All vets want their clients to be happy, their patients healthy, and their business thriving. But at times, it can seem like meeting these goals is always just out of reach - you can succeed at two, but the third evades. One way to approach this problem is not by considering each goal in isolation, but to combine all three into a single entity.
Answer this: what is the product of your veterinary practice? From a pure business perspective, your product is not just medical outcomes, but is your client experience - an all-encompassing term that captures everything from the moment a pet owner contacts you, until the bill is paid and a pet is sent home happy and healthy.
Every business wants to be the next Apple, with a disruptive technology or business model that turns the industry end-over-end and builds a moat of competitive advantage that will last a decade. But the truth is, the vast majority of highly successful businesses are not the ones that swing for the fences, but those that make continuous, gradual improvements to their core product, always adding value, always adding to the goodwill of their customer base.
For veterinarians, we need to approach our customer experience with a philosophy of iterative design. Make a tweak. Add a feature. Try something new. And always monitor the results (like your practice's churn rate) so that your decisions are informed by evidence, just as we do with our medicine.
So now the question is, how do we tell which modifications are likely to succeed, to maximize our chances of improving client experience? Easy (exaggeration, of course). A resource worth considering is a study done by Bain & Company, “The Elements of Value Pyramid,” that describes 50 ways to add value for your clients. Businesses that succeed in multiple categories have been shown to have higher revenue growth rates and stronger customer loyalty.
VitusVet’s mission to help save pet's lives meant creating an easier way to access and exchange a their medical information - an added value. The VitusVet app derives its value to veterinarians from its use by pet owners: the more people use and love VitusVet, the more valuable it becomes for every party involved. Thus, our continued success depends on providing a whole bunch of the Bain & Company “value-adds”: motivation, anxiety reduction, wellness, organization, connection, and simplification, to name just a few.
We hope you’ll agree that offering a product like, VitusVet, to your clients improves your customer experience (not to mention your bottom line). But not to get too self important, our app is just one of many tools that adds value for your clients. The most important thing is to approach your veterinary business with the same level of rigor as your medicine. Focus on improving the experience for your clients, and the good karma will return to you in droves. Loyalty, Compliance, and Better Care.
