1 Jan
Video solutions and remote access are increasingly being used to give clients new ways to interact with their veterinary practices. This should not be seen as a threat and instead the growth of digital engagement should be embraced for the opportunities it provides, as Ben Sweeney explains…
Image © iStock.com / yaophotograph
Do you remember the good old days? Simpler times? When life was straightforward? No phones, no email, no social media. Well, not to burst the bubble this early in an article, but those days are gone.
More than 60% of pet owners in the UK are millennials or Gen-Z and classed as digital natives, meaning they have grown up with all of the stuff that many of us have had to adapt to – to many of them, even email is obsolete.
Alas, with this new era of pet ownership comes a new era (and new opportunity) for the veterinary profession. In this article, we look at video solutions as part of your veterinary business, but in a broader sense this topic is related to “remote access” to veterinary expertise.
Not just should you use them, but how can you use them to keep your vet clinic central to your client journey and make financial sense.
Let us start by just clarifying one thing: video access to vets does not sound the death knell for veterinary practice as we know it, quite the opposite in fact. You cannot replace the vet digitally, but you can augment physical vet services by providing wrap-around care, either via your own team or via outsourcing.
I remember hearing Alison Lambert once say that “we have to be where our clients are when they want us nowadays”, and digital engagement gives us that opportunity. After all, if we aren’t in this competitive landscape, you can be assured that someone else will be.
In times gone by, the vet was the only source of information about sick pets. No internet searches, no social media experts, no witchcraft peddlers… you get the point.
However, during the past 20 or so years, the world has changed beyond recognition to some and with that change comes a whole new set of customer behaviours and expectations.
Most notably the “I want it now mentality”. Why? Because they can get it now from things like internet searches and social media “experts”.
Costs of living are ever increasing and people are delaying coming to the vets for fear of the fees, or looking for advice elsewhere to allay any fears and concerns.
We have all seen those clients who have come in for an emergency appointment at 6.25pm on the Friday you are meant to go on holiday because their dog is dying from bone cancer but just has a torn nail; we have all seen those cases of one bout of slightly loose stools who have IBD or bowel cancer at fourth months old because people have sourced somewhat sketchy information from Karen, the breeder off of social media.
Equally importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, we have all seen those cases that should have come to us sooner that have been losing a bit of weight, but just got advice to switch to a high-protein diet, yet they have a huge abdominal mass that we may have been able to do something about if they had seen a physical vet sooner.
The challenge we have as a profession is that we are struggling to cater to demand as it is, let alone adding additional services that we staff for internally. Woe betide the clinical director or boss who informs their team they will be doing more.
Recruitment (for most people) is a nightmare and staffing costs are high as well as other operational costs.
Running video services can take up a lot of resource when staffed internally and move people away from what they are actually employed to do.
So, how do we incorporate new services without breaking our teams?
Pet owners want a real personal connection. As a profession, we have an army of veterinary professionals who we aren’t offering true work flexibility to, and perhaps, more importantly, aren’t using directly as a part of our practice offerings. Whether they are parents with childcare commitments, or simply that they want to balance their clinical work with other alternatives as a part of a portfolio career.
Our expertise is with us whether we are in the clinic or away from it, and video/remote services give us an opportunity to use those people and their expertise to alleviate the pressure on our teams in-house and to drive success for our practices.
For those of you who worked seven days a week, 18 hours a day, I take my hat off to you. However, the reality is that for the vast majority of the workforce nowadays, that is neither an option and certainly not appealing.
Equally, if you don’t have to then why would you? The face of our profession has evolved, but sadly our work styles haven’t kept pace.
There is an assumption that there aren’t enough vets, but in reality, as evidenced by the BVA in its research published earlier in 2023, vet and nurse numbers remain fairly level, but the number of hours worked has reduced while pet ownership has increased.
Remote and digital solutions offer us the opportunity to engage this army of vets and nurses to support our clinics and their clients.
Synchronous (real time)
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Real-time conversation | Expensive to run and staff |
Some PMS can offer them for you to staff | Need client to book a consult and find a time to suit them |
Useful for escalation of more complex cases | Hard to document every word and add to PMS-leaves gaps for owner misinterpretation |
Opportunity for revenue generation | Limited to fixed timeframe |
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If a case changes then the owner needs to rebook another consult |
Traditionally, we think of everything as a “consultation”. However, with the dawning of new technologies, we can use different types of “consultation”.
Video can be largely categorised into two groups, each of which has its pros and cons (the lists here are by no means exhaustive, but give you some idea)
This is what everyone first thinks of when they hear the word video consult – two people (or more) face-to-face on a video platform chatting about the case.
It enables a pet owner to have a video chat with a veterinary professional and discuss any case.
This is a conversation made up of a series of interactions – a back-and-forth. Think like a text message or WhatsApp conversation.
Video is a great way to personalise this when in a clinical context; by always giving a pet owner a video answer to everything they ask, they know it is a real veterinary professional speaking to them, not a bot (people in general don’t trust bots and webchat with emotive subject matter like their pet).
Asynchronous (non-real time)
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Instant access for pet owners 24/7 | Some people want a face-to-face conversation |
The consultation doesn’t “run out” until the owner is happy with the solution, meaning the pet owners have constant support | Not everyone has a smartphone |
Less expensive to outsource | Relies on practices being able to inform clients about new tech |
Owners can use text, video, pictures so a much easier way of obtaining information about a pet | Can be hard to staff 24/7 in house |
The whole conversation is saved so the owner can review the conversation and all info can be added to the PMS |
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The biggest consideration of all here is how do you plan to staff for providing your digital services? Every practice has a different “why” for their use of different tools.
Do you staff it yourself or do you outsource and trust someone else to help you and your team? Bigger organisations may well be able to staff these services themselves, but for the thousands of independent practices, this is less of a viable option.
Some practices that are larger may be able to allot some of the working week for people and offer internal flexibility for the working week, such as three days physical and one day digital working week.
It is important to note that communication is very different in a digital world and having vets/nurses trained to perform this method of information gathering and sorting is key to success. Don’t send your team into battle with a plastic knife.
Traditionally, we as a profession haven’t been great at letting go of control – perfectly understandable, what if other people say something to your clients that you wouldn’t yourself?
You may choose to use it just while you are open and staff it with your team.
You may choose to just use it when you are closed and outsource.
You could even use it 24/7 and outsource to take the pressure off your in-house team and be seen to be proactive in supporting them and their workload. Ultimately, those decisions lie with you as best to suit your business.
Video services can act as a “top of funnel” opportunity for veterinary clinics in the modern age, a way for vet practices to be in contact with their clients 24/7 and to make the services profitable.
Vet practices are, naturally, concerned that digital services will cut them out the loop and reduce revenues for their practice, but have the ability to disable competition by bringing these services in-house and offering them to a client, meaning that you can offer a fully comprehensive service: so why would your clients ever need to go elsewhere?
Many clinics are understandably wary that using video consults will reduce profitability and drive clients away from the clinic rather than towards it. However, if you take a view that these services present an opportunity to engage clients and validate trips to the vets as well as inform their journey, then it creates a perfect blend of opportunity to drive both customer experience enhancement as well as revenue and profitability of your clinic.
For example, let’s consider two use cases:
By using video, she can be reassured that Jack is okay, advised what to monitor for and advised to go to her vet with a faecal sample (demonstrated how to collect) in the next day or two. This drives increased diagnostics and revenues for the clinic, a more accurate outcome for diagnosis as we all know how many cases never bring an appropriate sample, and also means Mrs Jones feels well supported.
Both of these cases can be managed by remote teams supporting your clients while you are asleep, out with the family or, dare I say it, having some recreational time for yourself.
Vet practices are concerned that digital services will cut them out the loop and reduce revenues for their practice, but have the ability to disable competition by bringing these services in-house and offering them to a client, meaning that you can offer a fully comprehensive service: so why would your clients ever need to go elsewhere?
USE CASE | CURRENT ISSUES | OPPORTUNITY | BENEFIT |
---|---|---|---|
Everyone all the time |
Teams can’t cope with demand |
Outsourcing enables a clinic to have more touch points with clients |
Drive more high-value, revenue-generating work to the clinic |
Health plans |
Very few include digital vet services, some starting to have higher churn rates |
Include a video solution as part of your health plans |
Drive engagement, growth and retention of health plan customers. Instantly profitable as a service offering. |
Out of hours |
Many practices closed more than 50% of the week and clients have to go to OOH |
More than 90% of questions asked by clients OOH not necessary |
More than 90% of questions asked by clients OOH don’t need emergency vets and can return revenue to host practice instead |
Daytime |
Demand outstripping supply for services |
Take off some of the strain |
Bond clients to the clinic, alleviate pressure on the team |
Triage and advice |
Dr Google |
Put a vet at the same convenience as a Google search |
Limits misinformation and maximises your chances of creating a touch point with your clients |
Chronic conditions |
We only see most cases once or twice per year at best |
More frequent touch points |
Earlier detection of changes, more frequent driver opportunities to physical services, for example, diagnostic monitoring, imaging |
Every practice is different, and certainly one thing that we have never been very good at as a profession is accurately charging for services that we deliver. With every new service evolution, it presents an opportunity for us to create either direct or indirect revenues, or even both.
Video services are not the future. They are the present, and many businesses have already used them to great effect.
There is a huge opportunity for veterinary clinics all over the UK and globally to benefit from these services and support not just clients, but also their in-house team.
It isn’t really a question of if these services will be the norm in veterinary practice, but when.