Why would you use a telephone answering service for your veterinary practice?
As a vet practice, you are never truly off the clock: animals can and will become unwell or be injured at all hours of day or night. So, what happens at your practice when an owner needs to contact you in the middle of the night? A telephone answering service could be the ideal solution.
We have compiled 10 ways our telephone answering service can help your veterinary practice based on honest feedback from our client base of over 400 vet practices nationwide.
1. Improve your customer service
When your customers call the vet practice, it is often because they are deeply concerned about their animal. This is especially true if they make an out-of-hours call; no one likes to call their vet out of hours unless it’s a real emergency – at least in their mind, it is an emergency.
Customers are likely to be stressed, so having an experienced call-handling team means we can calm customers and provide a supportive and polite service that is sympathetic. This helps customers feel reassured, allowing us to obtain all the relevant information to pass to your veterinary team as required.
Our clients say this helps their customers to feel at ease and has improved their customer service levels. We also ensure that vets get the right information and have a chance to make a plan before speaking directly with the customer. One client referred to this as the ‘’thinking gap’’ which has been invaluable for their team. Customers feel more confident when they speak to the vet, as the vet has had a chance to formulate a plan and prepare for the situation.
A telephone answering service also stops vets from having to answer customer calls while in consultations, which further improves customer service. Nobody likes to feel that their vet is distracted by other calls or patients.
2. Daily reporting for customer billing
We are proud of the systems we have created and how they support our veterinary clients. One of the benefits of working with us is we can provide daily reporting on calls that allows you to ensure that customer billing is actioned swiftly and accurately.
3. Protecting your vet’s work-life balance
Being a successful vet practice relies on having a robust out-of-hours answering process. For years, many small practices have relied on vets being on call with a mobile next to them all night. But this lack of sleep can have a negative effect on vets and create an unstable work–life balance.
Let’s be honest, most vets probably don’t have the best work-life balance, but the stresses of being a vet can take a significant toll on a person, with many vets commenting on experiencing issues around work-life balance, exhaustion and work stress.
Having a telephone answering service can help reduce the impact of out-of-hours calls on vets, which can improve their work-life balance and reduce their stress levels. Using our service means our clients no longer need to use a shared out-of-hours mobile or have a member of the veterinary team based at the practice out of hours to cover calls.
Instead, our team is provided with clear procedures from our clients on how to contact a vet out of hours. This can be done by call or text, as you prefer, which helps ensure the vet has the correct information on hand and gives them a chance to get going in the middle of the night.
4. Never miss a call from your customers
When customers are calling you out of hours, they are likely to be worried and may become very stressed if calls are not answered in a timely manner. As a veterinary practice, a customer not being able to get through could have a hugely detrimental impact, not only on your customer service but also on the animal’s welfare. By having a telephone answering service, you can ensure a call is never missed.
As well as an out-of-hours service, we can provide a call overflow service for busy periods to ensure every call is answered. We answer all calls quickly, within 6 seconds on average, and with a personalised response acting as your practice, so your customers never need to know your calls are outsourced.
5. A telephone answering service can filter unnecessary calls
Although most people who call a vet, especially out of hours, believe they are experiencing a veterinary emergency, this is not always the case.
Sometimes, customers call not realising it’s out of hours and just want to know when you open, and 4 am seems a great time for them to call you to find out.
Sometimes, customers call thinking something is an emergency, but it turns out to not be urgent or only requires a phone call from a vet rather than a full visit.
A telephone answering service is a barrier between the customers and your veterinary team. This helps to sift out unnecessary calls and allows the vet team to prioritise different out-of-hour calls as appropriate.
One of our clients also recently commented that it allows vets to have a chance to wake themselves up properly before dealing with the client. This helped them to make better-triaging decisions depending on the severity of the situation.
If you are a mixed practice, customers may call the wrong line accidentally. By using a telephone answering service, we can ensure that the customer calls the correct line or department and redirect the call if required.
6. Using our telephone answering service helps you to reduce costs
Using our telephone answering service means our clients don’t need to employ staff to cover out-of-hours phones. This reduces their overheads and can improve staff retention, as employees may prefer not to work overnight or late in the evening to cover calls.
Many of our clients now do not keep employees at their practice overnight, with the on-call team simply coming in as necessary.
7. If your vets are working in poor reception areas, calls still get answered
Farm and equine vets often end up working in areas with very poor reception. This can make handling calls particularly difficult. But by using our telephone answering service, customers always get through to someone who can handle their call and then communicate with the veterinary team as needed.
Many of our clients would struggle to answer calls reliably due to the poor reception in the area or when they are busy dealing with a horse or large farm animal.
8. Keep lone workers safe
We also have lone worker service, which clients use to protect their veterinary team when working alone in potentially hazardous situations. We can monitor and check in on lone workers to ensure they are safe and give you better piece of mind.
9. Robust escalations for your veterinary practice
When taking on a new veterinary practice client, we take the time to understand your working processes and ensure we create a robust set of procedures and escalation processes to ensure your customers always get the help they need.
For many of our clients, this involves taking details of the customer and the situation before passing it on to the duty vet. This typically includes the name, address, contact number, and an overview of the situation. This can be provided by phone, text, or both, as preferred by the vet practice. But we can create a bespoke set of processes specifically for your practice.
This is what one client had to say: “Your staff filtering the calls using the agreed call-flow menu helps reduce the number of non-urgent or routine calls that would take up valuable time of the clinical out-of-hours teams trying to prioritise inpatients and urgent referrals only.”
10. Dedicated veterinary telephone answering service
As a dedicated service for veterinary practices, we have expert knowledge of your industry that allows us to provide a higher level of support and customer service than an average telephone answering service. Our team is well versed in veterinary call management, and as a business, we have over 30 years of experience in the industry.
Our industry knowledge allows us to help prioritise and manage calls based on your escalation processes.
Get in touch with the team to learn more about our service.
How can Kernow Vet Messaging help your vet practice provide out-of-hours cover?
Owners love their pets dearly, and often one of their biggest concerns is how they will access veterinary care outside of normal opening hours. As such, it is important that vet practices have a clear and reliable out-of-hours process for their clients.
Why do you need to provide an out-of-hours service?
In the UK, it is a legal requirement for all veterinary clinics to provide an emergency or ‘out-of-hours’ service. This can either be through providing the cover themselves, teaming up with other local practices, or by working with dedicated emergency out-of-hours vets.
The RCVS Code of Professional Conduct states that all veterinary surgeons in practice must take steps to provide 24-hour emergency first aid and pain relief to animals according to their skills and the specific situation.
Veterinary surgeons in practice are required to take steps to provide 24-hour emergency cover. This does not mean that veterinary surgeons must personally provide the service and they are not expected to remain constantly on duty. They are, however, required to ensure that when off duty, or when otherwise unable to provide the service, clients are directed to another appropriate service.
Using an emergency vet practice to cover out-of-hours care
The benefits of using an outsourced emergency practice for your out-of-hours care is that you don’t have to provide veterinary staff to cover from your own practice. If you are a small practice, this is particularly useful as there may not be enough vets to cover out-of-hours care without overworking all the veterinary team.
However, your customers may feel upset or stressed about going to another vet who they don’t know at a location which is unfamiliar to them, especially in an emergency. When your customers call the vet practice out of hours, it is normally because they are deeply concerned about their animal. They are likely to be upset and stressed, so adding a new location to the mix is only going to make their stress levels more significant.
This can be made worse if the call is automatically redirected to the other practice without warning, as the customer may be confused about why they are not speaking to their normal vet practice. Or they may end up driving to the wrong location. Likewise, if you have a voice message that tells them to hang up and redial a different number, it is likely to add more delay and stress to their emergency.
By having a dedicated out-of-hours answering service such as ours, you can give your customer a less stressful experience. We are real people based in the UK, Cornwall to be exact, and we can reassure your customers and act as an intermediary between your customers and the covering emergency practice. This gives your customers a sense of confidence as we can answer the phone as your practice and explain the process to them while liaising with the emergency vet practice.
We can also provide this service for vet practices who are teaming up with other local practices, as we can provide cover to the whole group of practices as required. This means your customers always have a smooth process for getting in touch with a vet out of hours.
Covering out-of-hours care in-house
Traditionally, out-of-hours care has been covered through a rota of veterinary staff from the vet practice. This could include waking nights, such as in the case of in-patient care, or sharing an emergency out-of-hours mobile for customers to contact the vet directly. This approach can work well for your customers, as they feel safe in the knowledge that when they call out of hours, they will get you directly. However, it can have a huge impact on staff wellbeing, increasing work stress and fatigue, which can have a knock-on effect on customer care and staff retention.
This is where we can help. At Kernow Vets Messaging, we provide out-of-hours phone cover for your vet practice. Allowing us to provide phone cover helps to reduce the impact of out-of-hours calls on vets, which in turn can improve their work-life balance and reduce their stress levels.
We can filter out unnecessary calls and collect all the relevant information. Then we can contact the vet covering the night shift directly to discuss the information. This gives the vet a chance to wake themselves up and be prepared before dealing with the emergency client. This improves customer service and reduces the stress placed on the vet. Customers also benefit as we can answer their call quickly and reassure them of the out-of-hours process while collecting the information to pass to the vet.
How do we ensure we have clear processes for your out-of-hours cover?
When we begin work with a new veterinary practice, we take the time to design robust escalation processes to ensure that your customers get the help they need.
As we are a dedicated veterinary call answering service, we can provide high levels of care to your customers. By combining this expertise with your escalation processes, we can effectively triage your customers so that the most urgent get seen rapidly. All of our team are well versed in veterinary call management and as a business we have over 30 years of experience in the industry.
This is what one client had to say: “Your staff filtering the calls using the agreed call-flow menu helps reduce the number of non-urgent or routine calls that would take up valuable time of the clinical out-of-hours teams trying to prioritise inpatients and urgent referrals only.”
To find out more about how we can help you provide first-class out-of-hours care for your vet practice, get in touch.
I can hide multiple mini mince pies upon my person and I also have the ability to put at least 4 Cream Eggs in my mouth at once! (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME).
What would you take with you to a desert Island?
A Sat phone, a kilo bar of Dairy Milk, and the complete works of Terry Pratchett.
If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
This year Kernow Vets Messaging are proud to be supporting Streetvet as our chosen charity. With homelessness becoming a growing problem in the UK, the StreetVet team are more important than ever before. An increasing number of homeless people have dogs, and the health and wellbeing of their canine companions is often a major priority for their owners.
However, life on the streets can make it difficult to access the fundamental vet care required to ensure the health and vitality these dogs deserve. Simba, a 9-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback was involved in a car accident last year. He suffered severe fractures to his pelvis, which could have been life threatening due to his size and age. StreetVet worked with Towcester Vets to provide the surgery Simba urgently needed.
Simba’s owner was incredibly grateful and helped Simba buy a lovely bunch of flowers to say Thank You to Peterborough StreetVet volunteers Kerry and Jodie. Simba has recovered enough to begin a course of hydrotherapy to start gently strengthening his hind leg muscles. The Peterborough StreetVet team will continue to provide ongoing support as Simba recuperates.
StreetVet are a registered practice with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and have been established by a dedicated team of professional vets and veterinary nurses to bring that essential care to homeless people and their dogs across the capital. Together the StreetVet team take their experience out onto the streets of ever-expanding locations, seeking out people; their dogs living rough, and delivering care and support required to ensure their combined wellbeing.
Combined with the critical support of a host of renowned organisations backing their team of qualified professionals, StreetVet is changing the future for homeless dogs who may otherwise have to go without the care they need and deserve.
Kernow Vets Messaging will be taking time throughout the year to support the StreetVet mission by fundraising and providing support to their team to raise awareness of the charity.
How You Can Support StreetVet
You can find out more information about StreetVet here.
Give your vets the break they deserve this Christmas
Kernow Vets Messaging can be here to give your vets that little bit of breathing space, filtering out any non-emergency calls and allowing them time to prepare before responding, because who wants to answer a call about paying a bill in the middle of Christmas dinner?
Today is Veterinary Receptionist Appreciation Day.
We just wanted to take this opportunity to say thanks to all of you, the incredible front of house staff in vet practices, who are the unsung heroes of the Veterinary world. Without you, the practices could not do their amazing work caring for our animals.
Together, we have faced a truly extraordinary situation, the global Covid-19 pandemic has affected all of our lives, personally and professionally. At Kernow Vets Messaging, we consider ourselves as one team with your practice and take our role in supporting you very seriously. We have endeavored to be your one constant in this crazy period. To achieve this Kernow has been focused on three key areas:
1. Committing to the support of your practice and success in planning and forecasting for this unprecedented situation. 2. Taking proactive measures to protect and support our employees and their families. 3. A continued focus on customer service and business continuity.
To hit these targets we have had to adjust our key operating procedures, and we thank you all for your continued support and understanding whilst these adjustments were made:
1. The creation of a new operating system, allowing us to move from our existing system to a wholly digital way of working, allowing our staff to work remotely for the first time. This gave us greater flexibility, allowing your business to keep up with staffing changes and closures throughout the period. 2. The implementation of a home working policy for our staff, meaning those who needed to shield to protect themselves and their families could do so whilst still being able to work. 3. A training plan for all staff on the new system and continual training in call handling and customer service providing business continuity for your practice.
This crisis has affected us all in unexpected ways, however, we cannot deny that some of the effects have created positive outcomes. Our new system has streamlined and improved our service and our home working option gives us greater cover and flexibility for the times you need us most. Whilst the future may be much different than we expected, Kernow hopes to keep improving and innovating to bring you the best possible service. We are here 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, whenever you need us.
Thank you for your support and loyalty at this time.
01209 823 100
hello@phoneta.co.uk
