For veterinary practices to thrive, it is wise to consider what millennials, the largest segment of pet owners, are looking for in pet care.

Considering millennials own almost one-third of U.S. pets,¹ they represent a large and lucrative customer market for veterinary practices. According to the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA), 75 percent of millennial pet owners are willing to spend money on pet care,² so connecting with them requires an understanding of how they prefer to communicate and do business.

So, what do millennials want and expect from their veterinarians? Short answer: the “best.”

Millennials (like most) dote on their furry, feathered, and scaly friends and want their animals to be treated the same as their human family members. In fact, a 2022 survey³ found 81 percent of millennials “love” their pet more than certain family members. Further, 58 percent of millennials would rather have pets than kids.³ This gives a sense of how millennial pet owners value quality pet care and expect the “best” diagnostic tools, treatments, medical procedures, and possibly, holistic and integrative approaches to pet care.

As veterinarians focus on establishing deeper pet parent relationships, many practices also face challenges around increased patient loads (up by 11 percent between 2019 and 2021),⁴ office inefficiencies, and high support staff turnover. How can veterinarians build deeper, more personalized relationships with millennial pet parents, while addressing the challenges of the modern vet practice? Offering a tech-forward veterinary experience—one that is convenient, responsive, and individualized—is a good way to start.

Use technology to connect with pet parents, handle support issues, streamline operations, and increase efficiencies. This gives everyone in your practice more face-to-face time and opportunities to address the increased expectations of millennial pet parents.

The good news for practices is upgrades to the pet parent experience do not always have to require a lot of time or investment, especially as technology solutions become more widely accessible. Here are seven strategies to help you tap into technology:

1. Communicating via text. Consider using texts for appointment reminders, prescription refills, and visit follow-ups. This allows for convenience and recordkeeping for millennial clients.
2. Offering video visits as an alternative. Millennials value strong, continuing relationships with those offering professional services—and they also value choice. Once those veterinarian-pet owner relationships (VPCR) are firmly in place, offering video check-ins for minor health concerns—akin to urgent care video calls for human patients—can help cement a strong bond with the pet owner, provide convenience, and save time.
3. Offering online prescription services. An online pharmacy tied to a veterinary practice is a welcome convenience for clients. It provides easy online prescribing with client refill reminders and free auto shipment. In addition, your online pharmacy can improve compliance and patient health, while creating new revenue opportunities for the practice. This is important because pharmaceutical and laboratory products account for almost half of a typical veterinary practice’s revenue.⁵
4. Creating a one-stop portal. To help improve efficiencies and strengthen the VPCR, practices can already rely on a veterinary operating system (vOS) that unifies all veterinary applications and serves as a dynamic portal. Customized for your practice, vOS features can include, but are not limited to clinical note taking, prescription tracking, client communication, payment tracking, and veterinary team task boards to optimize workflow. Continuous veterinarian and staff input keeps information up-to-date and useful.A recent survey of 2,500 vOS users found they saved three hours per week, on average, using the solution, allowing veterinary practices to see more patients, spend more time per patient, and stay on schedule.⁴ This is important because 94 percent of the survey respondents said they struggled to find enough time to get their work done.
5. Connecting via a mobile app. A consumer-facing app provides clients with all the clinical information they need about their pet’s health, which may include an explanation of the patient condition, as well as treatment options. Further, accessing an app allows for prescription refill requests and appointment booking without calling the practice—avoiding hold time and freeing up front desk employees.
6. Creating a useful website. Ensure your website is easy to navigate and mobile-optimized. Allow pet owners to schedule and change appointments online to help reduce the need for phone calls, which can be time consuming for front desk staff. If you require online forms to be filled out before appointments, make those easily accessible on your website to save clients time in the waiting room.
7. Streamlining inventory process. Implementing technology can improve the inventory process, increase revenue, and keep your customers happy by keeping appropriate levels of pet food, pharmaceuticals, and laboratory products stocked—and automatically initiating predictive ordering when supplies are getting low. Millennials are more than three times as likely to purchase pet food from their vet clinics,⁵ so ensure your practice is stocked for their needs.

Adding the right tools and technology solutions to your clinic can help improve customer relationships, reduce stressors, and save time, allowing staff to focus on the work and care that will keep pets healthy, clients happy, and your practice flourishing.

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Don Larkin is the senior vice president for eCommerce and Marketing at Covetrus North America. Larkin has more than 20 years of experience in the retail space, with a focus on digital commerce for the past 16 years. Prior to joining Covetrus North America, he was the head of Digital Commerce for Reebok.

References

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1130651/pet-ownership-by-generation-us/
2. https://www.aaha.org/publications/newstat/articles/2019-10/what-millennial-pet-owners-want/
3. https://www.consumeraffairs.com/pets/pets-are-family.html
4. https://www.avma.org/javma-news/2021-09-15/are-we-veterinary-workforce-crisis
5. https://ahi.org/the-animal-health-industry/#:~:text=Industry%20Snapshot
6. https://covetrus.com/study-reveals-new-covetrus-technology-saves-time-provides-relief-to-overworked-understaffed-veterinary-practices/
7. https://www.freedoniagroup.com/packaged-facts/gen-z-and-millennials-as-pet-market-consumers-dogs-cats-other-pets