatic appointment reminders to keep their pets’ health needs top of mind, as well as health service reminders to ensure health journeys stay on course.

Maintaining an active online presence can also promote veterinary transparency for your clinic and create stronger client relationships. You can start by creating a custom veterinary website that meets all of your needs, and use social media marketing and Google advertising to spread the word about your services and get more bookings. A veterinary experience that starts by easily booking an appointment through a user-friendly and informative website will impress new and potential clients from the very beginning, and have them looking forward to visiting your clinic.

Extra Tips for Building Trust and Connection with Veterinary Clients

Proactive Client Education:

Keeping clients informed about pet care, preventive measures, and wellness is an excellent way to build rapport and trust. Consider providing informative resources like brochures, newsletters, and blog posts to empower pet owners to make educated decisions about their pets’ health. You can also offer wellness programs, workshops, or even community classes to further educate your clients, boost their engagement with your practice, and ultimately encourage them to remain active participants throughout their pets’ health journeys.

Community Involvement:

Building and maintaining a sense of community for your veterinary clinic will show your audience that you’re with them as a long-term partner in pet care, not just a service for purchase. Participating in local events, supporting charities, and collaborating with other community organizations is a great way to strengthen your clinic’s presence. Reaching out to and becoming involved in your community not only proves your dedication to helping others, but also creates stronger connections with local pet owners and businesses.

Start Caring Beyond the Exam Room

When you work together, you work more efficiently. That applies not only to you and your team’s collaboration, but also to your connection with the pet owners whose pets you care for. Reinforcing client relationships, building a strong veterinary team, and ensuring a positive, proactive clinic environment will collectively support your goal of excellent patient care. You can start taking the steps toward creating a solid foundation of trust for your practice to improve client satisfaction, loyalty, and the overall success of your clinic. The more that clients feel heard and valued, the more willing they are to trust your team for their pets’ health journeys, creating a welcoming and efficient veterinary environment for every person and pet to thrive in.