Episode 41: Communication Problems In Pet Sitting Companies With Adam Smith

On this episode Bella speaks with Adam Smith from Precise Petcare. They discuss communication problems pet sitting business owners often have with both the pet sitters who work for them and with customers.  They discuss how the software offered by Precise Petcare addresses many of these challenges. Adam & Lynn Smith Precise Petcare is an online management system that could quickly become the center of your business. The online scheduling, billing and client/staff management are all in one place. With their system you'll have fluid communication between you, your staff and your clients. Much loved features include Pet Care Journals, the Live Sitter Map and GPS sitter check-ins. Precise Petcare was co-created by a pet sitting business owner and a web developer to combine a perfect blend of knowledge and talents specifically for this industry. Husband and wife team, Adam and Lynn Smith understand first-hand what your needs are as a pet sitting business owner and have built each aspect of the software and continuously update and improve the system – without having to rely on outside talents to delay the process! Subscribe To The Show: Transcript: This is episode 41 of Bella in Your Business. Welcome to Bella in Your Business, where Bella will discuss anything and everything about your pet sitting business to help you land on target. So get ready—Bella’s got your chute. Let’s jump. Welcome to Bella in Your Business. My name is Bella Vasta, and I am here today with Adam Smith from Precise Pet Care. You guys, Adam is the web guy. His wife was the former pet sitting gal. And together, not only do they have a great marriage and wonderful kids, but they also produce this amazing software for our industry called Precise Pet Care. How’s that for an intro? Adam: I’m doing great, Bella. Thanks for having me. Bella: For sure. So today, I actually saw something that I thought was quite amazing. I had this person in one of my groups basically tell me that she loves putting together her own software system. She says she pieces together something like FreshBooks, and then she created a Google schedule, and she has these online forms that clients can fill out, and she’s got all this stuff going on. And I said, how many employees do you have? And she said, none right now. I’m working up to it. So I was like, man, girl. And she kind of told me too that she loves finance and that she also loved tech. Love, love, love it. And in my head, Adam, and I’d love to know your thoughts on this, I’m thinking, all right, if you love tech and you love finance, why don’t you start something on your own? I thought you were a pet sitting company and that’s what you’ve got to focus on. For those people who think that it’s just that easy to just get a Google calendar up, get some Google forms up, and then connect it all to QuickBooks or FreshBooks, what do you say to that? Adam: It’s going to work. It’s just not going to scale once you get more customers. Once you start hiring, it’s going to become harder and harder for that to actually grow with you. Bella: Yeah, it totally is. I mean, how much time does it take on your end? Give me an overview of this last year. I know you guys are pumping out updates quicker than any other company I know. I love how you guys listen to what people are needing. We hear about them online, and you say, hey, I would really like to have this feature. When you as a company decide, okay, I can do this feature, I can’t do this feature, what kind of things do you have to do to make that happen? What is that timeline? What is the investment financially that you have to make in developing that? Can you help us understand what that all means? Adam: Yeah, the process of doing new features is a pretty long one. First, we need to kind of get that seed of an idea, and then we need to make sure it’s something that our users are going to actually utilize. And then if we decide that we’re going to do it, we need to decide when we’re going to do it, what’s the priority, and then we need to figure out exactly how it’s going to work. And after that, we’d go with the testing. And then once it’s done testing, then we’d launch it to everyone. So it’s a pretty long process, especially for the more significant features that we may be working on. Bella: Yeah, so it’s not just that easy. If it was that easy, everyone wouldn’t be using online stuff or scheduling. Adam: Yeah, and if it’s just yourself, you know, it’s pretty easy to test something like that. But for us with our large user base, you know, we need to have something that makes sense for everyone. Bella: Correct. It’s not personalized to just one person. And I think that the more clients and the more employees that you have, the more robust your system needs to be. I mean, you can’t just be using a Google calendar and have 20 pet sitters. I mean, you could, but you’ll also become a full-time scheduler. And none of us have extra hours in the day. So let’s talk more in general. What kind of communication problems do pet sitting companies usually encounter, generally speaking? Adam: It’s hard to get everything organized and in one place because there’s always so many different ways that clients and staff are trying to communicate with management that just trying to keep that all in one place and not miss out on something, I think that’s number one. Bella: For sure. And pet sitters out in the field trying to communicate with clients—you don’t always want them to be communicating directly with clients. So there needs to be a way for them to communicate with clients that management is able to see. I have a story for that. Towards the very last month in my business, this was like one of the craziest stories that had ever happened to me in 14 years. I wasn’t using your system. I was using Google Voice because I wanted to know what communication was going on between the sitter and client. And that came to head at about 11:30 on a Monday night. I had a client that was in the woods in a cabin, and she hadn’t gotten her text message update about her cat. And she flipped out on me on voicemail. And I was able to go in and see that my sitter actually sent communication via the text. So I called the client, tried to tell her that, she flipped out at me. But just to illustrate that point for you, knowing what kind of communication is going back and forth between the sitter and the client is so super important. And I love how you guys solve that problem. You guys solve it through a journal, is that it? Can you tell us more about that? Adam: The Pet Care journals are basically just a digital version of the paper notes that you would typically leave at pet sitting assignments. And they include the notes and kind of a checklist of what happened during the visit and photos of the pets. And in addition to that, there’s also a comment section. And if you want to allow the clients to respond, they can kind of talk back and forth with the sitters about that particular assignment. And management is able to see those comments come in and on the journal. So you have that history and also that communication that takes place on the journal. It goes through our system. So clients and sitters never know the contact details of each other. Bella: That’s beautiful. And I know that you guys are really on the cutting edge of that. I just remember having to give people care notes. We used to leave care notes on the counter years ago. And then we started doing the text message thing. But care notes on the counter—the amount of paper that I was running off and then trying to get it to all my staff. Again, it’s just extra time and energy and money that we don’t realize that we’re just like hamsters running in this wheel as business owners. I love how you guys solve that problem. Do you ever find that business owners are racking their brain because the client wants to change Fluffy’s feeding from two cups to one cup and then the business owner trying to get that information to the staff? How does software help streamline that part of things? Adam: Well, something that our system does is whenever a client is updating their profile and updating their pet information, the management is going to receive an email about what changed in their profile. And if you had any sitters that were set as the primary or secondary sitter for that particular client, they would also get that email. Bella: Beautiful. So they not only get the notification, but it’s also obviously in the system. Adam: Yeah, so it’s right there in the system when they go in the profile and look for it. Bella: I really encourage all the pet business owners who do software to always encourage and empower their clients to go in and change. Here’s a little tip for everyone. I always used to tell clients, I’m sorry, I’m not in front of the computer right now, and I don’t want to forget putting this in. Will you please go online and put it in for us? And they say yes, and they end up doing it. So I really always put the burden of responsibility on the client. And not only is that covering your butt a little bit, but it’s also teaching them that instead of calling you the business owner and distracting you from something, they can go in and do it. And it also ensures that if there’s a mistake made, it’s made by the client. It’s not made by you or your staff or something. It’s all about using this technology to the best of its ability. Adam: Yeah, it’s always easy to keep doing what you’re used to doing. And there are so many benefits of using the technology that can save you time. That’s a great example you have of just having the client take their own time instead of taking your time to do something that they can do pretty easily. Bella: Give them that responsibility and let the burden fall on them. And it’s not bad customer service.