When emphasizing quality care for the four-legged members of the family, the last thing your veterinary clinic is expecting is a last-minute cancellation or even a no-show. Not only does the pet not get the care they need, but your clinic faces an unexpected loss in revenue for the day.
An occasional outlier is just the reality of owning a business, but if there is a consistent flow of missed appointments, there are practices your clinic can implement to make sure each customer comes back.
Why Cancelled Appointments Are Bad for Business
For patients, Shepherd, a veterinary clinic management software company, says miss appointments leads to delays in vaccines and diagnostics, missed checkups lead to no chronic diseases that need more treatment which can lead to no surgery consult.
For the business, when a customer doesn’t make it to their scheduled appointment, it creates revenue volatility. The easiest thing to point out is the missed appointment fee, but it will continue to affect projected revenue even months after that missed appointment.
How to Reduce Cancellations and No-Shows at Your Veterinary Clinic
According to IDEXX Veterinary Software, there are a handful of reasons why your customer might cancel or no-show to an appointment, such as forgetfulness, financial concerns, schedule conflicts, rescheduling difficulty, and lack of perceived value.
Reminder Automation
- Set up automated reminders through email, phone calls, text message, or push notification on an app. If the automated message has the capability to contain a call-to-action like confirming the appointment, they are less likely to forget.
Utilize Attendance Data
- Sometimes there are flaws in existing policy that aren’t noticeable until a situation happens enough times to raise flags. Implementing policies like requiring deposits, limiting advance booking privileges, and offering same-day appointments could strengthen a customer’s commitment to attending the appointment.
Make Rescheduling Easier
- If your clinic is operating with a small staff at the front end, it’s possible that phone wait times could deter customers from calling in advance to reschedule. Investing in flexible options such as online scheduling, an automated scheduling system through the phone, or even an extra team member to answer the phones could make the customer experience smoother.
Overall, it’s important to strengthen customer relationships where you can. Taking the time to schedule the next appointment at checkout with rough estimates on charges can leave the customer informed on expectations. This helps your clinic stay on top of cancellations and no-shows that lead to unused staff hours, resources, and pets getting the care they need.
Author: Josh Yoon