It hurts when a client chooses to leave your veterinary practice. Customer attrition not only can make you feel like failure, it threatens the viability and growth of your business.

When we study why clients leave veterinary practices, we tend to focus on the clients themselves, butdoing so treats only the symptoms, not the disease. Customer churn is usually the end result of a long chain of events, the root cause of which is almost always leadership and culture. Lets approach this topic from a different angleone rooted in biology and psychology.

Much of human behavior can be understood from the perspective of chasing or avoiding hormones and neurotransmitters:

At the core of every behavior, every action, every goal, we are looking to amplify some of these chemicals and minimize others.

What hormones and neurotransmitters are dominant in your workplace? If you motivate employees through serotonin and dopamine, you have probably found them to be capable motivators. People like chasing rewards, and they will always work to avoid cortisol. But this comes at a costeven if its largely hidden. Cortisol and dopamine are meant for short bursts and are unsustainable. Oxytocin and serotonin are the hormones that we should be artfully employing to create happier, more productive and more fulfilling environments.

The primary source of discontent among staff and clients alike in veterinary practices is failed leadership. The hospitals leaders aren't incapable or bad people, but they absolutely need to change their approach. A leader has two primary responsibilities: to ensure the physical and emotional safety of their tribe, and to provide clear guidance on where the tribe needs to go.

Consider the following scenario: A technician administers the wrong medication to a dog. The dog has a bad reaction and almost dies. The technician is in distraught. Her supervisor can structure the ensuing conversation using one of two contrasting styles of leadership: correcting mistakes versus providing safety.

Listen, Becky, we just cant have this. That was a serious mistake. And its become a pattern. I need you to figure this out, or we just cant have you here. Do you understand?

I guarantee you that Becky will be motivated to correct her mistakes after this conversation, but I doubt shell be successful. She will have a high baseline of cortisol when working. Nobody does their best work that way. Shell be thinking about her fears and insecurities instead of the task at hand.

Hey Becky, please sit down. You know, when I was your age, I misplaced an IV line in a dog that was recovering from surgery. The dog almost died. I was devastated. I felt like a failure, like I just wasnt cut out for this. I almost quit that evening. But I wasnt a failure, and you arent either. Now, how can I help you?

This conversation provides Becky with what she truly needs to course correct: emotional safety. Most of us are afraid that we arent good enoughthat there is something lacking within us, and maybe that something is intrinsically wrong. But it isnt true. What real leadership does is help us to believe in ourselves. This is the most powerful gift you can give someoneand we all deserve it.

Downstream of leadership is culture. When you work to prioritize the emotional safety of your team, their self-confidence and their feelings of connectedness to the larger mission, you create the necessary conditions for exceptional culture, one in which people lift each other up, are attentive to each others emotional needs and self-actualize.

When a team is constantly worried about messing up, they inevitably underperform and self-isolate. Cortisol haunts their every action. But a team whose psychological needs are met can develop their talents and serve the deeper needs of your customers.

Once the practice leadership is effective and the culture is empowering, you can forcefully address the last link in the chain: how you are making your customers feel. This is the sole determinant of why clients stay or leave, and their needs are actually the same as those of your staff: They want to avoid cortisol. They love genuine bonds and feelings of self-worth, and you and your team should strategize about how to create these neurochemical experiences at every possible stage of the veterinary visit.

How are you reducing cortisol during their time in the waiting room and exam room? How are you encouraging feelings of self-worth and status when they walk through your door? How about when you speak with them? How do your interactions encourage the release of oxytocin?

Once you are here, I would encourage you to become fanatical about reverse-engineering a customer visit from the perspective of how youre making someone feel. Its hard work, but you now have the right questions to ask.

Luckily for them, they have you.

Robert Sanchez is the founder and CEO of Digital Empathy, an award-winning web design and marketing firm for veterinary practices. He frequently lectures at national conferences, leads a team of wonderful employees, sits on the board of VetPartners and shares his home with two very spoiled dogsCole and Lula.

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Why clients leave (and what to do about it) - dvm360