Written by Inkarri Trumbull-Ward, AVRA
How to Celebrate Veterinary Reception Week in your Clinic
The client experience is an incredibly powerful influence. It dictates the reputation of and trust in your practice. And while many would associate this with how the Veterinarian interacted with the animal and explained things to the client, there’s a far more important factor with a bigger impact.
Whether a client contacts your clinic via phone or at the front desk, their first and last point of interaction is with your reception team. They act as the face of the clinic and directly build relationships with your clients. Receptionists talk about finances, care plans, parasite prevention, vaccinations, surgery options and even euthanasia. It’s a role that requires a broad range of veterinary knowledge with keenly honed people and communication skills. We rely on our receptionists to manage our clinic schedule, beginning the process of conflict resolution with our clients and managing the over the counter product sales.
This is a difficult role that is vital to the success of a clinic and yet, in the face other industry concerns or celebrations, we often overlook it! The AVRA’s goal is to change this and encourage clinics across Australia & NZ to celebrate their Reception team every chance they get! To help you do this, we’ve come together to create a short list on ways you can celebrate your team in clinic this Veterinary Appreciation Week.
Formal Ideas:
- Have an awards ceremony for your reception team. Provide them with a small award that the team can then strive towards for the next year!
- Nominate your staff for Veterinary Receptionist of the Month through Australian Veterinary Receptionist Association. An official award acknowledging their hard work that automatically puts them in the running for Veterinary Receptionist of the Year.
- Organise a Lunch & Learn! It’s not for everyone, but some staff really appreciate their workplace investing in the learning and development.
- Reception Wall of Fame. Split your reception team up evenly over the week so that each day of Vet Reception Week you celebrate everyone (one a day, two a day, etc). On their day, they could have their photo up on the wall, a description about who they are and what the team appreciates about having them in clinic. Then you can whack a QR code on their for clients to leave nice comments of their own on (**Disclaimer: this should be monitored and each comment approved by management prior to the staff member seeing). Top it off by providing them with lunch on their day.
We love seeing clinics openly celebrate their wonderful staff, and what better way to do that than to share it with their clients. Cherry Court Vets, located in Western Australia, are celebrating their reception team this Veterinary Appreciation Week by sharing a post on their social media for each of their amazing reception team. The posts share a small message of admiration from the entire clinic team. It gives the staff the opportunity to see the impact they have had not only on their colleagues, but on the clients as well. As the posts are flooded with supportive comments from the community.
Here at AVRA, we want to see more clinics taking the initiative to celebrate their reception staff and Cherry Court Vets has done this beautifully. We look forward to seeing more clinics join in on celebrating Veterinary Receptionist Week in the future.
Some Fun Ideas:
- Reception Goodie Box! Give each person on your reception team a small gift to show your appreciation. Fill it with snacks, accessories, stationary, gift vouchers or any funny gag gifts you can think of.
- Run a competition with your reception team! Who can take the most calls for the week? Who can hoard the biggest pen collection by the end of the week WITHOUT getting caught? Who can get the most high fives from our friendly dog friends that come into clinic?
- Host an event for your staff. Whether a simple dinner and drinks, themed trivia or a team dance class. There are so many options for fun activities to celebrate!
No matter what you decide to do, your team should know they are appreciated. Not just for the week, but all the time. Gifts, games and awards are fun, but more importantly our teams want to know they are taken seriously. That their role is taken seriously! Vet Appreciation Week is a great time to host a clinic meeting focusing on the annual goals for the reception team. Discuss how the Practice plans on growing, developing and supporting the team through skill development opportunities, career progression, customer service strategies and more.
However you decide to run your Veterinary Reception Week, we would love to see it! Use the hashtag #VRWAVRA to tag us in your posts!