As veterinary practices across the country begin to reopen, here are the top five messages you should share with your clients today. 

While I think it will be many months before the world is safe from COVID-19, the reality is most veterinary professionals will be returning to practice over the next few weeks. This transition begins with practice owners and managers creating a safe working environment for their teams. This includes providing adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), proper training on PPE usage, and ensuring correct hygiene practices such as hand and surface sanitizing and social distancing techniques are used by the team, even when working in close quarters. In addition to keeping your staff safe, veterinarians need to communicate with clients to make them more comfortable when bringing their pets into our clinics. There are innumerable rumors, myths, and misinformation about COVID-19, many involving animals. By proactively communicating with your clients, you can dispel these falsehoods and encourage veterinary care to protect our pet patients.  

Message 1: When you’re open

The first message you should share in emails, on your website, and social media channels is when you’re open. Make sure your Google Business listing is updated with current hours of operation. Many clinics reduced their hours during state and local work restrictions, and clients probably won’t know when you resume normal operations. Ideally, send these messages a week in advance and repeat during the first two weeks of reopening. 

Message 2: What you’re doing

It’s important to overcommunicate with clients during this period. Make sure pet parents clearly understand the services you’re offering. Don’t assume that if you tell them you’re open that they’ll interpret that as performing spays and neuters, dentistry, or even annual examinations. Be direct in your messaging, and consider a series of social media campaigns highlighting the services you offer such as, “Did you adopt a pet during the pandemic? We want to meet them! Schedule their first doctor’s visit, immunizations, parasite tests, and spay/neuter today!”

Message 3: How you’re keeping pet parents safe in your clinic

Many pet parents are worried about contracting COVID-19 when visiting businesses. Take this time to share the steps you’re taking to minimize the risk of both clients and staff from contracting or potentially spreading COVID-19 in your clinic. Use pictures and videos to not only show pet parents the safety protocols you’re implementing but to demonstrate how things may have changed since their last visit. Create a short welcome video that guides a virtual client from scheduling, to entering the clinic, to exam and checkout. This is an excellent opportunity to promote virtual check-in, online scheduling and ordering, touchless payments, mobile services, and telemedicine. Many pet parents have been using or heard about human telemedicine and are ordering online, so it’s important to show them you’re contemporary, on-trend and doing what is in their best interest.  

Message 4: How you’re keeping pets safe in your clinic

In addition to human safety, concerned pet parents want to know their pet is safe during veterinary visits. Create social media posts and emails explaining how you’re keeping potentially infectious animals separated, hospital sanitizing measures, scheduling changes, how you’re handling pets when the pet parent isn’t around, and address any misinformation you’re hearing.  

Message 5: Celebrate the human-animal bond

Finally, take this unprecedented event to celebrate and express gratitude for the human-animal bond. Ask clients to share testimonials or capture stories from pet parents during visits. There are countless stories of people who fostered or adopted pets during the pandemic, and those pets brought them great joy and purpose. Salute these people and proclaim to your clients the power of living with pets and respecting nature. 

These are just a few of the essential messages you should be sharing with your clients as we return to life post-quarantine. Develop a strategy, overcommunicate, remain positive and optimistic, celebrate life, and above all, do everything possible to keep the pets and people under your care safe from SARS-CoV-2.