In today's highly digital age, consumer communication preferences are rapidly shifting as new tools and technology enter the market. If your aim is to keep current customers satisfied while also attracting new clients to your practice, the way you conduct business must also shift in order to accommodate consumer priorities.
Did you know that 65 percent of consumers feel more positive about businesses with text messaging capabilities, than they do about businesses without them? That means interrupting a client's day with a phone call and a voicemail is no longer the way to go, while sending a quick text they can view at their convenience is a much better bet.
The ability to satisfy today's consumer preferences is one of a host of reasons we're excited to announce Auto DX Alerts, a technology solution newly developed out of Market Hound. Auto DX Alerts pulls heartworm and fecal test results directly from your practice management software and notifies clients of negative results automatically via text message - which opens up time for your team to take action on those patients whose results come back positive.
From increasing peace of mind, to building trust, to freeing up busy schedules and more, below are four reasons we know automating lab result communications with Auto DX Alerts will improve satisfaction not just for your clients, but for your team, too!
1. Auto DX Alerts provides peace of mind
Conventional wisdom may be that "No news is good news," but there's a reason the expression was first penned in the year 1640: it's dated! Today's veterinary customers are far more inclined to agree with the Zac Brown Band philosophy, "There's no dollar sign on a peace of mind." And it's not just clientele - veterinary professionals agree.
Kenneth Brock, Practice Manager at Highway 58 Animal Hospital in Tennessee, recently introduced Auto DX Alerts into his practice, sharing that he's never been a fan of the no news is good news frame of mind. "I'd much rather us give clients all the information. It eliminates any doubt. That way the get the alert, they get to say 'okay, great,' and then they can move about their day."
In human telehealth, recent studies reveal that patient satisfaction increases between 77 and 96 percent when text messaging is implemented. So you can enhance your own peace of mind as well, knowing that far from being an intrusion, your customers want to hear from you via text.
2. Auto DX Alerts builds trust and positions you as the expert
If there is an opportunity to engage in a high-quality communication touch point with your clients, especially if the experience is quick and easy for you to implement, and seamless for your customers to receive, why not take it? All outgoing text messages sent through Auto DX Alerts are fully customizable, so the words you choose and the tone you craft can easily stay upbeat, informative, and on-brand.
Kenneth Brock believes the wording of the text messages carries the added benefit of highlighting the clinical aspect of the exchange. "A lot of times in veterinary medicine, we have the tendency to water things down. These messages convey that there are actually things happening with pets on a scientific level. It strengthens client mentality that they're paying for real medicine, and actual professional opinions."
Another plus? Auto DX alerts can improve compliance. If a fecal or heartworm test isn't important enough to report a negative outcome to a client (as in no news is good news), they may have a hard time understanding why the test is important enough to opt into in the first place. Communicating a negative test result to customers every time, along with a suggested action item ("Continue to keep up with preventative medications," for example), emphasizes the importance of the test and reinforces your clinic's position as the trusted experts in their animal's care.
3. Auto DX Alerts saves everyone time
Most games are good fun, but one game nobody likes to play? Phone tag. Despite telling clients that "no news is good news," every clinic we surveyed as part of an Auto DX Alerts beta program said that clients still call in to check on their pet's results, tying up phone lines. To make matters worse, Kenneth Brock says, "many times we call a client and their voicemail is full. They call us back sometime later and we have to track down who was trying to speak with them. On any given call, it can take four or five minutes just to find that out."
Auto DX Alerts reduces the number of outbound and inbound calls discussing negative test results, meaning front desk team members and vet techs can focus on patients with positive results - and since less than five percent of tests come back positive, the technology does the lion's share of the work.
Just how much time can a team expect to save each week? Our beta practices average between 50 and 100 fecal and heartworm tests per week. With approximately five percent of those results being positive, that leaves between 47.5 and 95 negative results each week. Inbound and outbound client calls last an average of two to 10 minutes, so even with conservative estimates, veterinary teams can look forward to saving between 1.6 and 3.2 hours each week.
4. Auto DX Alerts is easy to set up, and easy to communicate
No one needs another complex "thing" to manage, and that certainly goes for busy veterinary care teams, who already face packed schedules on a daily basis. For Kenneth Brock, that's why the simplicity of the Auto DX Alerts back end set up was particularly key. "It's such a simple integration. It was very little effort on my part to get things up and running, and it has been very little effort for me to check and make sure it's going right."
Besides ease of set up, it's also very straightforward to communicate process expectations both to customers and to team members. "All you have to do is tell clients they'll be receiving the message by text if it's negative, and if it's not, we'll be calling them to talk over those results and what our course of action should be," says Brock. And because your team knows exactly what is expected of them, there's less room for error.
Auto DX Alerts takes what is an often overlooked client touchpoint, and turns it into an opportunity to build trust, deliver on consumer communication preferences, save time so that your veterinary team can spend their precious minutes elsewhere, and improve satisfaction for all parties.
Find out more about Auto DX Alerts and what automating the communication of diagnostic test results can do for your team and your patients, here: https://www.pattersonvet.com/cp/auto-dx-alerts-cpm
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