The Hamster Wheel Veterinary Business Blog

I was reading Anthony Chadwick’s blog over on The Webinar Vet, he’s just had a bad time on an budget airline while on vacation and was bemoaning the service and business. On his blog Anthony says,

“Siena, Pisa, Florence are magnificent places. Not so magnificent is the service of Ryanair who I think revel in under-delivering…

“..Sometimes I know we, as vets, bend over backwards to give tremendous service but actually good customer service is rare. A poor company like RyanAir still does well with a very arrogant CEO leading the company. It might be good to vote with our feet… but this is conference season and I suppose we will put up with it.”

Having had similar experience with a rival airline a few years ago I stopped using the so-called budget airlines. (Aside from the fact that once you throw in all the taxes, additional fees and inconvenient flight times/airport locations they aren’t that much cheaper anyway.)

But the question that popped into my mind when reading his blog was why Anthony (or anyone else for that matter) thought it might be a better experience in the first place?

He describes Ryanair as a “poor company” but I disagree. I reckon they are actually one of the best businesses and most honest companies around.

Think about it for a second, their mission statement might actually read “we are going to cut everything-bar-the-engine (and if we find a way to do that we will) from our air service as we know the punters want cheap deals.”

They are world renowned for appalling for service, but they are a cost driven business. I struggle to think of another business as relentless in the pursuit of their objective. Ryanair will get you from A to B as cheaply as possible but they will push the envelope of their constraints in the drive to deliver cheaper flights and greater profits. (For me that’s a dangerous combination so I don’t fly with them.)

When chief executive Micheal O’Leary goes on telly, he can be inflammatory and down right repugnant in some of the things he says. But he’s honest. He doesn’t BS about how good they are for service because he knows that’s not his niche.

I’m sure most of his punters would love BA style and service. But they crave an affordable trip to Costa del Sol even more. And in these difficult times he’s pretty well placed to drive the business even higher and harder.

You can imagine the boardroom discussions:

‘Strip out toilets? Yep, because we can get 6 more seats and reduce cost a bit more.’

‘Standing on the aircraft? Right on! If we can squeeze a few more in let’s do it.’

‘Remove airline terminals and dump passengers directly into cabs? You betcha…if it cuts costs we’ll hammer it!’

‘Barely legal? Barely is just the right side of actually legal…OK, does it reduce costs? Yes? Done!’

That’s the thought process of the entire company and look how they’ve grown. Michael O’Leary is at the helm of an airline that made over 10% net profit in 2010.

To put this achievement in perspective, both British Airways and Australia’s flag carrier Qantas lose massive sums every year. Despite national media vilification with a conveyor of shocking customer service reports, Ryanair is growing and growing fast. People are voting with their feet all right, and the footfall says we like what you do.

Far from being a bad business, they are a model of what can be achieved with a clear vision, a coherent strategy and strong, prominent, fearless leadership. You may not like the CEO or the service, but it’s hard not to admire their focus and determination to succeed.

In our world, when we’re not jetting off to conferences, the application of a fraction of the vision, strategy and leadership provided by Micheal O’Leary would work wonders.

A net 10% for many clinics in the world would be a great result. Though I’d stop short of actually taking the toilet out of your practice so you could squeeze in a new consult room however!

Last week we looked at how cinemas have adapted to remain buoyant in the face of amazing threats. As the Bayer-Brakke study has shown, we are slowly losing our fight to keep clients coming into our clinics. So in the final part of this mini-series let’s see what can be learned from theatres to help us evolve.

Develop Our ‘Experience’

In my opinion, one way to start reversing the trend of shrinking footfall is to stop thinking about our practices simply as medical facilities (just as cinema stopped only being about the film). We have been very good at product development in terms of medical advances. But where we have largely failed is in thinking out the delivery of our service, the packaged end-product.

We must do as the cinema has done in the film industry and become the only place to turn to for a ‘pet health’ experience.

Instead of focussing on the medicine (which has evolved beyond what many of our clients can actually afford, understand or ethically tolerate) we should be thinking about how we can make visits to our clinic a great experience for pets and owners alike.

Out With The Old

The tired seating, the faded signage, the bad smells, the grumpy vet who scruffs the cat (yes cats and cat owners hate that), the receptionist who thinks talking to her colleague is a better way to spend the day than talking to the pets…these are the realities of the experience for our clients.

If you can eliminate them (and all the other small errors that we make everyday) then you’re a step closer to providing a great experience.

In With The New

But this goes so much deeper than that. We have to develop newer ways of engaging our clients so they want to come back. Innovative pricing, affordable healthcare plans, better recall systems (booster reminders are so passé!), the use of social media to connect rather than bore.

And even more fundamentally, I believe we must also go back to the start and relearn how to attract the right kind of vets and nurses into the profession in the first instance. We must recruit those who are a better match for the new realities of our service profession.

Simply choosing more academic types ‘because they are like us’, as an entrance criterion is not serving us well at all.

As business owners ready to hire new staff we must shoulder our fair share of the burden. We simply have to get better at developing the skills that allow us to find those human pieces that fit our own jigsaw perfectly. And we must also then learn (or hire in) the management skills capable of keeping them happy so they stay within our businesses (and profession). We do, after-all, want to be capable of attracting and retaining the best within our professional niche.

This is not pie-in-the-sky stuff, it’s very, very real and I freely share my thoughts because I believe we are in trouble. Like it or not, the numbers are not looking pretty.  With the global economic outlook unlikely to improve for sometime to come, this situation is not going to get better on it’s own.

Priced Into Oblivion

For years the answer has been to put prices up, charge more and more of the fewer and fewer. Clearly this is an unsustainable strategy when earnings growth has gone into reverse.

Though many practices charge too little and many vets are slack in charging what they should. The reality is that for all there will come a point where price increases do not work and only serve to push clients away.

Our levels of service have not kept pace with our levels of price inflation and we are now entering the territory where customers are voting with their feet.

All Action Moves

So what can we do? Here’s some tips for starters.

1. Stop and ask what it is that your clients want. Then redesign your service around that.

2. Create a vision as a leader and embed a culture that gives you a fighting chance of achieving it. That means you have to learn how to become a better non-clinical leader. You have to understand what type of personalities you need in your clinic. And you need the skills to go find, develop and reward those people.

3. Create practice environments that are fun to come to for pets and owners.

4. Place service at the heart of what we do, not medicine.

5. Innovate with pricing.

6. Innovate with access to services – times, reminders, health plans, home services…the entire lot can be turned on it’s head.

Resistance Is Not Futile

I’ve talked  a great deal about going to the movies in this blog-epic and I’ll leave you with one final reference. From here on, whatever you decide to do let’s make sure we’re actively writing the script for our own movie blockbuster. The alternative is to passively sit in the audience, spellbound and helpless, as events unfold before us. Too long have we been complacent in this way.

These are both worrying and exciting times….but in days like these, organisations daring to take risk and innovate stand to win.

In last week’s blog I explored the similarities between the threats facing the cinema world and veterinary world.

This week, let’s review how cinema has adapted and survived. As regular readers know, I do a lot of reflecting and thinking about experiences. My first thoughts on this issue took me back to the cinema I used to visit as a schoolboy, The New Picture House in St. Andrews.

It still exists today, though I haven’t been there for a while. But back then you could choose a ticket for the stalls (cheap) or the circle (expensive).

I thought for a long while that the circle might have gold lined seats. In fact it was a balcony above the stalls with identical seating. The view was hardly better as the screen was huge and there was no difference in sound quality. But you did enjoy the crucial benefit of being able to throw popcorn at the cheap seats beneath. (At the risk of being chucked out!)

We would stand in line to get our tickets and then queue again for popcorn and coke (the selection was limited). Once this was done we’d shuffle into the theatre, take our seats (which were ancient and uncomfy) see a film. Then shuffle back out into the cold night and head home.

The evening was all about the film. There was, in truth, very little else to enjoy about the theatre.

I suspect that nothing has changed in St. Andrews, but then with no competing cinema and a ready supply of Students and school kids, where’s the motivation to do so?

Not many places are blessed with the combination of isolation and wealth that so insulates St. Andrews. For cinemas elsewhere time and practices have moved on.

In order to combat the many threats to their industry, cinema has evolved. So what measures have they taken?

Price Rises?

My first thought was that they must have increased prices. Many people complain that it is expensive to go to the movies. But a little research shows that in real terms a £2 ticket to see Star Wars bought back in 1977 would cost about £9.50 today (guess what, that’s almost exactly what it does cost for a movie ticket today). So in spite of perceptions about price, it is no more expensive to see a film today, than it was 30 years ago.

Building an Experience

What cinemas have clearly been very good at is protecting their market with innovations in product and strategy.

Product range, access and quality have been improved dramatically.

New technology has been adopted to improve the picture and sound quality. The emergence of iMax and 3D as format developments is a good example of technology driven improvements to quality.

There has also been a large increase in the type and number of films shown. Some of the more mainstream theatres tend to show only a limited number of Hollywood produced blockbusters but show them virtually all day long. Whereas independently owned theatres tend to have a wider range of films catering to a wider range of tastes within their local community.

The experience of coming to the cinema has also been enhanced significantly. The seating, for example, is more comfortable; with a drink holder and reclining option it is more akin to something you might expect to find on an aeroplane than a theatre. Plus you can book online and choose the location of your seats in advance, just like on your flight!

The range of food and drink options has also expanded dramatically and most theatres have a forecourt chock-a-block with confectionary concessions all vying for our cash. Certain cinemas have even applied for an alcohol license so you can have a cold beer as you watch your favourite movie. (Not that I’m necessarily advocating plying our clients with booze!)

And of course there is almost always a complex of restaurants waiting to feed you and your family before rolling off home (in your conveniently parked car) after the show.

Where once it was about a film, it is now all about the ‘experience’.

Somewhere, in an easily accessible cinema near you, a film you like will be showing in eye-popping 3D brilliance, with crystal clear Dolby enhanced sound.

If you’re in any way excited about films, then there really is no substitute.

Innovation Rewarded

At the movies they have adopted a strategy of product innovation to meet their challenges. And it seems to be working. We are going to the movies more and leaving happy, with our wallets lighter.

If things were the same across the country as they are back in the St. Andrews Picture House I’m certain the industry would be dead on it’s feet. As it is (according to UK Film Council) film audiences are rising year on year.

So what can we learn from this example? What is the best strategy for us to help turn the tide and woo our customers back into our clinics?

Tune in for the final installment next week, Turning the Tide – Vets Fight Back.

Where did everybody go?

Back in May, I brought you news of a study that set out to investigate the reasons for declining veterinary visits in North America. The report, which was co-authored by Bayer Animal Health, Brakke Consulting and the National Commission on Veterinary Economic Issues (NCVEI), delivered findings that should be a stark wake-up call to everyone involved in the profession.

The report identified six reasons for the decline in visits to North American vet clinics:

• The economic impact of the recession; (Price)
• Fragmentation of veterinary services; (Loss of control over distribution, competition)
• Consumers substituting Internet research for office visits; (Disruptive techology)
• Feline resistance; (Cats are challenging, but we aren’t helping)
• Perception among pet owners that regular medical check-ups are unnecessary; (Promotion)
• Cost of care. (Price)

What Vets Can Learn from the Cinema Industry

As I sat on my flight home from London to Sydney last week (after celebrating my mum’s most excellent OBE award) watching my second movie, it struck me that there were some clear parallels between what’s currently happening in the veterinary industry and what has been happening to the cinema industry for years.

Threats to Cinemas

Commentators have been ‘crying time’ on the cinemas for as long as I can remember. You only have to check out any online forums for movie nerds to view a morass of negative comments on how cinemas have ‘gotten too expensive’ and soon theatres will ‘price themselves out of the market’.

However, the reality – according to statistics available on the UK Film Council (UFC) website – is quite the opposite. The latest data shows theatre audiences up from 164 million in 2008, to 173 million in 2009. This being the highest attendance level in over a decade.

Several upbeat industry insiders are quoted in the UFC’s annual statistical review describing the industry as being in “rude health”.

This seemingly healthy position however is certainly not down to luck. There is no doubt that the cinematic niche of the wider film industry has had to rise successfully to he type of challenges Frodo Baggins himself would have cracked under. And the similarities between their challenges and our own is (in my opinion) striking.

Vets vs Cinema: A Comparison

It isn’t hard to argue that we vets service a specialised branch of the entertainment industry. Pets are after all a welcome distraction to the stresses of modern life.

It is also true that on both sides of the Atlantic there resides millions of passionate lovers of both animals, and movies. The basis for each industry’s’ potential success in theory, has never been better. In our case the pet owner bond is at an all time high and (in the US at least) pet ownership is increasing.

So it is highly alarming that visits to veterinary clinics are dropping.

In order to get some ideas of how this might be reversed let’s take a closer look at the threats facing the owners of cinemas.

Video Nasty (and friends)

VCR was the first threat I remember, though I’m quite certain that the widespread post-war adoption of TV was just as (if not more so) potentially devastating.

Then along came DVDs (the death of video) and the satellite broadcasters. The problem of increasing availability of movies was compounded as the big money of the cable channels meant films that once took years to get to TV release, were now available only weeks later.

By any measure these are pretty cataclysmic changes, but worse was yet to come and in 1994 the Internet blinked into existence. Less than a decade later movies were available (legitimately and pirate) for download directly onto your computer screen as and when you wanted. In one fell swoop this disruptive technology reduced the price to see a movie to zero, while making it easier than ever to access.

All the while the rest of the entertainment industry was getting better at competing for attention, with bowling megaplexes and restaurants multiplying.

Hot on their heels were brands like Xbox, Playstation and Apple and the impact of attention grabbing games consoles on the younger generation of film-goers. Instead of heading out to the cinema for an evening, a great many youngsters had the choice of spending a night in, gaming with their friends online.

Finally, throw in the global financial disaster and the threat to everyone in the movie industry supply chain and that’s a pretty overwhelming amount of pain.

Enough you might think to give the doomsayers of cinema some credibility. Almost. Except for one small but unavoidable fact. Cinema is very much alive. Well. And for the best part of a decade has been developing nicely.

Compare this upheaval to the impacts in our industry. We’ve had to contend with the effects of disease and regulation on farming. A governmental enquiry into pricing of drugs and the subsequent loss of sales to internet sites. Internet chat room advice and online research being substituted for qualified veterinary advice as the market gets more connected.

Then add in a dose of competition as groomers, behaviourists and supermarkets cut in on our turf. Finally we have the problems of supply and demand, too many vets opening up, too few pets going to clinics to support a healthy business.

Doesn’t it all seem remarkably familiar?

The difference between the two situations is that is the cinema industry dealt with it and evolved. We vets have not and that is the greatest problem facing our industry today.

So how on earth did they [the cinema owners] achieved it, and given the astonishing parallels, what we can learn to help us adapt to our challenges?

Next Week: Part 2 – How Cinema Evolved.

Though numbers are growing, veterinary surgeons are still generally reluctant to embrace the social media phenomenon that is twitter.  For those that do, there are certainly mistakes to be avoided if you wish to enjoy social media success.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is an Internet based social-networking site that allows you to create a personal profile and broadcast messages (posts) of 140 characters (or less) to the wider Internet world. In short it is a communications tool that is being used by more and more families, friends and businesses to stay in touch with people who matter.

When someone ‘follows’ me or I want to follow someone, I always look at their post history (called timeline) to see if they are worth my attention.  There are a few types of tweet that, if someone publishes too much of, are a clear turnoff and I don’t follow them.

If your twitter followers have stalled then it’s worth checking if you are doing any of these things and potentially damaging your following.

Tweet Styles

Rather like a twitcher goes bird spotting, I’ve been ‘tweet-spotting’ to see what works and what doesn’t. So here’s a review of five styles of tweets found commonly on twitter, and why it will help your tweeting success if you use them sparingly.

Style 1: The Inane Brain

What: Posts about inner thoughts or stuff that is happening in your life that are just plain dull.

Example: ‘What a lovely day it is…think I’ll have cornflakes. YUM!’

My thoughts: Why would anyone actually care…even if you were someone I was interested in I wouldn’t care.

Effect if overused: You’ll appear to be a very, very dull person to follow, so guess what, no-one will.

Style 2: The Robo-Retweeter

What: This monotonous copycat only ever re-tweets other people’s messages.

Example: ‘RT @dave_nicol – read about dogs and cool stuff here http://13213xggh.ly’

My thoughts: I find Robo-Retweeters quite irritating and stop following them quickly as they clog up my timeline with too much junk.

That said, the ability to sparingly repost someone else’s content is great, I’ve read many useful articles I’d never have found without it. Plus retweeting someone else’s comment is a great way to compliment them – it says you liked their contribution and makes it more likely you’ll be able to build a relationship with them.

Just avoid being a Robo-Retweeter – you’ll just look like a giant, unoriginal signpost.

Style 3: The Happy Clapper

What: The only tweets are happy or uplifting quotes from famous people.

Example: ‘The greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground’

My thoughts: Too much happy-clapper gives me reflux. Seriously, it does look a little like you take way too many happy pills. The odd inspirational quote can be very uplifting, but when you’ve got nothing else to say the effect (ironically) is you look quite unhappy. Not a great public ‘look’ for your veterinary business if you ask me.

Style 4: The Salesman

What: Promotional tweets about your company’s ‘great’ products or services.

Example: ‘Our awesome vaccines are only $25 today. Get in quick!’

My thoughts: There is no greater faux pas in social media than to constantly talk about your company’s ‘cool stuff’. Most people’s BS radar is highly tuned and will smell self-promoting statements a mile off.

The idea is to get other people to spread the word about your services and products for you, whether it is online or offline. And the trick to getting them to do this is really nothing new – be amazing at what you do! Then you’ll get people tweeting, face booking and telling all their friends at the dog-park about you, no problems.

Style 5: The Reply-Merchant

What: People who only seem to post replies to messages from others (that you can’t see).

Example: @nonsensetweeter - Hey that’s great, see you at 8pm.

My thoughts: When people start messaging you on twitter it’s good form to reply. You are, after all, trying to build relationships. Genuine, honest conversations are what allow you do this.

However there is something narcissistically rewarding about people interacting with you on twitter, it makes you look and feel popular. Which is exactly the problem, because when you fall into the trap of publishing too many one-sided replies then your timeline can start to look like a weird, disjointed code. Utterly meaningless to the majority of people.

Just think how annoying is it to only hear one side of a conversation?

Though there are reasons to have open conversations on twitter, do so sparingly. It is often better to use the private Direct Message function (which only posts to the intended recipient) and keep these conversations behind closed doors. This might be a good idea for privacy reasons as well.

In Summary

There is no doubt that twitter is a versatile tool that allows businesses to have a more human interaction with existing and potential customers. The challenge, as more and more veterinary clinics wake up to this opportunity, is to keep our online conversations as interesting and relevant to our audience as those we have offline.

It is wise to mix up the various styles and don’t be afraid to inject a large dose of personality. In this way, practices engaging with their customers using social media can expect to enjoy significantly improved client relationships.

Blatant and Utterly Unrepentant Plug

If you want to learn much more about how to use twitter and all other forms of digital marketing to boost your veterinary practice then you can read a copy of my eBook, The Yellow Pages Are Dead – Marketing your veterinary clinic in the digital age, directly from my website here (International). Or you can grab a copy for your Kindle from amazon.com (US readers) or amazon.co.uk (UK).