5 Types of Veterinary Practice Metrics You Should Be Tracking
The veterinary industry is continually evolving, and in today's competitive market, where there are multiple independent practices in most cities, running a successful veterinary practice requires more than just exceptional animal care. With the level of competition high and the rise of corporate practices further complicating things, today's veterinary practice owners need to be dialed into their practice's performance and have a thorough understanding of their expenses, efficiencies, marketing efforts, client acquisition and retention rates, and more.
Staying on top of all of these moving parts can be challenging for any business owner, but understanding what metrics and measures matter most can help practice owners cut through the noise and track the things that actually give them insights into how their practice is trending toward their goals. Whether your practice is already tracking everything under the sun or you're just getting started, we'll cover a few key veterinary practice metrics, discuss why they matter, and break down what insights you can gain about your business from each of them.
What Are Veterinary Key Performance Indicators?
Before we dive in, let's get a few definitions out of the way.
Veterinary Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) refer to concrete, quantifiable measures reflecting a business's critical success factors. For veterinary practices, KPIs guide tracking, from financial performance to client satisfaction and operational efficiency, and everything in between. The proper KPIs will give actionable insights to allow you to tweak your strategies and, therefore, achieve your business objectives faster and more efficiently.
Why Tracking Veterinary KPIs and Metrics Matters
Tracking veterinary KPIs and metrics can be a major endeavor, especially for smaller practices with limited staff, but establishing these KPIs and tracking them accurately is crucial due to the insights and information these stats and measures offer. Keeping a historical record of these veterinary KPIs can provide a clear picture of your business's health over time, highlighting what's working and what's not while also giving insight into seasonal trends. This insight allows you to make strategic and data-driven decisions that can lead to improved efficiency, enhanced client satisfaction, and increased revenue.
As an added bonus, understanding your metrics helps in setting realistic goals for your practice's growth and establishing personalized benchmarks for your practice's performance, enabling you to measure progress over time, and without comparing yourself to other clinics that don't operate under the same circumstances as you.
Revenue KPIs
1. Total Revenue
Total revenue is a core performance metric for indicating the overall financial performance of your practice. This will help you learn the growth trends and seasonality of your business. This information should be a guiding light for you in your budgeting and investment decisions.
While a number of the stats we cover in this blog can be considered "nice to have" data, your total revenue is a metric every single practice should be accurately tracking without exception. You should always know your practice's financial performance and expenses, even if it means bringing in outside help, like an accountant, to do so.
2. Revenue Per Visit (RPV)
RPV is total revenue divided by total visits. This metric offers insight into how much money is earned per visit, thereby allowing profitability to be measured based on individual visits. This could underline how effective your pricing strategy and your service offerings are.
3. Revenue by Service Category
Revenue broken down by service category — consultations, surgeries, diagnostics — may show what is most profitable and where growth or improvement opportunities are likely to be.
4. Average Transaction Value
ATV is the average value consumed by each client in one transaction. If you can improve the ATV, it will bring a huge change in revenue. Adopting strategies like creating bundled services or upselling services to clients can be very effective.
Client KPIs
1. Client Retention Rate
Client retention rate is a simple yet powerful metric. Your overall client retention rate is the number, expressed as a percentage, of clients who have continued using your services for a specified duration. High retention rates reflect greater client satisfaction and experience in interactions with your practice. If you're already providing exceptional care and customer service, but still not happy with your current client retention rates, you can implement strategies to improve overall retention, like loyalty programs, follow-up calls, and personalized client communication.
2. New Client Acquisition Rate
This aids in checking on the acquisition rate, hence the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. In case of failure to attain an appreciable acquisition rate, then you may have to rethink your marketing means or find new channels.
3. Client Satisfaction
The online reviews your clients leave will give you insights into exactly what your clients think of your practice and how good or bad an experience they've had at your clinic. These are very descriptive for your rate of client satisfaction when one monitors them for their reviews and the feeling therein. No clinic will ever have 100% client satisfaction, so regularly being in touch with what your clients say about you or gathering feedback from their experience will let you know whether your practice is on the right track or even give you some new ideas for changes or enhancements to make.
Efficiency KPIs
1. Appointment Utilization Rate
The appointment utilization rate is the percentage of the available slots occupied. A high rate means good and effective use of time or resources, while a low rate can mean a host of problems from inefficiency in scheduling to spikes and slacks in demand.
2. Average Appointment Duration
The average length of an appointment is a good measure of the amount of time spent with clients. If appointments generally run much longer than anticipated, that could be an indication that the process needs to be reviewed or adjusted in the booking procedures.
3. Inventory Turnover Rate
Inventory turnover rate: This considers the speed at which your inventory is being sold and replaced within a period. The high rate of turnover would always mean that your inventory is well managed, while the low rate may mean overstocking or having slow-moving items that tie up capital.
4. Operational Cost Per Visit
This metric calculates the cost incurred per client visit, including staff wages, supplies, and overheads. Keeping operational costs in check is vital for maintaining profitability. Regularly reviewing and optimizing your expenses can lead to significant cost savings.
Staffing and Culture KPIs
1. Staff Productivity
Staff productivity measures the quantity of output by each employee for every hour worked. High productivity will demonstrate that the team is motivated and efficient, while low productivity may underline some problems, such as a lack of adequate training or poor morale.
2. Employee Turnover Rate
The employee turnover rate is the number of staff members who leave your practice over a certain amount of time. A high turnover rate is costly and disruptive. It may indicate problems with workplace culture, compensation, or job satisfaction, which will certainly benefit from being addressed to improve retention and build a more stable team.
3. Employee Satisfaction
Employee satisfaction surveys provide information on how staff feel about the working environment, management, and overall job satisfaction. High satisfaction rates usually indicate better performance and low turnover rates. Employee satisfaction can stem from a number of factors, including compensation, work-life balance, practice culture and environment, and more, so being nuanced in your approach to tracking satisfaction can never hurt!
4. Training and Development
The veterinary industry is dynamic, and sometimes, that change is in the form of new techniques or technological devices. The hours and resources that go into the training and development of staff can be seen within the lens of your team being well up-to-date regarding what they are doing. Continuous opportunities to learn can lift spirits and then further enhance the quality of service.
Marketing KPIs
1. Website Traffic
As more and more veterinary practice owners accept more personal involvement in their marketing efforts, website KPIs are becoming more and more used in strategic planning and decision-making.
An important metric for gaining insight into your online effectiveness is website traffic. It gives you the ability to track how many site visitors your marketing activities and site optimizations can draw in and show you trends and spikes in interest. Keeping tabs on your website traffic can help you tailor your content to meet the needs and wants of your audience, and making website changes based on your client preferences can even help you attract new visitors – even some wanting to become new clients!
2. Website Conversion Rate
Yes, web traffic needs to be tracked; it is a representation of your reach. But the fun part starts when you track conversions — that's where your expansion of clientele and community comes from. Website conversion rate is the number of website visitors who took the desired action, such as booking an appointment or subscribing to a newsletter, over the number who arrived on the page. Any high conversion rate will indicate that your site is doing something right, engaging your visitors and driving them to action.
3. Social Media Engagement
Likes, shares, comments, and followers on your social media platforms are good indicators of the effectiveness of your social media marketing actions and campaigns. Normally, high levels of engagement show that your content is somehow meaningful for the audience or that the information and opinions you share on your social media platforms are helpful or fun for your community.
4. Cost Per Lead (CPL)
Knowing how much it's costing you to obtain a potential client, if you are implementing digital marketing strategies such as PPC, is important for establishing your advertising budgets, and determining if your marketing spend is or isn't hitting the mark.
Cost per lead: The average cost it takes to gain one new lead from your marketing efforts. Tracking CPL tells you if you're being effective with your spend and gives you insights into which channels are most cost-efficient for your practice.
5. Email Open and Click-Through Rates
These metrics are some of the ways through which email marketing campaigns can be measured. A high open rate means that your subject lines are great, while a high click-through rate indicates that the content of your email is relevant and engaging.
Focusing on Veterinary KPIs That Will Help You Work Toward Your Goals
Knowing and tracking the right veterinary practice metrics and key performance indicators is key to the long-term success and growth of your practice. But remember, tracking performance metrics isn’t an all or nothing endeavor. If you’re just starting out, then work on prioritizing KPIs and veterinary metrics that align most with your goals. For example, let's say the main goal for your practice is to have a specified percentage of your schedule filled each day. Then, focusing on client acquisition and retention stats, along with other supporting metrics like an average number of client visits per year, would give you the best indication of how many new clients you’d need to bring through your door.
Remember, this isn’t just about accumulating data, but getting more involved in understanding your practice’s operations and in making informed decisions to drive the practice forward.
Regularly review your metrics, set achievable targets for them, and if need be, readjust your strategies. Having a clear understanding of your veterinary practice metrics will position you to overcome challenges in the industry that bear against long-term success.
Ready to transform your practice and start marketing with proven and data-backed tactics? Book a demo to learn to how GeniusVets can support your practice with marketing support and analytics dashboards.