Is it time to move beyond the physical waiting room?
At the London Vet Show earlier this month our CEO, Susie Samuel, gave a talk about how using digital client comms in your practice can benefit your physical waiting room. In case you missed it, here are the highlights…
Ingredients of a stressful waiting room
A waiting room can be the most stressful place on earth - whichever side of the reception desk you’re on! And there are a wide range of factors that contribute to that, including having lots of clients and pets present, having anxious pets (we’ve all seen dogs shaking under chairs and suspicious wet patches on the floor!), a constantly ringing phone, a busy reception team and a queue at the desk to name a few.
However, everyone’s overall stress levels can be substantially reduced by digitising your client communications.
3 ways to make your waiting room calmer
1. Reduce the time your clients spend in there waiting!
Send info ahead of appointments. Sending consent forms and discharge information beforehand will enable clients to complete the forms at home. This will mean they’re not stood at the reception desk doing it, they’re also not having to arrive at their appointment early - so they’re spending less time in the waiting room and less time blocking the desk. As a bonus. they’re also likely to make less mistakes on the forms as they’re not rushing.
Larkmead Vets are a great example of a practice doing this. Watch the video to find out more.
Send payment links. Sending payment links to clients ahead of discharge or meds collection helps to demonetise the visit. Clients spend less time at the reception paying and the situation is more enjoyable for all us awkward lot that don’t like talking money!
Make client registration efficient. Having an iPad or tablet at reception that enables clients to fill in their own registration forms might not feel like it’d save time… But when a client is able to input their own details it’s a lot faster then spelling everything out, and it also saves on making mistakes. It also helps to give your clients agency, helping them to feel more relaxed in what is, to them, a strange and stressful environment.
Automate product ordering. Provide a method for clients to order and pay for prescriptions and products in advance. Digital Practice offers product ordering where client requests move through a workflow, sending payment links and notifications to clients automatically. Fewer clients come into the practice to order products and collections are just that, collections. The timely (and often stressful) payment bit has already been sorted.
2. Empty your waiting room (in a good way…)
Some client visits can be reduced in time, some can be done entirely remotely.
Remote post-op checks. Lots of practices have started to hold their post-op checks via WhatsApp. In this clip, Vets for Pets Northampton explain how they use WhatsApp to hold their post-op checks, and how 98% of their clients would now choose it over coming in to the practice. On top of the benefits for clients and the waiting room, remote post-op checks also save the nursing staff time which can be used to run monetisable clinics instead. Win win!
Have difficult conversations over message. Practices have reported that some clients have found having difficult conversations via WhatsApp easier than over phone or in reception. When the news is bad and there’s information to take in, it can be more comfortable for your clients to manage this over messages. They can reread the information and process it: understandably it doesn’t always go in straight away. Plus, they can have their family around them and discuss it together much more easily than in your waiting room or over the phone. So as well as being a way to keep your waiting room quiet, it’s also a caring option to offer your clients.
3. De-stress your waiting room
Avoid asking for old debt in the waiting room. How stressful is debt collection?! For your reception team and for the client being chased. Most clients don’t mean to not pay, there’s just rarely a convenient moment to call or come by. Sending a payment link makes it way easier for your clients (and your team) and removes that horrible conversation at your reception desk, that makes the whole waiting room tense up!
Reduce call volume with asynchronous messaging. Keep the phone free for emergencies and quiet for the wellbeing of your staff, clients and patients. A ringing phone is distracting, stressful and profoundly annoying, especially when you’re trying to concentrate on a patient or a client in front of you! A lot of those incoming calls are general enquiries, appointment requests or product orders that could be done faster (and more enjoyably let’s be honest!) via message. Your team can manage messages around other tasks and clients in the waiting room.
Can you think of any other ways digital client communications could benefit your waiting room? If so, we’d love to hear about them!
Hundreds of practices across the UK, Australia and New Zealand are currently using Digital Practice, and finding new ways to solve problems that didn’t even look like problems before. The system improves client satisfaction, compliance, and staff workload, so what’s not to like? And with no clunky apps to download, messages by WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or SMS, the vast majority of your clients can access it, whatever devices they’re using.
Digital Practice can destress your clients, your staff, and your patients
And we’d be really happy to demonstrate the system for you - just get in touch!
