Promoting your practice

Depending on location, competition among vets can be strong. So, what makes a client go to one practice over another? Some might cite proximity to their home, others might say it’s because the practice has an appointment or charges the right price.

But all things being equal, there’s another factor: that clients both like and have confidence in the particular practice they visit.

With the landscape set out, it’s fair to ask practices: do you really know how valuable your clients are to you? Have you ever stopped to think if they actively promote or harm your reputation?

Of course, it might be possible to run a practice on a diet of “one-hit wonder” clients, but it’s a wasteful, time-consuming and expensive way of generating business.

It’s much better to win and keep clients by understanding their lifetime value through studying their loyalty – and one way of doing this is to generate what is termed a “net promoter score”.

The net promoter score

The net promoter score (NPS) is a loyalty tool developed by Fred Reichheld, of Bain and Company, and Satmetrix, that was introduced in 2003 and used to monitor and gauge the loyalty of a business relationship, irrespective of whether it’s business to consumer or business to business. The key benefit of NPS is that it gives insights into elements of a relationship such as satisfaction, effectiveness of communications and how well service is judged.

For some, it can be a very effective way of measuring client experiences precisely because it’s possible to see if they would recommend you to others, with answers based on a 0 to 10 scoring method.

NPS calculations

From a business perspective, understanding how the scoring is calculated is essential, as this drives communication with those who might visit you. Essentially, NPS asks a series of “why” and “would” questions which return scores of between 0 and 10. Over time, NPS allows organisations to regularly canvas clients for their opinions, asking numerous questions via a 20 to 30-second questionnaire which can be answered quickly. Because of the ease of answering NPS questionnaires, the response rate can be high.

There is a standard to scoring NPS responses:

• Those reporting 9-10 are labelled as a promoter. They are likely to buy again and promote the business to others as a recommendation. They are a great advocate for the practice to have, and they will be a loyal client in the future.
• Score of 7-8 labels clients as passive. These people fall in the middle of being a promoter or detractor. They are undecided and do not want to commit, and so do not give active responses to the questions and try to remain impartial.
• Those giving a response of 0-6 are labelled as detractors. A detractor can be detrimental to a practice, as they can become negative, give comments that will influence others, and they may not complete business transactions.

The problem for those faced with detractors is that the web feeds the subconscious. This is because consumers – clients – often look online for comments made about the products and services of a business, and this can have a negative or positive effect, and may well influence their own buying decisions.

The actual calculation when measuring NPS is a function of the total number of respondents who reply, the total number of promoters and the total number of detractors; the percentage of detractors need to be subtracted from the percentage of promoters. The closer the result to 100, the better it is, and anything with a negative should be dealt with quickly.

Using NPS to best effect

It should go without saying that NPS needs to be used properly. NPS should be important to any business wanting to know how well it is doing while helping to measure the experience of those that deal with it. Having a score for a product or service will give an insight of how well a job has been done. If the scoring is poor, a practice can see the areas that need work and take proactive action to improve them.

Having positive reactions from clients – and suppliers, too – is the basis of success and will help a practice gain further new custom while helping it grow, while poor feedback should lead to work on areas of weakness.

NPS can be used generally or specifically, depending on the strategy being deployed; for example, after a client has paid, a simple automated email can be sent asking for feedback.

It’s important to note, however, that for NPS campaigns to work, a business-wide strategy needs to be implemented and it needs to take into consideration factors such as making all staff aware of what NPS is, how the measurements work and what they mean; not ignoring or failing to respond to negative comments; and actively seeking to engage with those classified as promoters.

Think also about how you will communicate further with promoters. They may have given you a good score, but how will you continue to communicate positively with them now that you have their goodwill? And negative scores should also create the same thought process: think about how you will work with those clients that give a low score. Everyone needs to communicate effectively to clients, with the key being to keep monitoring the scoring results and act upon them.

It’s not hard to see, then, that if NPS scores are high, it’s reasonable to hope this would be reflected with a healthy practice that is growing. Conversely, if the scores are low, it can be expected that the rate of growth will be poorer.

There’s more to life than NPS

It’s important to remember that NPS is not the be all and end all of satisfaction. Any practice owner or manager worth their salt should have an ear to the ground for client feeling. It’s also fair to say that NPS is just one tool for honing the detail.

For the NPS calculator, visit the website.

• This article appeared in Vet Times (5 May 2026), Volume 56, Issue 18, Pages 20-21