Some of the Team in Liverpool

Sanderson Vet was founded in 2016, with the aim of offering the highest standards of patient and client care on the Wirral. The clinic was opened in 2017 and is independently owned.

We caught up with Kayleigh the Reception Manager at Sanderson Vets to discuss their success with PetsApp and her hacks on how to smash stats when it comes to increasing both client compliance and satisfaction while also improving your teams levels of operational efficiency in order to gain back previously lost time.

"Promotion is key - we promote it (PetsApp) at every point. So even if a client phones up to book in their pet's vaccinations, we'll literally say 'Ok we'll book that in for you today, but in the future you can save a lot of time by simply booking in via PetsApp.' As a practice for us, we're just very pro PetsApp because it works and it's easy."  

-Kayleigh, Reception Manager at Sanderson Vets

Kayleigh and the team collectively decided to go all in with PetsApp agreeing to make sure that all comms including payment requests are being done via the app. Using text messages and QR codes to assist with their client's first touch point, they are quick to make sure all pet owners download the app and get set up straight away. This initial increased effort, saves a lot of time in the longterm. Their inbound rate sitting at above 60% a clear indicator that with the right guidance, once the app is set up, pet owners take to it very easily.

"Whenever I do any training or whenever I get any new staff members, I'm very, very quick to get them set up with PetsApp. And we tell all our clients: 'We've got this app called PetsApp where you can speak to us'. We tell them all about it, including the healthcare plan. Anyone who comes in or calls up we're like: 'Oh, next time you need your appointment, just book it on PetsApp; saves you waiting in queue to speak to us!' So we're very actively pushing it. And I send all estimates and receipts, invoices, anything like that, it all goes through PetsApp as well. This way we get the clients used to communicating with us through PetsApp right away rather than just ringing us."

-Kayleigh, Reception Manager at Sanderson Vets

Although some exceptions are made by Kayleigh and the team for a small few, generally their terminology does not give other forms of communication such as email as an option. Instead they direct all pet owners to communicate via the app. Immediate team onboarding also means that Kayleigh has buy in from all team members to make sure that everyone from reception to pharmacy uses the app. Infact they not only use the app for enquiries, reminders and appointment booking, they also use it for pre and post op instructions and increasing compliance around the collection of prescriptions in order to improve their client experience and reduce the level of wasted meds and/or trips to the clinic.

"I don't really give people the option of having stuff sent by email or any kind of other route. It's just a simple 'This is PetsApp and how we communicate and this is what you need to download'. And then nine times out of ten they'll download it and get on with using it, happily. Obviously you're going to get that one. So they can have it in a different way, but nine times out of ten, you can kind of get people on your side to download it. And then once they start using it, they love it! We send clients their payment requests for a procedure beforehand, and they can pay through PetsApp. Then in the pharmacy if their prescription is ready, our pharmacy nurse will message the client via the app to say: 'Your medication is ready for collection.' The whole team is invested in it from reception to our pharmacy nurses. It means the client can come in and literally grab their medication and go. We're a very busy practice, we could do without people hanging around just to make a payment. And so it also reduces that, as well as the risk of someone collecting their medication and not paying for it altogether, because they've already paid for it via PetsApp, before they confirm collection. And because they've paid for it they're definitely going to collect it too, meaning lower waste rates of prescription meds as collection rates are now higher due to the reminders sent from the pharmacy nurse via PetsApp."

-Kayleigh, Reception Manager at Sanderson Vets

And it's not just wasted meds they've been saving. The team at Sanderson Vets have regularly been hitting 300+ chats a week via PetsApp!

"I think the time freed up on the phones is a massive one because on average I'd say we easily have 30+ chats come in a day, and before PetsApp that would have been 30+ phone calls that the guys would have to take. Before PetsApp the phones, never, ever, ever stopped. From 8 in the morning until 8 at night, it'd be ring, ring, ring. Whereas now, we get to breathe. And so that's absolutely helped, and it's all in one place as well. We're all on the one thing that we can just click around and find whats needed like the appointments or chats or payments, whatever you need, it's just all in one place. You're not having to constantly swap out of each system or trying to organise a call back while you find the right person to answer the enquiry. That's definitely made it easier for the team and clients as well."

-Kayleigh, Reception Manager at Sanderson Vets