It’s easy to focus on the extremes: consistently low-compliant clients vs. those who are proactive and follow through every time. But your practice’s biggest opportunities may lie in the middle.
I spent a lot of time as a practice manager throwing spaghetti at walls to see what stuck. Targeted calling of cancellation lists, wait lists, and lapsed patients, hosting VIP client events for top spenders, making confirmation calls the day before patient visits, daily social media posting, a website refresh — you name it, I had a noodle thrown for it. Often, my takeaway after some of these initiatives led me to wonder, “Why are we doing this?”
My pasta wasn’t cookin’ — or at least, not well enough.
And now, as a practice success coach, I hear my practices trying these same things every day.
I’ve come to realize that I wasted some effort back in those practice manager days. By chasing the bottom-of-the-barrel and cream-of-the-crop clients, I was not paying enough attention to the clients in the middle. The ones who bring their pets in for an annual exam and core vaccines, but say, “Let’s talk about dental cleanings next year,” decline that recommended prescription diet, or purchase only a few doses of heartworm prevention, “just to get them through the season.” With some targeted education and engagement, these clients are where your biggest opportunity for increased compliance (and profitability) lies.
But what were struggles for me then are outright crises for practices now. While revenue is slightly up due to multiple fee increases over the past few years, visits are down, and client trust in our experts — the veterinarians — is at an all-time low.
According to the 2025 Trust Gap Survey, 79% of clients are more likely to question what their veterinary staff tells them compared to a year ago. I thought I had it bad with “Dr. Google” a few years ago, but social media, and especially AI, have changed our industry entirely.
There are ways, though, to not only combat the forces that feel like they are working against us, but to create better, more compliant clients.
Use automation so clients get reminders when they need them
Clients can’t schedule with you if they don’t know their pets are due for exams or refills in a timely manner. While some top clients may take the time to hunt prescription refills down or get on the phone, many in the middle have good intentions but get distracted with the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
You can shift some of those middle clients to the top by making sure to collect email addresses and textable phone numbers so they can receive health service reminders in multiple ways. Vetsource’s client engagement tools, like Vet2Pet and PetMail+, let you schedule and automate reminders, taking work off your team’s plates.
Revisit your reminder cadences regularly to account for events like holidays, trends year over year, or upcoming promotions for events like dental health month.
Use data to identify the middle and spot opportunities
Take advantage of practice software reporting to take a more comprehensive look at where the gaps are and where you have opportunities to drive positive change.
For example, you can pull data from your Vetsource Pharmacy Dashboard (free for Prescription Management customers) to highlight patients who are up to date on their heartworm test, but failed to purchase preventative. Using our client engagement tools, we can send a targeted message — branded with your practice’s name and logo — that educates pet parents on the importance of prevention and encourages them to keep their pets protected. When they keep their pet’s testing up to date, the likelihood of increasing compliance with these clients is much higher than with the client you haven’t seen for two years.
Communicate with your clients frequently and often
Facebook alone is not enough; in fact, multiple social media channels are not capturing nearly enough clients for messaging to be wholly effective there alone. Vetsource’s client engagement tools can send emails to all your clients you’ve gathered valid contact info for.
Your top tier of clients are already listening. Your least-engaged clients won’t care. That middle tier of clients — the ones that will check Chewy for prices, do some Dr. Googling before scheduling a visit, or even throw some symptoms in ChatGPT — these are the ones your marketing will move. Getting in front of these clients regularly will keep you at the front of their minds when they need anything for their pets.
For example, I was fortunate to have a third of my clientele follow my old practice’s Instagram account. But through my Vet2Pet app (that’s right, I’m not only a coach, I was also a client), I had 96% reach to my clients to let them know of holiday or weather closures, new staff, community events, promotions, and seasonal information. If we’re not putting information in front of our clients, they will go find it elsewhere. I typically coach to send varying email messages with practice info at least weekly.
Loyalty programs build loyal clients
There are many ways to do a loyalty program: stars, paws, dollar-for-dollar, punch cards — we’ve seen them all. However you decide to reward clients for continuing to trust you with their pets, I’d strongly recommend that you think of your program not as a discount program but as a compliance tool.
- Clients who can earn loyalty points have an incentive to agree to try that bag of renal food the doctor recommended.
- Clients who can spend loyalty points are more likely to agree to that dental that they otherwise may have pushed off another year.
- Clients engaged in a loyalty program are more likely to book frequent visits and agree to more products and services from you, not your competitors. They’re also more likely to think of their pet’s veterinarian and staff as trusted partners.
By treating loyalty as compliance, you get ahead of that “You’re only in it for the money” line we all know and love. When we reward clients for their behavior, not their spending, we’re drawing attention to the health of their pet, not the strength of their pocketbook.
That said, costs have gone up, and services are inarguably more expensive than they were even in COVID times. Acknowledging this appropriately through a well-implemented loyalty program can be extremely powerful to your clients, especially in rough financial times.
Lean into the support for the third-party tools you use
Vetsource has dedicated managers and coaches ready to advise and assist however we can. No matter which Vetsource solution (or solutions) you might use, you’ll have a seasoned staff of veterinary professionals to help you reach your goals, discover areas of opportunity, and answer any questions you might ever have.
If you want to learn more about Vetsource, our solutions, and how we’d love to partner with you, please reach out — we’ll work with you to get that spaghetti to stick and bring your best clients to the table!
