It’s easy to concentrate on perfecting your practice, but what about your staff? It’s easy to assume everyone is doing what they need to do, but that can let issues build until they intrude on the health of your patients and the satisfaction of your clients. These tips will help you find and fix problems to get your clinic running smoothly and keep your staff happy. 

Address Client Compliance

Flat or decreasing average transactions are usually the first sign that compliance is slipping. To increase compliance and get those numbers back up, you and your staff need a plan for how things are done at your clinic and how those things are explained to clients.

When you’re surrounded by people with medical backgrounds, it’s easy to forget that your clients don’t have the same knowledge. This makes it easy to skip over important information or explain it in terms that are hard to understand by a layman. Correcting this can be as simple as going over strategies on how to talk to clients or having a script employees can follow when discussing health issues to pet owners.

Do you have a plan if an animal escapes? What happens when a pet dies? When can employees use their smartphone? Having a set of procedures helps your staff coordinate their efforts and sets clear boundaries.

What about the products and services your staff recommend to patients? Make sure supplies are always on hand for patients and recommended procedures can be scheduled so they can follow up on these suggestions.


Know How to Give a Good Meeting

Done well, a meeting can help you and your staff find and address issues, so you can give your patients the best possible service. There are four components to any good meeting:

• Have a clear agenda.
• Have some solutions lined up for problems. Even if none of them are agreed upon or work out, it gives you and your staff a starting place.
• Try to end on a high note. Your employees are going to leave thinking about the end of the meeting, and this will keep them motivated.
• Give employees a reason to show up. Food at meetings is popular for a reason: everyone likes a free lunch.

If you don’t have a clear reason to conduct a meeting, either don’t have one, or have a short one to let employees bring up issues.


Make Pets Easy to Identify

Go beyond simple medical information by having a photo and description of the pet with the record so your staff can identify the patient and their owner when they come in. This helps your staff prepare for the visit and makes your client feel welcome when they’re recognized as soon as they come in.


Using Cage Cards

A typical vet visit may only last an hour or so from when the client walks through the door to when they leave, but an animal in a kennel may be there for days. With shift changes and staff rotation, it’s important to have information about the pet on hand for whoever is taking care of the animal. Used correctly, cage cards can be an invaluable tool for safely handling sick pets.
Bright labels are great for getting important information across, whether the animal will bite, has medical needs or needs special care to prepare for a procedure. This can be combined with the special instructions section on the card for more in-depth care information.

Having a checklist card makes it easy to keep track of care including medication, food and activity no matter how many people are involved in the animal’s care. It also lets you keep client contact information at hand, so they can be reached if they need to be advised about their pet’s condition or you have questions about the animal’s medical history.

Improve Customer Relations with Identification

Put clients at ease by providing your staff with name tags and business cards. This helps to alleviate situations when a client can’t recall who they spoke to or who treated their pet. The ability to contact the actual person they talked to at your clinic saves time, and when custom business cards are paired with instructions, your clients will know exactly who to get in touch with should there be an issue.

Make Work Easier on Your Staff with Help from Positive Impressions 

Over the past decade, Positive Impressions LLC has developed products to help veterinary clinics build relationships and communicate with their staff and clients. We have cage cards, veterinary labels, and other products that can help you keep your staff informed as well as bags, cards and prescription labels to get information into the hands of your clients. Stop by our Specials page to see the newest clearance items available on our website.