Is your average client transaction (ACT) stagnant or worse, decreasing? Do you think your vet practice is charging clients based on what you think they are willing to pay, and not what your services and products are actually worth? Does it feel like you’re missing out on lots of opportunities to up your profits? You’re not alone. Many vet practices, in a sincere bid to show compassion and thoughtfulness towards their clients and patients, often under-charge for their services. Naturally, this can be harmful to the practice in the long run.
While there are many things you can do in-practice to bump up your ACT without being too pushy (better service/product promotion, expanding practice hours, etc.), you can also use your website to drive revenue and increase ACT. The end goal is to charge your clients fairly for the value you provide, while avoiding under-selling and over-charging. It’s all about striking that perfect balance so you can attract new clients and patients and continue to raise your ACT at the same time.
Why Your Website is a Great ACT-Boosting Tool
A well-optimized website for your vet practice can expand your reach and increase your visibility in your area, and thus draw in more clients. Plus, you can use your website to draw attention to certain services, cross-sell to existing clients, and build trust with prospective clients.
The key to doing this successfully is always being honest and up-front with your clients, and not being too pushy when promoting your services. If your website is structured properly, it should be able to guide your clients on a journey from point A to point B, then on to point C and D, and so on, in a natural way. Over time, you should see an increase in clientele and appointments.
Here are some of the primary ways you can increase ACT with your website:
Make Sure Your Website is Fully Optimized
A well-optimized website will do a lot of the marketing work for your practice. A well-optimized site will drive more appointments to your practice and expand its reach in the area, so more pet parents will hear about you. As appointments increase, your vet practice will have the ability to raise prices reasonably and therefore increase ACT.
Emphasize Valuable Services
Another way to drive ACT with your website is to draw attention to your most valuable services. Certain services, such as dental care, have a higher average price than others. If your website has been well optimized, it can make an impact on certain individual services. This can be done by dedicating certain pages to these high-value services, and optimizing those pages with the right keywords for Google search so they rank as high as possible on the first search results page.
For example, if you want more pet owners to come to your practice for pet teeth cleanings, we can take the necessary steps to optimize the content on your website that is dedicated solely to the topic of teeth cleanings and overall dental care. This will help the page reach more pet owners in your area. In addition, we can run Google ads for your practice that specifically target teeth cleanings to help draw in more dental appointments.
Cross-Sell Your Services
Your website is a great place to cross-sell to your clients. At InTouch, we encourage vet practices to include as many of their services as possible on their website. This allows us to create a navigational structure, together with the particular aesthetics of your website, that guides your clients on a virtual journey through your website and shows them other services they might be interested in.
A clear example would be to promote and/or link to information about your practice’s wellness packages on a page about pet exams. Since your wellness packages are relevant to the topic of pet exams, vaccinations, and diagnostic workups, a client may be intrigued (and pleased) to see that you offer affordable wellness packages that will also simplify their pet’s routine care. Furthermore, this information could encourage them to call your practice, make an appointment, and enroll their pet in a wellness package.
Build Trust
Trust sells. We recommend featuring your vets on the homepage of your website, because it introduces pet owners to the people who will be caring for their pets. Giving people the chance to meet your vets and other staff members before they come in can really build up trust and give pet owners some confidence about choosing you for their needs. Once a pet owner comes to you for an appointment, they’ll already feel some degree of trust towards your team and practice. Furthermore, if the pet owner sees the vet that they were initially introduced to on your website, they will be statistically more likely to agree to the services they recommend.
At InTouch, we implement a variety of proven best practices that maximize a vet’s online reach and visibility and help them increase their ACT. To learn more about what we can do for your practice, call (800) 493-9003!