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Many of the vets I know are busy, busy people and the stresses associated with life in veterinary practice are well-documented. The recent Vet Futures survey headlines with the statement that levels of stress in the profession are causing concern.


So with that in mind I’ve come up with an easy-to-follow 4-step guide to an easy life. It’s based on the experience of a friend of mine who was recently charged £700 for a stitch-up and who took to Facebook to complain about the price.

It’s clear that any vet who wants a quieter life can readily achieve it and this is how to go about it:

Step 1. Identify your very best clients. That’s the small group of owners who make up a significant chunk of your turnover as they’ll pay anything for their animals; so long as they perceive that they’re getting the best and ‘the best’ represents good value they will pay top dollar. For them, money is no object providing these criteria are met.

Note too that these clients are often well networked in the pet-owning community and therefore are great Ambassadors for your business: Whether you know it or not, their endorsements will be responsible for driving many new clients through your door so they’re an important factor in fuelling your busy working life.

Step 2. Having identified these core clients, do some amazing surgery on their pets using all your skills and expertise but then - and this is the important bit - fail to properly explain what you’ve done and why it has cost what it has.

Sure, everyone gives out itemised bills these days so owners should have a breakdown of costs at their fingertips, but whatever you do, make sure you do not take the time to explain the detail of what you’ve done, how complex the surgery may have been nor whether you’ve used expensive anaesthetic agents and other equipment/materials to ensure the animal makes the speediest of recoveries.

N.B. A speedy recovery is what every caring owner wants BUT it can back-fire on the vet if that recovery time is linked to the perception that you’ve spent little time actually fixing the problem. Explanations are key depending on the outcome you desire. Want an easy life? Don’t bother to explain anything!

Step 3: Sneak in a few charges that may be argued as excessive and don’t have “your ducks in a row” to defend them. For example, you might want to consider admitting the animal during normal consult hours but then not operating until after this period and adding a £250 out-of-hours fee? Just a thought….?

Step 4: When the owner challenges the bill, come up with a spurious reason for dropping the price - such as “oops, we mis-coded part of your bill so we are deducting £200” rather than “we are really sorry you’re not happy so as a gesture of goodwill…etc”. Spurious reasons are so much more effective at p***ing off the client than simply standing your ground or offering a goodwill gesture; so go for it, I say, and come up with the most unlikely reasons you can think of!

So there you have it: Four simple steps to an easy life, based on a real-time case study. Follow them on just a few occasions and you’ll be amazed just how much more time you’ll have to spend on hobbies or with your family; not only will you loose the clients to whom you’ve applied this formula but as they are well-networked they’ll have taken to social media and told all their friends and family not to come to you too. Job done. Sorted.

Post-script: This blog is not a comment on pricing structures as each vet practice will have individual costs attributed to it and will be offering a breadth and quality of service unique to that business, all of which will impact on fees. What this blog is intended to do is to make the reader think about how ‘value for money’ is communicated and the broader issues around customer care: Crack these and you’ve found the Holy Grail of veterinary marketing.
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