7 Recipes For Unreasonable Hospitality in Veterinary Medicine

Brenda flies solo this episode to unpack the book, Unreasonable Hospitality through a veterinary lens, breaking down 7 recipes for creating standout experiences for your team and clients. From mise-en-place-style preparation before appointments to the small, intentional details that turn a single visit into years of loyalty, Brenda shares real practice examples, including a Southeast Texas team that anticipates doctors' needs before they even walk into the exam room, and a Medical Director whose handwritten notes kept client relationships personal even as his schedule got busier.

Along the way, Brenda covers why empathy matters in every interaction, what vet med can learn from the trust between a restaurant's front and back of house, how practice owners set the tone the way chefs and restaurateurs do, and why training your team well before service begins is the real secret ingredient.

Resources mentioned:

• Unreasonable Hospitality, written by Will Guidara

Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

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You're listening to Flight Plan Quick Consults, your go-to podcast for veterinary insights that are fast, focused, and designed to elevate your practice. I'm your host, Brenda Tasman Medina from Encore Veterinary Consulting. Whether you're between appointments or heading into a strategy session, we've got takeoff ready tips, tools, and takeaways to keep your team soaring. Today we're doing something a little different, and you might have already noticed that I'm not wearing a scrub top. This is actually a chef's jacket. Not only am I a C VPM and a veterinary consultant, I'm also a certified plant-based professional chef. What does one thing have to do with the other, you might be asking yourself? At first glance, absolutely nothing. But after reading this book, Unreasonable Hospitality, I realized that the very best restaurants and the very best veterinary hospitals are trying to accomplish exactly the same thing. This inspired me to create seven recipes for unreasonable hospitality in veterinary medicine. So let's dive into our cookbook today. Recipe number one is prepare before your guests arrive. So when I started learning how to become a professional chef, one of my very first lessons revolved around preparing my mise en place. The mise en place is everything that you need in a recipe, all of the ingredients prepared ahead of time in terms of all your chopping is done, all of your cleaning is done, everything is measured out and set out on the counter or your workstation so that you have everything at your fingertips once you begin the recipe. And so when we think about the client experience and how it begins, if we're preparing for our workflow long before the doctor enters the exam room, we're actually improving not only the efficiency, but the overall experience for everyone involved. When I think about a recipe, if I don't use a mise en place ahead of time, then I'm walking across my kitchen, I don't know how many times, just to get this ingredient and measure it out and get that ingredient, measure out, and put this away and get another one. And you can see and hear that that is very inefficient and takes many more steps to accomplish the same thing. Yes, I'm gonna have to go and gather all of those ingredients, but when I gather all those ingredients, measure everything out, chop everything to the specifications of the recipe, and have it all organized. Then I can take a breath, open up that recipe, and proceed and really get into the actual cooking. And the recipe just becomes something that is a guide and a support tool. Now I'm actually creating something. And when we think about the experience in the exam room and seeing a patient, it feels so much more rewarding to be able to focus on the client in front of you, on their fur baby that's in their arms, and actually take the time to stop and listen because we're not worried about where's my thing, where's the stethoscope, do I have this, do I have that, where's the medical record, let's pull that up. If we're preparing and anticipating what we're going to need next, or as support staff members, anticipating what the doctor needs next and equipping them with it, then they're going to have a much better experience as a team member. And on the flip side, the client also has a much superior experience. So when I think about out of the hundreds of practices that I've visited over the years, one that really stands out to me did this whole concept of preparing what the doctor needed next and anticipating their next move far more superior than any other place I've seen. And it was in Southeast Texas, and it was a fairly small practice. But it was really interesting to watch because as I started to uh go through the shadow process with the technician who was cleaning and prepping the room, he was actually getting out, he was looking at the record and he was getting items out in preparation for the appointment. And he was setting down uh a 12-month supply of heartworm prevention, and he was setting out um the a body score, condition score report card that had a dental report card on the other side, and these items were placed on the exam room table so that when the doctor came in to do the exam, she had it at her fingertips, and it was also reinforcing the fact that we're gonna hand that product to the client as they go towards the checkout process. So this really is uh very similar to the Mise en plus, and that's where we prepare before our guests arrive. So for recipe number two is season every interaction with empathy. So I want you to think about completing tasks. We all have task lists, we have checklists within the practice, and if we're so focused on completing those tasks, it leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to people feeling seen. And that's one thing that we need to be very aware of. We've got to really think about anticipating clients' needs and acknowledging emotions and not getting lost in, okay, I'm taking this history and I need to make sure that I have everything here and I've asked all the right questions. And this is where I love the rise of digital AI with medical record keeping because I've seen a huge shift in practices where they have implemented the use of it. And it's not just with the doctor, it starts with the team member who is doing that intake process or getting that brief history from the client. Because when I see them just click record and then face the client and have a conversation that includes all those questions that they want answered that they can need to capture in the medical record, it's perceived much differently. Um, there's a deeper connection with the client. I see the client and the team member actually facing one another, eyes engaged, talking, looking at the pet, smiling, and it just comes across completely different. In that particular instance, the client feels really heard because I'm not glancing back and forth, I'm not typing in the computer as I'm asking questions and maybe not even looking over, I'm fully engaged. And so this is recipe number two is really using empathy to interact with clients and make them feel seen and heard, uh, just in the little ways that we we talk to them, we ask them questions, and we capture that information. Recipe number three is trust the entire kitchen. So when we think about it, every team member shapes the experience, whether it's the client experience or the patient's experience, and also the team's experience. There are a lot of parallels between the way kitchen staff operate and the way that our veterinary teams operate. And I think the the best phrase to use here is the front and the back, because that's the same phrase that comes to mind in kitchens. It's we have the front staff, the front of front of house, and we have the back of house. The back of house is the team that's actually preparing the food, and it's directed by the chef. And the front of house is responsible for the being a hostess or host and taking orders and making sure that the clients feel comfortable and they're getting things on time. And in our practices, we have the exact same type of dynamic happening. We have the front of house, which is our CSRs, and perhaps some of our veterinary assistants who are seating clients in rooms, and then we have the back of house, which is our medical team, including our doctors and our veterinary technicians. And so often we forget that there's this entire team or entire kitchen, entire restaurant that is creating experience for both the client and the patient. In our veterinary practices, we've got to trust the CSR team. We the CSRs need to trust the technicians, the doctors need to trust both of them and the assistants. So we really have to remember that it's not just my role within the practice, but it's the way that I function within the entire team. And when I trust the people that I'm working with, then I'm gonna deliver a higher level of experience as well as a higher level of service to those patients. So that's recipe number three. Recipe number four is plate every experience with intention. So owners and managers set the emotional tone in every veterinary hospital the same way that chefs and restaurateurs do. And in this book, there were several examples where the two partners in this particular restaurant, one was very much a restaurantur mindset, and really focused on client service. And the chef was really focused on the quality of food and the recipes and the way that the food was prepared and the final presentation of that food and whether or not the clients really truly loved and enjoyed it. And if their emotional tone is not aligned, it really creates some dysfunction within that restaurant. And I think we've all heard or seen seen if we haven't watched the show, we've seen commercials for like Hell's Kitchen, and you've got Gordon Ramsey yelling at the people in his restaurant, and um especially you know in the back in the kitchen. And when we have that type of emotional tone in a veterinary hospital, it really shuts people down. It it makes it feel very disjointed in terms of trying to deliver a high-level client service while other things are breaking down in the medical area and vice versa. You know, if we're trying to deliver a great experience from the medical team and the CSRs are kind of checked out and they don't have strong leadership there, then it doesn't matter how great we are in the room, that first impression and last impression is going to leave a bad taste in anybody's mouth. So we really have to make sure that our leadership is aligned in such a way that we're coming to the restaurant, we're coming to the hospital, and we're setting the tone for the team so that we can have a great day, we can lead with a great attitude, and expect the same from the entire team. Let's move on to recipe number five. Sweat the small ingredients. So details become memories. And we want to we want to make sure that we're creating micro moments in veterinces that can create a lasting client loyalty experience. What do I mean by that? It means really paying attention to the small details. I worked with a medical director for many, many years who was so good at getting to know his clients. And as he got busier and busier, it became more difficult to do that. So he got in the habit of jotting down notes about the things that he had learned about his clients and their family as well as their pet. And so that when he saw them on an annual basis or a biannual basis, he'd already looked at those notes and he was able to go in and really create that lasting impression of a strong relationship with people. And you know, those little details can really build trust with our clients and help them to come back in. I recently was on a um chat board where um veterinary team members were talking about children in uh coming in to for appointments and how do you deal with the kids? And there were several comments about, oh my gosh, I can't stand children, you know, why did they bring them to the appointment? And there were other people who are like, wait a minute, this is an opportunity to educate and involve the kids who are actually very close to these pets and maybe want to learn how to take care of them a little bit better. And they become the future client as they grow up. And I always think about my own daughter who got her very first kitten when she was 11, and she was a little hand-raised kitten that my technicians had bottle fed. And from the age of 11 until she graduated college, I would primarily take her to the veterinarian when she wasn't available to go. But of course, as her parent, I was also paying for those bills and that type of thing. But she grew up and took that cat with her, and that cat lived to the age of 23, which is incredible. But again, it's like this pet is attached to the child who's going to one day become a pet owner themselves. And um, dear friend of mine, Dr. Marty Greer, we were just talking last week, and she was talking about how generations, she's seeing multiple generations of clients from the same family today as that she saw as children and even as grandchildren at one point in time. So, really think about those micro moments, getting to know your clients, and and being able to build lasting client loyalty. Recipe number six: practice before service begins. So, excellence is built behind the scenes. We have systems, we have training, we have preparation, we have communication, and we need to have consistency. When I consult with practices, there are varying degrees of all of these things that I just said. They might have systems in place, but do we actually use those systems consistently? And if we're not, then we have a very disjointed system or experience. What's our training look like? And in a lot of cases, we haven't adapted our training to fit the needs of today's younger employees who are coming into our workplace. So really think about how we are offering training to our team. Are you still handing them a type, you know, single-space typewritten uh document that's in a binder? Or have you moved in the direction of an online platform where you can host videos and offer micro learning via video presentation to your team members? Because that is how uh the younger generations have been learning, and that's what they expect when it comes to training. Well, we already talked about the preparation in terms of anticipating the next move and having everything in place. The other one is communication, and I want to spend a little bit of time here because there was a brilliant um way of communicating in the book within this, within this uh restaurant that is featured in the book. And the restaurant is 11 Madison Park, and uh it I visited it once. It was a real treat to get to go with my daughter when we were in New York City, and I was amazed at the way that the team actually interacted with one another. And I said to my daughter, I said, It looks like a dance, it looks like there's this unspoken dance that's happening that's been rehearsed and it's so smooth, and they're in they're really paying attention and coming to us before we have to look for somebody. And when I read the book, one of the things that was mentioned is that they had developed a form of communication which was nonverbal, and so they used signs um to really get the attention of their teammates, um, and they had different signs for different reasons. You know, they had one sign that if they needed somebody to come and kind of help them out or they're ready for them to come as soon as possible, they had a behind-the-back sign, and then they had this universal sign, and the universal sign was if I touched my my lapel and made on eye contact with you as a team member, that meant I needed immediate backup. And so it enabled that team, that team member to wrap up what they're doing as quickly as possible and go immediately to that team member and see what they needed to do to support them. And I love that because so often when I'm working with a practice, especially early on, uh, and I'm getting feedback from the team, I hear lack of communication. We don't communicate well enough. I have no idea what's happening, I don't know that the doctor needed me and I'm getting in trouble because I'm not in there. And so I'm hearing lots and lots of that. And it occurs to me that we're not really focusing on that internal form of communication in the same way that I saw in person at Love and Madison Park. So think about all those subtle cues or any type of communication system that you could put in place to really help keep that flow of communication going throughout the entire cycle of service when a client and patient is there in the building with you. The last one is consistency. And again, you can't have systems, training, preparation, and communication in place without being consistent with all of those things. And so if you create a communication system or communication signs that you're gonna use, if you create any kind of system or you implement training, you've got to hold yourself accountable to keeping it as consistent as possible. Without that consistency, it's definitely not going to stick as your practice grows. And then finally, recipe number seven: leave your guests with something they will remember. Hospitality is a competitive advantage, and you need to think of it that way within your veterinary practice, especially as you see the rise of different types of veterinary models and encroaching competition in your area or even online. You want to make sure that client retention, referrals, all relate to team engagement so that you can have sustainable growth. So when we think about that lasting impression or something that the the pet the client is going to remember at that end of the appointment, I want to challenge you with what you are doing. One of the things that um 11 Madison Park did, and again, this was like closing out our visit when we were there for dinner a few years ago, was they brought us um a glass jar container with like a little lid. It was just about four inches tall, and in it was granola. And the the uh server brought it to us and said, the host made a special batch of uh granola, and uh she just made he he made it this morning, and we'd like to send it home with you as a gift so that when you wake up tomorrow morning and you get ready to have your breakfast, you have a uh granola made specially for you by 11 Madison Park. And that was like a parting gift, and it was un unexpected, totally unexpected, and it made a lasting impression. I actually still have that jar. We ate the granola, it was delicious, but I still have that jar, that container, and it brings back fond memories of that experience. So think about how you're wrapping up your appointments and how you might really think about ending it with a nice little bow of hospitality to make it a lasting memory, a good positive one, and the client remembers you and comes back. That's what we're we're after with recipe number seven. So I'd like to invite all of our listeners to identify one unreasonable act of hospitality that you can intentionally practice next week with your team. Thanks for flying with us on Flight Plan Quick Consults, and thank you to our generous sponsor, Purina. If today's insights helped you climb to new heights, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with your crew.