I’ve heard the glowing “I’ve the best staff ever” praises of Veterinary practice front ends (the CSR team)—and while many are very, very good, some some simply fail to convert valuable new client enquiries into appointments. In effect, the front desk becomes a hidden leak in the practice.
Over the past month, I conducted a deep dive into the front desk of multiple practices and was pleasantly surprised in some practices—and genuinely shocked in others—calls bouncing off the front desk (not booking appointments) from untrained employees, office hours not open early enough to catch live calls and in many cases the phone not picked up over lunch, missing hundreds of calls a month, many going to voice mail with little to no follow up. And the practices with the poor conversion rates attempting to handle the drop in monthly transactions by spending even more on marketing.
Marketing plays an essential role in every successful practice—but it’s wasted if the front desk isn’t consistently answering the phone and converting enquiries into appointments.
The Current Scene
Last month, I wrote about the nation-wide decline in pet owners using veterinarians; a Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index at a historical all-time low; and “Petflation” increasing the costs of running a Veterinary practice, nipping away daily at our hard-earned profit.
With this going on, the typical response has been to hunker down and wait it out, or increase the precious marketing budget hoping to get the phone to ring and fill up the white space on our schedulers. The result? Not too much.
But maybe there’s a third approach to take that is c) to make your practice a haven of help in tight economic times with low front-end fees (all part of my “No Pet Gets Left Behind” program), optimizing the conversion of phone calls into people and pets in your practice.
So, the question is in a practice with white space on their schedule is it a) a lack of transactions coming from poor marketing, phone calls or self booking, b) calls coming in but not connecting with a trained CSR, or c) poor conversion from call to appointment on the front end?
Here’s what you can do to up your game.
Your Wonderful Backend (Often Unused) VOIP Phone System…
In the last 15+ years we’ve seen the entry of sophisticated Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) phone systems (E.g. Weave, Mango and PetDesk) and their phenomenal and robust back-end reporting systems. Modern VOIP systems track the time of day and which day of the week you are getting calls into your practice, recording conversations and even give “sentiment” analysis of the client. Often, they show that a practice may lose 20-30% of their calls by simply not being open to receiving them! Or as mentioned, closed during the day for staff lunches, missing a flood of important calls (after all, when would many working people have time to call you? Pre 7pm or during their own lunch hours!).
Spend fifteen minutes reviewing your Call Log and see when the calls are coming in, which are picked up by a live human being (Vs. AI receptionist), and which are going to voice mail. That’ll give you a preliminary glance into the full picture of your front end.
The Oh-so Humble Phone Log…
Next let’s start examining the practice front end with a simple, manually filled, Phone Log, and look and see just how good are your CSRs in converting that precious new client reach into a pet-owner and pet in the exam room.
This is best set up as a Google sheet that’s kept open and updated during the day. It works by recording the incoming call, getting the caller’s name, pet’s name and phone number, handling their enquiry with a friendly welcoming manner and scheduling an appointment, or not, and tracking the conversion by percentage and specific CSR. For example, in one practice with 3 CSRs, said phone log revealed one experienced (friendly) CSR with a stellar New Client conversion of 83%, another with just 6-months in the practice of 65%, and a 3rd with 12 years in the of 32% (who wanted a raise in pay). Why the difference? Training, communication skills and attitude.
The take home here? The proof is in the pudding – a friendly CSR can convert 80 – 85% of new client reaches into an exam with a veterinarian. A not so good? 50 or even 30%, with the remainer reaches bouncing off to other practices.
The Friendly Neighbor Complimentary Exam…
In my practice we also offered clients with new patients (I.e. even existing clients that picked up a new puppy or kitten) a complimentary visit to welcome them into the practice. This tool handled some of the financial friction that can stall or prevent a new patient coming in. I found this worked far better than trying to bribe callers with a 20% discount etc, finding the “stop in and say hi” complementary exam approach to be highly successful.
And of note, it did NOT lessen the value of our service in the eyes of the client. They, and we, thought of it more like a “friendly neighbor” introduction to our “family”.
Quality Control on your Calls
The third way to improve New Client conversion is to review your recorded calls. Using your call log to track which new clients actually book an appointment and by which CSR you get some insight into who on your front desk is your rock-star point guard of your team. You also get to see which CSR is struggling with conversion. Remember: before you jump into to correct a team member on this, first gather some data. This is where listening in on that call becomes so important. You can determine the friendliness factor, the tone and the control of the new client in getting that appointment scheduled. Are they asking enough QOC’s (Questions of Concern)? Are they INTERESTED in the client or do that simply blurt out information? These call recordings give you honest, real, closed door meeting materials with a CSR that may be struggling to schedule.
The New Client Conversion Index (NCC) – Linking Your Incoming Calls to Your New Client Arrivals…
Tying it all together, a useful KPI to start tracking is your New Client Conversion Index or NCCI. While this may lack some of the details of your Conversion Log and analyzing that every week, this is simpler to get by tracking through your VOIP System in the number of incoming calls and dividing into it the number of New Clients (our of your PIMS report).
Take the a) the number of incoming calls, b) divide into it the number of actually arrived New Clients, and c) times if by 100.
Practices consistently achieving an NCCI above 10 are generally doing an excellent job converting incoming enquiries into arriving New Clients.
The Now-show New Clients?
This is a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly common. The CSRs may do a great job at converting the call to an appointment to later have the new client simply not show up. The solution? Before that scheduled New Client gets off the phone, make sure to secure their commitment commitment to keep the appointment.
I refer to this as the Three Commitments Framework for every new client call:
- Practice Commitment: “We’ll be ready for you on time.”
- Client Commitment: “As we’re super busy, c an I count on seeing you then?”
- Courtesy Commitment: “If plans change, just give us a quick call.”
That framing feels collaborative rather than transactional, and I suspect it would outperform deposits in many independent practices while preserving the warm, welcoming first impression you’re trying to create.
Action Steps for Practice Owners
1. Review Your Phone System Reports
Log into your VOIP phone system and review the past month’s Call Log. Look for missed calls, voicemail usage, after-hours calls and busy periods throughout the day.
2. Identify Lost Opportunities
Determine whether your practice is losing new clients because of insufficient marketing, unanswered calls, or poor front-end conversion.
3. Start a Front Desk Phone Log
Begin manually tracking every New Client enquiry, including the CSR handling the call and whether an appointment was successfully scheduled.
4. Measure CSR Performance
Calculate each CSR’s New Client conversion percentage. Friendly, confident CSRs can routinely convert over 80% of New Client reaches into appointments.
5. Listen to Your Calls
Review recorded phone conversations with your team. Use successful and unsuccessful calls as coaching opportunities to improve friendliness, empathy and appointment scheduling skills.
6. Calculate Your New Client Conversion Index (NCCI)
Each month divide your Arrived New Clients by your Incoming Calls, then multiply by 100.
Target NCCI: Greater than 10
7. Secure the New Client Commitment and Reduce No-Shows
Finish every New Client call by securing the client’s commitment to attend their appointment and asking them to call if plans change.
Hope these help!
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