You know your clients love you, your clinic is a community staple, but business is flat and your appointments are slowly decreasing. This is an all too common statement veterinary professionals are making across the U.S., and increasingly we are turning to client surveys to try and diagnose the problem Surveys, however, don’t tell the whole story.

Jan Miller from Veterinary Best Practice says it best: “[In] a typical customer satisfaction survey, you are given choices that range from very dissatisfied to very satisfied, with the middle choice of “satisfied”. When a customer selects “satisfied” they are telling you that you have achieved the lowest level of acceptable service. “Satisfactory” doesn't sound so great, does it? In fact, I would argue that it’s insulting.” Just "satisfied" customers switch veterinary practices all the time, loyal customers stay - but what exactly have you learned from the survey question? One of your clients is nearing the precipice, but you still don’t understand why.

There is more to measuring client satisfaction than a few questions you ask your clients once every couple of  years. You can ensure more loyal, happy, paying clients by using better measures of client satisfaction that give feedback all year round.

In our previous blogs we have talked in great lengths about the importance of client churn rates in your practice. While it is still important to track the rate your business is gaining new clients versus the number of clients it is losing each month/quarter/year, attracting new clients is still key to growing your practice. 

Attracting new clients, no matter if they are a Millennial pet owners or not, is not an easy task, especially if you have been marketing your veterinary practice the same way for the last 10 years. Even if your practice still uses some out-of-date technology behind the desk (e.g. using a fax machine as a main form of communication or not having a practice email address) your potential new clients still expect to be able to find and communicate with you in a convenient setting outside of the office. 

When Banfield’s State of Pet Health 2015 was released, it shed light on some worrying statistics. Beyond reflecting the general decline in the use of veterinary services (dogs averaged 1.5 visits in 2006, down from a mean of 1.9 visits in 2001), it suggested that veterinarians and pet owners are increasingly operating on two totally different wavelengths, with our conversation topics and vocabulary diverging sharply from the common concerns of pet owners.

While the majority of veterinarians want to speak about vaccines, spay/neuter, & parasite control, pet owners are most concerned with their pet's diet, exercise, play, and emotional well-being. These differences are creating less schedule routine visits, more emergency situations, and more pet owners seeking Dr. Google.

There’s two ways we can apply this information. Either veterinary professionals must change their rhetoric to match the expectations of their clients, or we need to do a better job educating the public about why we advocate for preventative medicine like antiparasitics, dental cleanings, and vaccine protocols.

In the past few weeks, we’ve been speaking a whole lot about the momentous opportunity for veterinarians offered by Millennial pet ownership. But this isn’t to say that they’re the only sort of client that’s crucial to your practice’s success!

The treasure trove of research we’ve amassed about veterinary customer demographics has revealed three crucial pet owner profiles that amount to the bedrock of every robust client base.

And just like a healthy ecosystem, a healthy client base requires diversity to keep a practice stable in varying economic climates.  Let’s take a look at three of the keystone species: