{"id":3172,"date":"2014-10-06T09:57:23","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T13:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/?p=3172"},"modified":"2014-10-07T10:43:43","modified_gmt":"2014-10-07T14:43:43","slug":"pet-owner-data-collection-ways-making-pet-owners-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/pet-owner-data-collection-ways-making-pet-owners-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"Pet Owner Data Collection: We Have Ways Of Making Pet Owners Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sarah.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2413 alignleft\" alt=\"sarah\" src=\"http:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sarah.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"244\" \/><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This post is part two of a three-part series on data collection for veterinary practices. <a title=\"Can collecting data on local pet owners help your practice?\" href=\"http:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/can-collecting-data-local-pet-owners-help-practice\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read part one here<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no better way to understand your clients than to simply ask them. Unlike Google, Facebook and Amazon, as a veterinary hospital owner, you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have ready access to freely shared information that you can mine for consumer behavior clues. Your approach to collecting information about the pet owners who come to your practice must be decidedly more low-tech.<\/p>\n<h2>Effective Methods for Finding Out What You Need to Know<\/h2>\n<p>Three useful consumer data collection methods that can work well for your veterinary hospital practice are comment cards, email surveys and contests.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Comment cards<\/b> are a simple but effective way to give pet owners a chance to provide feedback about your practice and let you know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to them. Ask pet owners to take a few minutes to fill out the cards either before or after their appointment. Define your objectives and include only relevant questions. Keep the survey brief and mix it up with both multiple choice style and open-ended questions.<\/li>\n<li>You can use <b>email surveys<\/b> to follow up with pet owners after they have been in for an appointment, ask more in-depth questions after an initial comment card survey has been filled out and reach out to clients you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen recently. Like comment cards, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to define a specific topic and focus on questions that will help you make more informed decisions about your practice. Schedule your survey to go out at night or on the weekend when pet owners are more likely to have the time to respond.<\/li>\n<li>A <b>contest<\/b> is also a good way to learn more about pet owners. Include demographic and brief survey questions as a part of your contest registration.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Dangle a Carrot to Move the Horse<\/b><\/p>\n<p>To boost your response rate, offer pet owners an incentive to complete any feedback request. With comment cards, include a treat for their pet or a coupon for a retail item purchased at your hospital. With an email survey, offer a discount on their next wellness visit or grooming appointment. You could also partner with another local business, like a pet-friendly restaurant, and offer respondents a coupon toward a meal out with (or without) their pet. With a contest, the prospect of winning a prize like a gift certificate or a pet accessory like a luxurious bed or feeding station is an appealing built-in incentive.<\/p>\n<h2>Tell Pet Owners Why<\/h2>\n<p>Be sure to tell your clients why you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re soliciting this information and why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relevant to them. Are you using the information to more effectively meet their needs? To improve customer service? To expand the veterinary services you offer? They should understand how this information will be used to serve them (and their pets) better.<\/p>\n<h2>Check Out Part Three of Our Series<\/h2>\n<p>So: you know gathering pet owner data will give you valuable information you can use to improve and grow your practice, and now you also know three useful methods to collect pet owner information. But what exactly should you be asking pet owners? What information will be the most useful to you? What do you need to know to make the best decisions that grow your practice? Stay tuned for the final article in this pet owner data collection series where we help answer those questions!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Copyright \u00c2\u00a9 VetNetwork, LLC<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>VetNetwork<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u201c Marketing Solutions for Veterinarians and Veterinary Hospitals<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/\">www.vetnetwork.com<\/a><br \/>\n603-743-4321<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learn about effective methods of pet owner data collection in part two of this three part series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3172"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3174,"href":"https:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3172\/revisions\/3174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetnetwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}