Quick-start checklist
Your home delivery program is almost ready to go! We’ve helped thousands of veterinary practices like yours set up successful online pharmacies and we’re excited to help you do the same. Here are some important action items to help you get started.
As you go through the checklist, keep in mind that our onboarding and practice support teams are with you every step of the way. Reach out to us any time with questions or for help.
Your quick-start checklist
Schedule training with your Vetsource onboarding training specialist
If you haven’t already, schedule training for you and your team with one of our onboarding training specialists. Book your training session on our calendar or email us at [email protected] .
Our onboarding trainers will take you through an easy-to-understand, live webinar training that covers important information like:
- How to place and approve an order
- How to proactively recommend products to pet owners
- Where to find important tools to support your home delivery program
Review your catalog to exclude any products you don’t want to sell in your online store
After training, we’ll send you the information you need to access your catalog. You’ll also be introduced to your account representative, who can help you with adjusting your catalog and pricing to your practice’s specific needs.
You can prepare by starting to think about inventory and pricing:
- Which products do you want to carry online, in-house, or not at all?
- Are there some sizes that you only want to carry in-practice or online?
The default catalog pricing is designed to be profitable and our frequent promotions (which don’t cut into your profit margin) also help keep your pricing competitive. You also have the flexibility to adjust the default pricing to match the strategy you choose.
Bookmark Practice Home on every computer in your practice
Practice Home is just that — your home for writing and approving prescriptions, setting clients up with AutoShip and RemindMe, adjusting your account and catalog settings, viewing reports, and more.
Make sure to bookmark or “favorite” Practice Home in the web browser on every computer your practice uses. Place the bookmark in the browser’s bookmark toolbar so that it’s visible and easy for staff to quickly access.
You can also create a shortcut link on your computer’s desktop! Here’s how:
1. Resize your web browser window so you can see the browser and your desktop on the same screen.
2. Look for the padlock icon to the left of the URL in the browser.
3. Click-hold and drag the icon to your desktop.
4. You now have a shortcut to Practice Home on your desktop!
Add your online store to the primary navigation bar on your practice’s website
Most websites have a navigation bar near the top of the page to help customers quickly find the information they need. Talk to the person who manages your website about adding a link to your online store to this main navigation bar.
For your home delivery program to be successful, it needs to be as easy as possible for clients to choose your online store. If people can’t find what they need quickly, they give up and go somewhere else. Adding a link to that top navigation of your website makes it easy for your clients to find your online store and shop through you!
Make a plan to market your home delivery program
Now that your store is up and running, you need to make sure your clients know about it! Spreading the word in multiple places — social media, website, emails, in-practice — helps your clients remember that they can get convenient home delivery through you, not someone else.
To help you spread the word about your online store, we’ve created a Practice Toolkit with free marketing and other resources. We update the toolkit regularly, so you’ll want to bookmark that page, too!
In the Practice Toolkit, you’ll find:
- Graphic banners for your website
- Social media images and text (updated monthly)
- Information about PetMail, our complimentary email marketing program that drives clients to your store and increases online revenue by over 50%
- Resources for staff on talking with clients about your home delivery program
- And more!
Practice home delivery–focused conversations with your staff
One of the most important ways to spread the word is in your own practice! Everyone on your staff should feel confident talking with clients about your new home delivery program.
To help staff practice these conversations, it’s helpful to identify specific scenarios where you would want staff to talk about home delivery, such as:
- Offering to place an order for clients at checkout
- Sending a recommendation email when a client declines to purchase a recommended therapy
- Setting up nutrition orders on AutoShip
- Starting clients on the RemindMe single-dose preventatives program to increase compliance
You can also download and print our home delivery conversation starters cards — use them to roleplay and tape them up at each workstation to help reinforce the message with staff.
The more you practice these scenarios, the more comfortable you and your staff will be talking about home delivery — and the more successful you’ll be!
Set a goal for home delivery orders
Here are a few examples of common goals and the smaller milestone goals that can be set to help your practice achieve them.
- Increased compliance → Set a goal for the number of RemindMe orders placed in a week
- Less nutrition inventory and more space → Set a goal for the number of nutrition orders placed on AutoShip each month
- Recoup sales lost to other online pharmacies → Set a goal for the number of recommendation emails per week when a client declines to purchase in-house