Client Portal Feature

Client Portal

A clinic needs to take an innovative approach in order to develop long term strategies that will see significant benefits in time, especially in the areas of internal efficiencies and excellence in client satisfaction. One aim should be to reduce the number of non-revenue generating phone calls to the clinic, while still being able to maintain very high levels of service. This can be achieved, amongst other things, by implementing a strategy of client engagement via an integrated website. The “Client Portal” web module has been developed for VetlinkPRO users to facilitate this.

It is common knowledge that very few clients, if any at all, will go to a clinic’s website to seek information on subjects like “arthritis in older cats” – they will most probably “Google” it and read several articles from all around the world. So, this begs the question: Why have a website except for people to find your address and phone numbers? The traditional approach has been to have a fantastic looking “static” website and to use SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniques to move you to the top of a search list for new clients wanting to look up a clinic.

In order to “engage” your clients and their loyalty on a long term basis, we believe that an entire strategy needs to be implemented. The website and its integration with VetlinkPRO form one part of this overall strategy. For an explanation of the full strategy that involves a Loyalty System with points expiry, Key-Tags, and full website integration, please talk to us. Read more on the Loyalty System within VetlinkPRO and its benefits.

Website Integration

Since we have established that not many people will visit your website just for common information readily available online, we need to develop a strategy that will attract clients to your website where they can then be “marketed to” as to the benefits of regular checkups, specials, new services, etc. Add to this an automatic and smart methodology to assist with higher ranking on search engines would all start to make a lot of sense!

An intelligent software is placed on your server that automatically “sync’s” relevant data to your website so that your clients are able to access their own information.

Benefits to Clients and the Clinic

By allowing clients to access their own information, you should over time, reduce the number of incoming phone calls for simple queries such as the ones below, plus many more over time.

When is my next appointment?
When is Fluffy’s next Vaccination due?
How many Loyalty Points do I have remaining?
When are my Loyalty Points expiring?
When was the last time I purchased Frontline?
Which Flea treatment did I buy last time – or the time before?
What did my cat weigh last time, and before that, and before that?
Can I please see a graph and also see GLU levels on the same graph?
Etc, etc, etc.

In addition to supplying access to a lot of information to the client, we have other benefits to offer as part of this strategy.

What users see once they login opening page

The opening page once a user logs in has been designed after consultations with web marketing experts and after taking our overall strategy into consideration. A client’s login ID is their email address (another strategy to give them a reason to supply their email address) and their initial password will be their client number; once in they can change their password.

Items of interest of the opening page
Account Balance: Amount of money owing on their account as at last night.
Bonus Points: If using the Bonus Points Loyalty System within VetlinkPRO, the user will be able to see their points balance, the next expiry date and the quantity that they are about to lose out on. To understand the Loyalty System and its benefits to your business, please read the Loyalty System Strategy – to go there now.
Profile
This page allows the user to view their profile and then request changes by selecting edit. This may include anything from address changes to their preference settings for receiving information via eMail, SMS, or by PHONE.

Note: Neither the data on the website nor the data in VetlinkPRO is able to be modified. The user simply modifies an online form which is then emailed to the clinic. Once the information is updated in VetlinkPRO by clinic staff, the nightly update will update the website. It is only one-way traffic to the website. Clients DO NOT have access to the clinic data at any time and they DO NOT have access to any standard clinical notes! Special “To Web” notes may be posted from VetlinkPRO under certain conditions with intent.
Patients
This section separates every patient with key information with the following columns: SUMMARY, TRANSACTION, REMINDER, VITALS, NOTES. Clicking on each will further expand and show detailed patient specific information.
- Summary
  This area provides specific patient details for the one selected onscreen.
- Transactions
  Transactions can be searched and displayed in a selectable date range of the patient selected.
- Reminder
  This area displays all relevant reminders for the patient selected.
- Vitals
  The VITALS area is particularly interesting. This shows the vital details taken such as Weight, Temperature, etc and allows the user to graph it in various formats on-screen, either independently or concurrently to see trends. For example, they may want to graph WEIGHT with GLU to see if there are any relationship. Several choices of graph types and colours are available to the clients.
- Notes
  While clinical notes from VetlinkPRO are not uploaded to the web, a special clinical notes form called “To Web” is available under clinical records when consulting. If this has been populated then it will show here for the client to retrieve.
Events
Events are created by the clinic on a special cloud portal login which is provided as part of this App subscription. Once posted online, the Mobile App will automatically sync details and show it for the end user. Examples of events would include Puppy Pre-School, Product Demonstrations, Open Days, and so on. The portal caters for a Photo as well as Event Details with Date, Time, Topic, Short Description, and a Registration button. An email is sent to the clinic for each client that registers for a particular event as well as saved in the cloud portal where the clinic can view the registration details.
Transactions and Statements
All Client Related financial transactions are available to the client for past purchases. Searches can be done by date range which will show invoices. Invoices can then be drilled down to provide more item details. The Statement option allows the user to access all historical and current monthly statements in PDF format, just as they can from their Banking Apps! The statement function is only available to clinics who have subscribed to the Online Statement Feature.
Reminders
This section shows all reminders for all pets. The user is able to search with date ranges.
Appointments
This area allows the user to view all appointments in a list view.
Online Booking
If your clinic has subscribed to the Online Booking option, the Online Booking menu will appear and automatically logs the end users in so that users are able to book their appointments online.