Veterinary clients prefer benefit-focused online communication while clinic websites uncommonly communicate benefits of preventive care services.

Abstract

Objective: To explore client preferences for how value is communicated via written means and to assess the consistency of this preference with how veterinary clinic websites present this information for preventive care services.

Methods: First, a questionnaire was developed to assess clients' preference between 2 researcher-developed paragraphs recommending senior pet screening (one focused on the function of screening, the other on pet benefits of screening) and distributed from August 17 to November 2, 2023. Second, veterinary clinic websites were retrieved with a search engine using predefined search phrases related to 4 preventive care topics (flea and tick prevention, heartworm prevention, dental cleaning, and senior bloodwork). Each website was coded for the frequency of 4 codes related to how the value of the preventive care service was communicated (feature, function, pet benefit, or client benefit).

Results: From the questionnaire, 58.0% (166/286) of participants preferred the benefit-focused communication. Those who saw the benefit-focused paragraph were more likely to indicate being "extremely likely" to discuss senior pet screening with a veterinarian. Of the 128 website pages coded, the mean text percentages for each code were 13.3% feature, 10.5% function, 6.4% pet benefit, and 1.0% client benefit.

Conclusions: Results suggest that opportunities exist to increase communication of the benefits of veterinary care on veterinary clinic websites, which may align more with clients' preferences.

Clinical relevance: Through online communication, veterinary professionals may have an opportunity to increase client engagement with preventive care services by emphasizing the benefits of preventive care services in addition to the function.