When Clients Google After the Visit (and How to Stay the Trusted Source)

If you don’t have time to read this entire article, here’s the one-sentence takeaway to stay the trusted source of pet health information and, in the process, strengthen client retention and keep clients coming back:

Before clients leave your practice, make sure you give them trusted client education relevant to recommendations and treatments.

At first glance, this may seem linked to compliance, and it is. Alongside discharge instructions, takeaway client education reinforces the “why” behind veterinary recommendations and treatments, which supports client follow-through.

As Dr. Stacee Santi writes in a recent article for Today’s Veterinary Business, “If clients don’t understand why they are supposed to do something, chances are they won’t do it,” adding, “You can make all the recommendations in the world, but clients won’t comply if they can’t follow through.”

Yet relative to the focus of this article, client retention, and keeping clients coming back, staying the trusted client source for pet health information is less about the how and more about the why.

The Gap Between Hearing and Remembering

To circle back for a moment: During appointments, practice teams are certainly in the habit of verbally providing information with clients that’s relevant to a pet’s care and treatment, and outwardly, clients may appear to understand what’s being said and what they’re being asked to do. Yet few clients attend appointments with clinical detachment.

They’re commonly emotional and stressful experiences for clients, especially when they’re trying to process any number of things in a short period of time:

• An unexpected diagnosis
• Medical recommendations that trigger fears
• Whether they can afford a treatment or procedure

Or they may be confused by medical jargon but feel too embarrassed to ask for clarification.

A lot can swirl together for clients all at once, which explains why a recent study published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine found that pet owners frequently struggle to fully recall discharge information, and when clients can’t reach your practice for clarification on things they missed, or simply don’t want to wait on hold, or they’re worried enough that they want information right away, clients commonly do what most people do when they need to know something right away.

They turn to the internet, which has certainly taken on new dimensions as a source of pet health information.

AI Hasn’t Changed Online Information Risks

In the absence of pet health information provided by practices, AI search tools like ChatGPT may have changed how pet owners search for information online. Yet they still draw from the same broad range of sources found through Google and other traditional search engines, meaning one thing remains relative to optimal pet health and patient outcomes.

Online information ranges from trustworthy to questionable, and AI has only added another dimension to this.

Aside from the risks of hallucinations (à la the famous “pizza glue” incident), a 2026 study published by Cornell University suggests AI search tools exhibit bias. Where traditional search engines like Google are “significantly more likely to retrieve information from popular or institutional websites in government or education,” researchers found generative search engines like AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Gemini “are significantly more likely to retrieve Google-owned content,” and Google doesn’t own any pet health information resources that veterinarians routinely rely on.

In addition to this: Even if clients find trustworthy information online, they may still be left wondering whether the information applies to their pet and whether they’re making the right decision.

All this explains why the AVMA recently advised pet owners, “Searching online—or asking an artificial intelligence (AI) tool—for information to help guide health care decisions for your pet may seem like a way to save money on veterinary bills, but this can be risky. It’s often hard to separate reliable advice from misleading or incomplete information.”

So, you’ve got a sense of the online picture, if you didn’t have it before reading this far.

To support improved compliance and optimal pet health, providing trusted takeaway client education with discharge instructions bypasses the risks of what might now be called “Dr. Bot,” and by reducing the need for callbacks (which reduces front-desk pressure), ensuring clients leave appointments with trusted client education ultimately creates a better practice experience for clients—and this is where things cross over to client retention and return visits.

Pet Owners Want Trusted Client Education from Practices

The reasons aren’t mystifying. As much as some pet owners may find themselves needing to use the internet, they’re also aware of the risks, and at the end of the day, pet owners don’t want to roll the dice on pet health and risk making an incorrect decision, which brings practices back front and center.

Against the inherent trust risks posed by online resources, pet owners (per a recent study published by Veterinary Evidence cite veterinarians as “their most trusted source of pet health information,” and in relation to how client education not only attracts but retains clients, a recent AAHA survey found “provides information I need” was a client priority alongside quality of veterinary care.

Taken together with other studies, the findings point to the true scope of client education and why being the trusted source matters.

In a time when Practice Smarter columnist and business consultant Mira Johnson writes in Today’s Veterinary Business  that practice growth isn’t solely defined “by how many new faces walk through the door, but by how many choose to come back,” providing clients with post-appointment client education goes beyond compliance. It’s one part of total client experience:

• Client education = better understanding
• Better understanding = what clients want
• Meeting client needs = better client experience
• Better client experience = stronger client relationships
• Stronger client relationships = greater likelihood of returning

The how part is how this article began.

Before clients leave your practice, make sure you give them trusted client education relevant to recommendations and treatments.

“That all sounds well and good but we’re a busy practice. How do we make this easy for our team?”

Fair question. Against staffing challenges, workflows, and time constraints, practices certainly don’t need one more complication—and that’s the starting point when evaluating client education systems against practice workflow.

External Versus Internal Resources

The more client education resources exist outside of normal clinical processes, the more they can hinder and slow down practice workflows when teams need to:

• Log in to separate systems
• Search for the right resources
• Switch between applications
• Remember to attach or send information
• Manually document what was shared

Like slow drips that eventually cause a bucket to overflow, each additional step adds to others to impact time and workflows, and makes client education easier to skip or miss when practice teams are busy.

Conversely, when client education resources are integrated directly into communication and discharge workflows, consistency becomes easier to maintain without adding to staff workload because client education relevant to patients is right there.

What This Looks Like in Practice

AI-powered SOAP note platforms paired with integrated client education resources offer a practical illustration of paired workflow efficiency.

As more practices implement SOAP note technology to increase efficiency and reclaim valuable time, bringing documentation and client education together within a single workflow helps ensure educational resources are shared consistently without creating additional work for staff.

One example is the integration between Shepherd Software’s AI-powered SOAP notes solution and the

client education library ClientEd by Shepherd’s partner LifeLearn.Rather than switching applications, searching for appropriate resources, or tangling with other slowdowns, appropriate client education resources can be chosen directly from within Shepherd’s SOAP notes workflow.

Covering a wide range of topics and species, the ClientEd library contains:

• More than 2,500 DVM-approved handouts written in everyday language that clients can easily understand.
• More than 475+ medication handouts to help practices in states like California and New York comply with consultation requirements as mandated by law.

The value of this integrated approach extends well beyond convenience.

When documentation, discharge instructions, and educational resources are connected, practices can more reliably provide clients with trusted information that reinforces recommendations and encourages follow-through. Clients receive the right information at the right time, and practice teams eliminate unnecessary steps from already demanding schedules.

Key Takeaway

Whatever solution you adopt to streamline client education and practice workflow, the key thing to remember is that client education is about more than compliance. It helps practices remain the trusted source when online information falls short, strengthens client relationships through better experiences, and, at a time when retention matters more than ever, gives clients another reason to come back. To see how Shepherd Software and ClientEd work together, book a demo with Shepherd or LifeLearn.

About the Author

Xristopher Bland has been writing about animal health for nearly a decade, specializing in client education, veterinary communications, and practice growth. Prior to this, Xris wrote about human health and nutrition. As a ghostwriter, Xris has written on behalf of veterinarians, physicians, and business leaders.