Vet Med: Communication Tips To Build Trust and Strengthen Relationships With Clients

You know how some pet owners trust their breeder/groomer/friend/Google more than you (the vet)?

I’ll be honest, this used to really bother me (like rant and vent to my husband kind of bother 😆).

I couldn’t understand why owners turned to their breeder, groomer, or Google over me when I had sacrificed so much time, energy, and money to be able to help their pet.

It was frustrating not just because it didn’t make sense to me, but also because their trust in those sources made me scared. I care about my patients and sometimes those non-vet recommendations aren’t just unhelpful, they’re extremely harmful.

Some examples (I’m sure you have plenty of these stories):

• A breeder sent home a “vitamin” to give the puppy daily that was actually doxycycline (an antibiotic) which can cause bone and teeth abnormalities in growing puppies (not to mention increasing the risk of antibiotic resistance and harming its gut microbiome).
• An owner was putting garlic in her dog's water every day because her son read online that it prevented heartworm. Since garlic is toxic to dogs, the patient was anemic. 
• A dog came in with neurologic signs because the owner had been applying tea tree oil topically to help with a skin infection. Tea tree oil is toxic to dogs. 

Sometimes things that sound safe are really dangerous and that’s scary when you can get advice from anyone these days.

And so these situations made me angry because I didn’t understand WHY pet owners would do this. It made me scared for the animals I cared about. 

But that frustration wasn’t helping me or the pet owners. It just made me bitter, created a “me vs them” mindset, and prevented me from understanding why this was happening. 

The minute you replace judgment with curiosity you open the door to clarity and problem-solving. 

A much more helpful question for us to ask is:

Why is it understandable that pet owners trust and turn to their groomer/breeder/google for advice more than their vet?

One answer: positive intention.

Most pet owners probably don’t think that their groomer/breeder/friend knows more than you, but they do trust that they have a positive intention, and for vets: they’re not so sure.

And that’s understandable from their perspective.

Pet owners don’t know:

• how much you care
• how much you’ve sacrificed to have the knowledge to help them
• how much you also hate that veterinary prices are rising because it makes it harder for you to help their pet

From their perspective, they see:

• a business
• rising veterinary prices and $$$ anytime they talk to you
• recommendations that may not seem important to them
• a job where you get to play with puppies and kittens all day

This isn't a problem. It just means that part of our role is to make our positive intentions clear.

Being a business and caring are not mutually exclusive but we need to be proactive in showing that because we’re living in a world where that’s not common for a lot of businesses (even our human healthcare system is set up in a way that is not in the best interest of its patients… or healthcare providers for that matter). 

The beautiful thing is that vet med is a profession and business that THRIVES when everyone’s wellbeing is prioritized and when everyone (pet, owner, and vet team) works together with mutual respect. 

If any one of those 3 components (pet, owner, or vet team) have a negative experience, it hurts everyone including the hospital’s success. 

But since people are used to being treated as a number and not someone a business genuinely cares about, we need to be proactive in making it clear that we care and that we have positive intentions from the very beginning. 

So what can you do to make your positive intention clear?   

1. Adopt a fear free approach.

That starts with being able to recognize when someone is in a stress response (ex: an upset client = a human in the fight stress response) so that you can:

• PAUSE as soon as a stress response is observed
• GET CURIOUS about why something is feeling stressful/overwhelming/unsafe from their perspective
• IDENTIFY what needs to happen to re-establish safety and mutual respect 
• CREATE A BOUNDARY if mutual respect and safety aren’t possible 

Listen to the No More Bullies: Overcoming Toxic Clients and the Negative Thoughts Weighing You Down video for more details!

2. Identify their priorities and concerns at the very beginning and speak to those (even if you have different ones) throughout the exam. 

Example scenario: The owner wants a nail trim but you’re more concerned about the dog’s respiratory rate and heart failure.

“I know you really want a nail trim today, but I’m concerned that Bella’s heart failure is progressing and we need to adjust her medications. I know she’s so special to you so we need to make sure she’s breathing okay before doing a nail trim so that we don’t put any stress on her heart. Let’s increase her medication to___ and give me an update tomorrow with her sleeping respiratory rate. Let’s have her come in at the end of this week so that I can listen to her again and as long as she’s doing better we’ll do her nail trim then, because I know that's important to you. How does that sound?” 

3. Help them to feel heard and respected with active listening.

Doesn’t it feel AMAZING when you give a client instructions and they repeat it back to you showing that they were listening and absorbed what you said? It goes both ways. Show that you genuinely hear them by pausing to summarize what they said and asking if you got that right. 

Example:

“So it sounds like the diarrhea started 3 days ago and since then he hasn’t wanted to eat his normal food but he will eat chicken if you hand feed it. And the day before it all started you had a dinner party so it’s possible that someone gave him something. Did I get that right? Anything else I should know or that you’re concerned about?”

4. Be transparent to build trust. 

If you avoid talking about pricing because it makes you uncomfortable, the owner may be unpleasantly surprised by the bill at the end and may assume you were trying to rack up the bill (instead of the reality that you were avoiding it because you either don’t know prices or it makes you uncomfortable).

Talking about money doesn’t have to be stressful. The price isn’t good or bad - it’s just a number. Be proactive in sharing the cost of things before they ask for it so you’re on the same page and so you can work together to offer the spectrum of care that’s doable for them.

This also goes for when you don’t immediately know the answer to something. As a new grad, I used to be so afraid of having an owner discover that I didn’t know something. Eventually I realized owners are not here to grade you, they just want to know that you care and that their pet is in good hands.

Often, owners really appreciate it when I say, “you know what, my colleague is an expert when it comes to eye cases like these. I’d love to get her opinion. Do you mind if I bring Woodford out back for a moment so she can look at it?” Imagine what that does to their perception of value when they know they are getting two doctors working together (versus if you were to take their dog out back without really telling them why or not asking for help on a case because it felt embarrassing).

5. Put your positive brain filter on to help them to see the positives, too. 

One common thing I hear is that pet owners feel judged by their vet, sometimes leading them to withhold or lie about information like the type of pet food they’re feeding. Help them to feel like you’re on their team and not grading them by also focusing on their wins.

Example:

Before talking about the fact that their dog is super overweight, comment on their adorable collar and celebrate that they’ve been brushing their teeth every day or acknowledge they were making an effort to work on weight loss by switching to a weight loss diet (even if they actually gained weight).  

6. Don’t make judgments or assumptions, get curious.

Judgment doesn’t feel good for you or the pet owner. Curiosity not only feels better, it helps to deepen your relationship with and understanding of the client and to meet them where they are to come up with a plan that they feel good about. 

Ex: If they decline a preventative, don’t assume you know why. This is an amazing opportunity to identify what their priorities are and an opportunity for educating. 

• Do they not think their pet is at risk? Like thinking fences help to protect against fleas...
• Do they want to have their dog on a preventative but they’re worried about costs? 
• Are they into “all natural” and organic products and worried about chemicals? 
• Are they in a rush? 

7. Be present with them. 

Vet med often involves a lot of multi-tasking, but when you’re in the exam room you can give the owner and their pet the gift of your full attention. Bonus, it's a nice opportunity for you to pause and to be mindful rather than rushing. I love that AI scribe options are now available so that you can focus on the conversation with the owner without trying to type medical notes to save time during the exam.

Which of these are you going to use?

In your corner,

Recovered burnt out veterinarian
Integrative health + life coach
Unicorn vet hospital consultant