Original Practice Management Articles from VMS

Service Profit Chain Complaint Handling Non-Traditional Interviewing

Reminders in a Tough Economy Smart Inventory Management

The Service Profit Chain

As I work with various clinics and help them to sort out their respective issues, one common scenario is the clinic that is chock full of angry, bitter, ungrateful employees despite the owner doing as much as Service Profit Chain he or she can think of to make them happy. Increased pay. Increased vacation time. Higher employer insurance contributions. Longer lunches. Paid lunches. One clinic even went so far as to purchase a paraffin wax hand dip and to hire a masseuse to provide monthly chair massages to the staff! Somehow, the staff was still angry, bitter, ungrateful and not afraid to show it. I showed that owner what they really wanted and after some hard work they became happy, productive, engaged employees even though we cut vacation benefits, insurance contributions, lunches and the masseuse! What was this miracle ingredient that so many owners have failed to add to their clinic?...more.

Complaint Handling

Do you get that sinking feeling every time an employee approaches you and says, "There's a client with a complaint on line two that wants to talk to you."? It's very normal to feel under attack and to get defensive when someone tells you what they don't like about you or your practice; very normal and very, very wrong. Too often we assume that clients are calling to complain simply to get a discount on their bill or free services. The most likely scenario, however, is that they feel slighted in some way and are bothered enough by it to let you know how they feel. These complainers are as precious to your practice as your top ten and ought to be treated with the same amount of gratitude. Without them, you could be unwittingly disappointing (and losing) dozens of clients and not realize it until your client base dips below the critical level...more.

Non-Traditional Interviewing

The most successful interviewee you will ever meet is the one that is most experienced. Unfortunately, the experience they are bringing to the table is not necessarily work experience but interview experience. These are the folks that jump from job to job, are never satisfied where they are at, or are so miserable to work with that they have trouble holding a job for longer than it takes to get to know them. Through constant interviewing they’ve learned what questions to expect, what order to expect them in, what the interviewer wants to hear and so on. Using a traditional interview style makes it impossible to weed out the truly exceptional candidates from the truly exceptional interviewee. We in turn become conditioned to expect certain answers and reactions in the interviewing process...more.

Reminders in a Tough Economy

Hindsight being what it is, many practice owners and managers today are looking back over the last five to ten years and feeling a little bit like the grasshopper did when winter rolled around; the hard working ant had enough food stored to last till spring but the grasshopper was left with nothing more than an empty stomach and fond memories of the glut of food that had been available all summer. If only he had listened to that smart-mouthed ant and put some away for a snowy day! Well, the snowy days have hit the US economy once again and many businesses, having grown accustomed to covering today’s payables with tomorrow’s receivables, are scrambling about looking for any loose scraps of food they can find to carry them through to the eventual economic equivalent of a spring thaw...more.

Smart Inventory Management

Veterinary practices throughout the country invest massive amounts of capital into their pharmaceutical inventories every week; in fact, it should be your single largest expense. Most clinic owners have, through sheer force of will, trained themselves to suppress the wince impulse when signing those ginormous checks to their vendors. “It’s a lot of money, but I guess I don’t have a choice.” Or do you? Most owners are surprised to learn that a practice generating $500,000 in annual sales will have, on average, $40,000 in excess inventory on the shelf at any given time¹...more.