The planning
Nearly every small animal practice sends reminders. Even in the dark ages, vaccination reminders were the norm. Now, in the forward thinking era of "giving that little bit more", most of us send prompts for worming, flea control, dental and weight checks.

Whilst immersed in my ever-lengthening reminder list, I noticed that a vast number of clients were triggered for worming reminders but the animal remained unvaccinated. In addition, there were a huge amount of clients that owned inoculated dogs. For some reason, though, their cats remained unprotected.

We can safely assume that this group of owners are:

• Responsible owners who are likely to respond to correspondence regarding the health of their pet/s (due to the fact that they have purchased worming medication and / or vaccinated some, if not all of their pets).
   
• Recent visitors to the surgery who are more than likely to still own the animal (our worm reminders are triggered every 3 months).

We decided to send a letter to all clients with an unvaccinated animal. The letter outlined the benefits of regular immunisation and concentrated on the key fact that with the holiday season approaching, reputable boarding kennels do not accept unvaccinated cats and dogs.

Problems
We encountered surprisingly few! The project was run as a trial at one branch surgery for a 3 month period. The only real problem was misinterpretation of the "vax letter" heading in the clinical history. During busy surgeries some of the vets were assuming that this was a regular reminder and giving boosters rather than booking the full course of immunisation. This was easily resolved by ensuring that all members of staff were aware of the promotion. Whilst the Verifac Mentor system can swiftly create personalised letters, it was not physically possible to target all the desirable clients within the time scale allocated. With additional staff on the case, we could have taken the promotion one step further and asked the accounting and secretarial team to send the mailshot to any clients with unvaccinated animals along with their invoices and insurance correspondence.

Conclusion
This promotion was a success due to:

• Very little outlay.
   
• Income generated that would not normally have been forthcoming.
   
• Making the most of seasonal aspects and linking summer holidays to boarding kennels.
   
• Targeting a receptive audience.
   
• Showing our clients that we give the ultimate in customer care by taking the time to ensure that their pet's requirements are met, rather than letting them slide simply because we cannot make the time or find the resources to offer them the very best service.

This promotion generated a 17.2% response rate, and an extra £2700.00 for the practice. This may not seem like much, but when applied across all six surgeries, we have the potential to generate £64,800 over the course of a year. More than enough for my new Audi TT!