Using AVImark's Discounts to Increase Customer Loyalty

By Babara Betsch

With today's economy, consumers are looking for every opportunity to increase the value of their money. Spending decisions, both large and small, are being driven by the growing need to conserve resources.

When faced with these conditions and the already competitive nature of the business, it is vital to find ways to not only attract new clients to your business, but also to retain the loyalty of the clients you already have.

One way to accomplish this is to use discounting as an incentive.

Your AVImark software contains a number of ways to create customer loyalty through discounting options. Depending on your practice, various strategies could be successful:

Use discounts to attract new clients to your practice
Example: Percentage off (on the fly) discount for customers added during a pre-defined time frame (Use the manual option of the right click discount in medical history.)

Offer loyalty discounts or programs to longstanding customers
Example: Put customers who have spent more that a certain amount consistently during the last five years into a discount class to recieve a discount off of select items or services. (Use client discount classes and treatment/item discount classess.)

Use both incentives to increase your customer base
Example: New customers that spend a predetermined amount of money within a certain time frame and by a pre-paid health plan to get the initial discount special and are placed in a special discount class for one year. (Use a combination of manual option of right click discount in medical history and using the complimentary discount class or percentage off feature using the discount plan table.)

With effective and strategic planning, AVImark's discounting feature can help attrect new clients to your practice and also help cement the foundation of an already loyal customer base.

Babara Betsch is a senior thecnician at AVImark and can be reached at babara.betsch@avimark.net 

Boosting Client Goodwill

By Barbara Betsch

A client's trust in your veterinary practice can form the foundation for a long-lasting, loyal relationship. and when you build customer loyalty, you create a marketplace advantage called Goodwill.

So, how do you build customer loyalty and goodwill? Basic communication is a first step, but active client interaction, loyalty, and goodwill. For example, AVImark offers an information search feature that can be used to identify clients who meet specific criteria. This could include patients who are due for certain services of follow-up treatments, of to target clients for seasonal email promotions and postcard reminders.

PetWise web sites offer enhanced email reminders and birthday cards, newsletters, and access through your practice web site to pet health records and client education information. And MSS Pet I.D. cards provide your clients with a handy way to store important health details for each pet.

Our goal at McAllister Software Systems is to help you gain - and keep - a marketing edge through easy, effective client communication tools. To learn more about these tools, please visit http://www.avimark.net/ and browse the Solutions and Partners pages.

Or, to investigate the client communication tools within AVImark, contact technical support; 877-838-9273, support@avimark.net , or via chat on http://www.avimark.net/.

Barbara Betsch is a senior technician at AVImark. Barbara can be reached at barbara.betsch@avimark.net.

AVImark Tip #4: Choose Your Default Field in the "Enter Medical History" Window

By Barbara Betsch

Since everyone enters information differently in their practice management software, AVImark veterinary software can be customized to fit your individual preference.
Some people add history entries by code, while others add history entries by descriptions. To accommodate these differences, AVImark has an option that will allow each user to select the default field for the "Enter Medical History" window.

To set this option:
• Go to wrench icon on the tool bar, which will take you to the Advanced Options of Hospital Setup
• In the search window, type: Default to Description Field When Opening the Enter Medical History Window
• Left click on this phrase to highlight it
• In the default value, left click the "Change" button
• In this window set the default choice for the entire clinic, and click "OK"

If one user prefers the other default, he or she can select a different default:
• Under the ID-User-Value portion of the screen, right click "New"
• Choose the user, and his/her individual value
• The default will also be displayed. Click "OK"
• When all individual preferences have been added, click "Done"
• Log off AVImark, and then log back on

Our goal is to provide versatile features to help save your practice time and money. If you need assistance with this or any other AVImark feature, please contact our friendly technical support staff.

Phone: 1-877-838-9273 option 1
Email: mailto:support@avimark.net
Live Chat: http://www.avimark.net/

To your success!

Barbara Betsch is a senior technician at AVImark and can be reached at barbarab@avimark.net

Using Merge Words in AVImark

By Barbara Betsch

Sometimes, AVImark merge words can work for multiple situations, giving you the flexibility to merge data from a variety of fields. For example, the merge words and are not exclusively for rabies treatments. They can also work with other vaccinations. Below are situations that represent different examples of how these two merge words will work within AVImark.

Printing the document by right clicking on the entry in Medical History, and choosing document or certificate:

This method directs AVImark to the highlighted entry in Medical History, and all information displayed on the document will pertain to only the entry that is chosen. So, if you have a document attached to a vaccination or a rabies code with the merge words or , it will merge the date of when that vaccination was given and when that vaccination is due again.

Printing the document by right clicking in the patient area and choosing document:

When using this method, AVImark has more variables to consider, including what vaccination or rabies it should use to pull the information for the merge words. So, if you give a rabies treatment today in Medical History but to not post it to Accounting, and then add a remindable treatment with a due date that is later than the rabies treatment you just gave, the rabies document will pick up the due date of the last remindable treatment that the patient received, not necessarily and rabies dates for and/or .

Steps for Consistency

• Post treatments to Accounting, and print the invoice. The rabies certificate that prints automatically will have the correct rabies dates on it.


• Right click on the rabies treatment in Medical History and choose certificate or document and then select the rabies document.

Flexibility with merge words is just one more way that we strive to help you use AVImark to its fullest capacity so your practice can reach it's greatest potential.

Barbara Betech is an AVImark senior technician. She can be reached at barbarab@avimark.net .