Soliciting and Acting on Client Feedback = A More Successful Practice

Veterinary practices must continually grow, update, and improve to meet the modern pet owner’s evolving needs. Fortunately, no guesswork is required—this can be achieved by soliciting and implementing client feedback. Your clients can identify the weaknesses and strengths of your practice dynamic and your team’s performance, and you can use their feedback to fine-tune the client and patient experience, deliver better care, and strengthen your reputation.

Client feedback: When and how to ask

Knowing when and how to solicit client feedback—and ensure those clients follow through— requires a thoughtful balance of appreciation for their input and time. Like you, your clients are busy and overwhelmed by constant demands for their attention, both digital and otherwise.

To ensure your request is met with positive, timely action, you must carefully plan and strategize your approach so that the client understands how sincerely you value their opinion and perspective and respect their time.

Selecting the best platform or channel

Convenience is king when it comes to successful client engagement. Consider using one or more methods—not all at once—to capture different age groups and client preferences. If you have already integrated popular digital options in your practice management software, you can easily initiate timely requests based on specific services. Feedback channels include:

• Text messaging
• Email surveys
• Two-way messaging or chat via a pet portal or practice app
• Search engine ratings and reviews
• Social media
• Follow-up phone calls

To ensure an adequate response sample, employ at least one direct contact method, such as a follow-up phone call, mailed survey card, or personalized email, so that less tech-savvy clients also feel heard and appreciated.

Messaging Matters: Keep it simple to ensure engagement

Clients will more likely share their experiences and provide constructive feedback if your requests are simple and direct or require only quick action (e.g., ranking the experience on a number scale or range of smiley faces). Also, keep questions specific and open-ended, so the responses are not biased. Limit the number of questions to ensure clients complete the survey, questionnaire, or review process. Remember—asking fewer questions and receiving detailed answers is better than dozens of unfinished surveys or star-only reviews.

Finally, engage clients within a few days of their appointment, while their experience is still fresh.

Taking the good with the bad: Evaluating client feedback

Review client feedback the day you receive it or in weekly batches, looking for responses that suggest actions you can take—and red flags. While various tech tools are available to analyze your response data and engagement on a granular level, you need only a critical eye and an open mind to turn client feedback into practice prosperity.

Screen client responses for specific criteria, such as:

• What’s going well — Five-star reviews and praise do more than make you feel good—they let you know where your team’s efforts are successful and can help maintain quality standards.
• Problem areas — Negative feedback may sting, but should prompt a careful review of the patient or client record and discussions with the team. Once you have a clearer picture, consider how you could have improved the situation. One unhappy client may not warrant broad-scale change, but more than one complaint about the same issue (e.g., wait times, poor communication, patient condition) deserves immediate focus.
• Polite concerns — These are small issues that may be sandwiched between compliments in a positive or neutral review that should be considered a favor from the client, because they are calling your attention to an issue that could grow into a larger problem.
• Threats or challenges — Cyberbullying should always be taken seriously. The AVMA Reputation Management Toolkit provides free help resources for responding to and recovering from threatening or hostile communications.

Feedback, reviews, action! How to make client input work for your practice

Once your clients have spoken, turn their relevant responses into positive change with these easy steps:

• Prioritize practice needs and goals — Rank actionable information according to relevancy and urgency and then determine how you’ll address each area of concern.
• Acknowledge and celebrate wins — Give your team proper dues for glowing reviews and individual recognitions. Such gestures not only enhance team morale but ensure consistent, high-quality service.
• Invite team members to the conversation — Discuss concerning reviews at a team meeting and collaborate on potential solutions.
• Run a tech health check — Software automations and workflow tools can enhance the client experience, reduce errors, and ensure communication flows smoothly between pet owners and your veterinary team. Ensure you use your practice management software to its fullest capacity to maximize face time with clients and ensure they feel heard and supported long after the appointment is over.
• Reward clients for their opinions — Build a habit of ongoing communication by incentivizing client feedback with free ancillary services, prizes, or discounts on future care.
• Follow up with your clients — Turn client responses into continuous conversations. Follow each client review, survey response, or comment with a personalized message thanking them for their time and effort and expressing your appreciation for positive reviews, or explaining how you plan to address their concerns or issues. Once you’ve implemented these changes, invite the client to see what you’ve done.

Make it a habit! Keep your finger on the pulse of client experience

Do not solicit and incorporate relevant feedback only occasionally. Rather, turn the feedback into an ongoing dialogue between your practice and clientele that you build through regular engagement with your clients. Request feedback directly (e.g., surveys, follow-ups, review solicitations) and within the online community of your social media pages to ensure you stay on top of what’s going right and what needs improvement.

In addition to providing key insights that strengthen your business and ensure you’re meeting the modern pet owner’s needs, frequent client interactions—and obvious implementation of relevant feedback—not only provide key insights that strengthen your business but also turn clients into loyal customers. You will meet the needs of today’s pet owners when you clearly value their business and opinions and treat them as true collaborative partners in their pet’s veterinary care.