Veterinary practice websites five biggest mistakes - It's all about the end product
YOUR WEBSITE CAN BE YOUR BEST FRIEND
Life in practice is busy. It’s chaotic. There’s so many things you want to do to grow your business, but the clinical strain means you just don’t have the time.
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Well I’m here to tell you that a top notch website can do the work for you.
But only if you get it right.
The secret to building a great website is experience. You really do need to know what you’re doing. And often, the best option may be to start from scratch and call the professionals. Of course, if you do decide to go down that route, we’re here for you.
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In the meantime, there are loads of common errors that you can tackle to make an immediate improvement to both your website and your business.
In the meantime, there are loads of common errors that you can tackle to make an immediate improvement to both your website and your business.
I like to help. So starting from today I’m going to be writing about the five biggest mistakes I regularly come across on veterinary practice websites.
Enjoy, and keep your eyes peeled for my follow ups, the links to which I’ll post at the bottom of this blog as and when they’re released.
MISTAKE NUMBER ONE: WEBSITES THAT DON'T DO STUFF
For years, we’ve been driving people to the phone.
Queries, booking appointments, signing up for PHP – everything was handled on the old dog and bone. And that system was already creaking before the pandemic reared its ugly head.
Phone traffic increased fivefold, and the inefficiency of relying on our reception teams to handle requests in this way was fully revealed.
But the fact is, it’s never been effective. We’ve all seen busy receptions rammed with pets and their owners, while a receptionist struggles to juggle dealing with their queries and handling the phone.
It’s a difficult way of working, and the level of our service inevitably suffers. Our front of house teams are there to make our clients and pets feel welcome.
They can’t do that if they’re constantly on the phone.
But I have good news. Your website is the perfect tool to make your clients, your receptionists and your bank balance better, all by funneling all of those queries from the phone, online.
MAKE MONEY WHILST YOU SLEEP
We were told only millennials wanted to do stuff digitally.
But once we were all shut in our houses, our parents and grandparents all became digital natives and started consuming online.
The more we allow people to do online, the more we’ll take the strain off your team, and the easier it becomes for you to build a successful practice.
We should be setting up our website so clients can book and pay for appointments, join pet health plans and order repeat prescriptions – as a minimum.
This cuts out so much admin. These systems connect straight into your PMS, which means appointments are synced with diaries, and direct debits are zoomed straight into your bank account.
If you prefer, you can adapt digital channels into your workflow to keep more of an eye on what’s happening, but you do so in a controlled manner, maybe to be handled in the back office, or by people off site.
Importantly, no matter how good your team is, they need to sleep, they need to spend time away from the practice. And we know that 40% of conversions, from appointments to practice sign ups, take place online while your practice is closed.
I’m currently working with a practice owner who wakes up to notifications on his phone informing him of new clients and pet health plan sign ups – and he loves it.
He made sure his website was optimised, and now it makes him money while he sleeps.
TALK TO PEOPLE IN A WAY THEY WANT TO COMMUNICATE
We’ve already touched on how switching to a digital approach improves the level of service you can provide your clients.
What we haven’t acknowledged is how difficult taking details over the phone can be for everyone involved.
Spelling out email addresses and surnames? No thanks. Setting up direct debits? Bleurgh🤮.
Even answering queries puts pressure on your front of house team to improvise responses in the moment while maintaining their warmth and charisma.
Live chats and instant messenger services are the future here. You’re talking to people the way they want to communicate.
They allow clients to send pictures of what’s going wrong. They can pop away from the conversation and return when they’re ready. They can consider their responses and they have the information there to return to if they forget – clinical information can be overwhelming.
By using tools such as PetsApp you can control replies to enquiries and make sure that every interaction is gold standard.
Script it out to ensure you’re saying exactly what you want to say every time – and also take this opportunity to funnel people towards the areas of your website that you want them to be browsing.
It all links together.
