Pet owners who participated in a loyalty program at their veterinary clinic visited the doctor more than they did when they weren’t part of the program. And revenue increased for practices that offered clients financial rewards through a loyalty program, according to a recent analysis.

Vet2Pet, a developer of apps for veterinary practices, including a loyalty program, sponsored the study, which used data from 201 practices with 548,516 users of Vet2Pet. Veterinary data research firm Vet Success conducted the study, looking at reward program participants who had collected rewards, participants who hadn’t collected a reward yet, and non-participating clients.

Key findings from the study were:

Clients who received rewards through the program visit the clinic five more times annually.
Rewarded clients increase their spending by 26.6%, or $729, annually.
The average annual practice revenue increase was $100,011, a 6.4% increase to total revenue. Average revenue per participating practice was $1.562 million.

“The study statistically proves that with a loyalty program, a veterinary practice’s best clients have the ability to perform better and significantly boost overall practice revenue, by more than $100,000 on average,” Vet2Pet founder Dr. Stacee Santi said in the announcement. “The loyalty program also drives a substantial increase in visits for top-performing clients. What’s even more exciting is that we are seeing strong indicators that the program has exponential impact on revenue in the second and third years.”

“Nearly 90% of our app users are engaged with our loyalty program, and in three years our practice revenue has grown 64% per year on average,” said Jessica Speas, CVPM, practice manager at California-based Crescenta Cañada Pet Hospital, an early adopter of the Vet2Pet app and loyalty program.

Loyalty program participants visit the vet more, study shows