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Dealing with Internet-Savvy Clients It may be infuriating to try to interact with clients who research ailments and treatments on the Internet and then pepper you with questions that seem to challenge your exper- tise, but Christopher Carpenter, DVM, MBA, executive director of the CAPC, says that veterinary professionals should not be surprised by this behavior. In fact, many probably behave in much the same way. “Most buying decisions with today’s consumers are done away from the store or the
clinic,” Carpenter says. “The best example I can give to a practitioner is to think about what happens when you set out to buy a pretty decent-sized purchase. What do you do? If you’re like the general public, you investigate before you buy. Research shows that 75% of people make their decision before they ever leave home. The 7 seconds of truth that used to happen in a store don’t happen in the store anymore. They happen when people research a product on the Internet.” Purchasing medical services and advice from a veterinarian is a lot different from
buying a washing machine or dryer, of course. Understanding how clients behave before they come to the hospital gives practitioners valuable insight into how to motivate them to begin and continue a preventive protocol, however. “A 20-minute exam is not enough time to change the mindset of someone who’s
against parasiticides because of what they read on the Internet,” Carpenter says. “You have to tap them before they ever enter the clinic. You have to provide compelling local and timely facts and firsthand stories that position you, not a blogger, as the expert on parasiticides. That’s the first step.”
Veterinarians throughout the United
States can download localized parasite prevalence maps from the CAPC for free, at
capcvet.org/parasite-prevalence-maps/. Statistically significant data are updated monthly and organized by species.
Make the battle against parasites personal “We’ve said something like ‘Heart-
worm is a dangerous disease; you need to protect your pet’ for the past 20 to 25 years, but those days are over,” Carpen- ter says.
Messages that resonate with today’s consumers are not just local and timely; they are also relevant and compelling. Be sure every doctor in your practice can provide a firsthand account of treat- ing a pet that suffered from heartworm or another preventable parasite-caused ailment. Be able to explain in lay terms how that ailment affected the pet and its owner; what the eventual outcome was;
and how the entire long, painful and expensive process could have been pre- vented with an easy monthly medication.
Communicate early and often The messages you share with clients
are not the only things that should have changed. The frequency and process used to communicate should be different as well.
Because most clients form an opinion
about parasiticides long before their pets’ annual wellness checks, Carpenter sug- gests issuing updates via Facebook, Twit- ter, email or your blog of new local cases whenever new data is available. Local television stations and newspa-
pers may be interested in this information as well, particularly if your data reflects an alarming trend and/or differs radically from that of the rest of the state or coun- try. Reporters will also find a recent first- hand account of treating a pet intriguing. As tempting as it may be to court media, however, try to restrict press outreach to no more than once per quarter so you do not wear out your welcome.
Make the data impossible to miss You may not be able to control the
press, but you can control the space inside your hospital. “Get a white board, any whiteboard,
and put that board in a highly visible spot near the receptionist. When you get that monthly data update, pick whatever para- site is most important to you—let’s say it’s roundworm—and post the most cur- rent local number of cases on the board. It causes people to talk. It causes the recep- tionist to have to carry on a conversation about the subject,” Carpenter says. “It’s important for clients to understand that these parasites are in your town. With Facebook postings, with tweets and blogs, with articles to the local paper and with the whiteboard in the waiting room, you’ve softened clients up so when they walk into the exam room, they’ve already started thinking this may be important to them.” n
Jan Thomas is the principal of Thomas Hunt LLC. Trends magazine, November 2012
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