514: The Tech Revolution in Pet Care
Brought to you by: Pet Sitters Associates. Use ‘Confessional’ at checkout
How are you using technology in your business? Technology continues to evolve, profoundly impacting the pet care industry. Staying adaptable is essential for integrating new tools like online booking systems, GPS tracking, and smart pet feeders, which enhance our services and client transparency. Beyond using technology in our business, we must guide clients in appropriately using these innovations with their pets. Automation of routine tasks allows us to focus more on socialization and personalized care, improving pets' well-being. Embracing these changes elevates the quality of service and strengthens the bond between pet sitters, pets, and their owners.
Main topics:
Impact of Technology on Pet Care
Online Booking and Apps
Client Management Software Benefits
Wearable Technology for Pets
Automatic Pet Care Devices
Main takeaway: Technology continues to revolutionize the pet care industry, enhancing how we operate our businesses and care for pets.
Links:
ProTrainings: For 10% off any of their courses, use CPR-petsitterconfessional
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, & TuneIn
Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet, clients, pet sitter, technology, cat, robot, visits, home, litter, business, monitor, online booking, pet owners, litter box, dog, change, owners, real time updates, water fountains, services
SPEAKERS
Collin, Meghan
Meghan 00:01
Hi, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And we are the hosts of pet sitter confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Thank you for joining us today.
Collin 00:08
We want to thank today's sponsor, pet sitters associates as well as our Patreon supporters each month, they find value in the show and they contribute financially at two different levels, the Great Dane and the Doxon level. If you'd like to learn more about what these gets you and all that's included, go to pet sitter confessional.com/support. If you're listening to this episode in August of 2024, in just a few weeks, Megan and I are going to be speaking at the Florida Pet Services Association Summit in Naples, Florida, we are super excited to be there with a bunch of other speakers and can't wait to see everybody who is attending the topic of the talk. It's all about fear in your business, common fears that we face and how to overcome them. And ultimately, we should be using fear to connect with one another to better our industry in our communities that we live in. If you're interested in attending, I believe they still have tickets. As of right now, check out Florida Pet Services Association and the link we have in the show notes.
Meghan 01:03
The dog walking and pet sitting industry has been around for over 30 years. And obviously a lot has changed over that time. But also a lot of hasn't. A lot of what we do hasn't changed. Dogs still need to go outside to go to the bathroom cat still need their litter scooped and everybody needs to be fed. But methodologies have changed and thoughts around the stress and fear that the pets experience when their owners leave have really developed over the years, a major change of that has been the technological aspect of what we do. Now, even if you think I'm old school, because I use a pen and paper for all of my scheduling and my clients just call me and you don't use a booking software, you're still using a supercomputer in your pocket, and you have GPS directions to get you to places. So you still are implementing technology in your business even if you use a pen and paper.
Collin 01:50
And so on today's episode, we want to walk through how technology has really revolutionized pecker industry. Both its impact us and how we run and operate our business, as well as how it impacts what we do when we are in a visit as our clients embrace technology for their home and their pets.
Meghan 02:06
So the first is 10 ways technology has changed how we operate in our businesses, the first one being obviously online booking or digital forms. Some people don't like pen and paper anymore. We love the digital aspect that clients can just do this whenever they want. 30 years ago bookings were primarily made through phone calls or in person visits. Today online booking platforms allow clients to schedule services at their convenience that midnight if they need to online or through an app. And speaking of an app, the advent of smartphones has led to these apps specifically for pet care businesses. We love time to pet of course, but these apps enable real time updates and GPS tracking of walks and ease of communication between pet sitters and pet owners with this GPS tracking, it allows owners to see the exact route and the duration of the pets walk. This builds transparency and really ensures accountability that what we say is what we're going to do. Then there's the online digital side of this of the social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and Tiktok. They've become really essential marketing tools. It's great to have a website. But sometimes that really isn't enough pet care businesses can showcase our services and our client testimonials and engage with the community more than you can with just a website, it really expands our reach far beyond that traditional word of mouth.
Collin 03:21
We already mentioned the new ways to book whether through a mobile app or through an online presence. But also as the advances of Technology have come along, we've been able to manage our clients better through advanced client management software's and programs. These allow us to not only schedule but also through billing through communication. And they also really importantly, handle client information, track service history, automate reminders, it allows you to get them into a good email program and manage the communications that you have going through them so that you don't lose touch with these people. With the advent of the Internet reviews and ratings have become more important than ever to give people our credential and show that we are who we are and that we are trustworthy. Places like Yelp, although that does have some negative connotations and people don't like it. We have to admit it is there. But also Google reviews, Facebook reviews, there's all places for people to talk and rave about your services. There's even specialty listing services whether it's through an organization or other independent companies. This feedback is crucial for building your reputation and attracting new clients, especially in a cluttered a day and age where there's so many other businesses out there
Meghan 04:26
when we started pet sitting and dog walking 12 years ago, it was very common for people to leave a cash or cheque but those days are mostly gone. For those of us that love to take payments through an online booking software or stripe or PayPal, it's really streamline that billing process which makes it easier for clients to pay and for businesses to manage their finances. The global pandemic a few years ago really advanced the adoption of technology. We are now much more familiar with apps like zoom or Skype that have enabled virtual meet and greets with new clients making it easier to build that rapport and discuss the pet care needs without necessarily meeting in person Just
Collin 05:00
the wider availability of faster internet speeds to our smartphones has enabled us to use video and take high quality photos that really connect with our clients and allow us to tell the stories that we need to while they are away.
Meghan 05:12
On the admin side of things, there's the email marketing and the CRM tools that have automated a lot of the marketing tasks that we can do. These tools help us stay in touch with clients through newsletters, and promotions and personalized communication, you can say, Hey, Mark, I know it's been a while since I've walked Rosi, blah, blah, blah, that enhance customer retention and engagement. With the
Collin 05:33
advancements of technology, a lot of the things that used to be really expensive and costly, have become super cheap and very accessible. And a really great example of that. The wearable technology for pets. This is GPS collars, activity trackers. These all provide additional data on pet's health and activity levels that we as business owners can use to enhance the visits that we can show the clients exactly what's going on, and offer these to them and integrate them into our services. Technology
Meghan 06:00
has not just changed how we operate our businesses, but also in the client's homes. It's drastically changed how we provide the care in the client's home. But before we get to that, we're going to talk about pet sitters associates. As pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members. And that's why pet sitters Associates is here to help for over 20 years they've provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. Because you work in the pet care industry. You can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom in running your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote at pets llc.com. You can get a discount when you join by clicking memberships Pet Sitter confessional and use the discount code confessional when you go to checkout. Check out the benefits membership and insurance once again at Pet said llc.com. One of the most used pieces of technology in a client's home is the pet cameras. They allow the pet owners to monitor the pets in real time. Everybody loves the Furbo camera. These devices often come with two way audio enabling owners to talk to their pets and hear the responses. And yes, talk to pet sitters as well when they're when they're actively doing visits. Some models include the treat dispensers or the motion detection and night vision. It really provides that comprehensive monitoring and interaction capabilities to ensure that pets are safe and comfortable when their owners aren't there. And you can even use them to track shy cats as well. A
Collin 07:20
lot of the technology that's entered clients home is actually specifically focused on cats and one of those obviously being automatic litter boxes. These automatically clean and remove waste from the litter boxes, reducing the need for manual scooping, which is why clients love them. advanced models even have sensors to detect when a cat has used litter box. They self clean afterwards, keeping the litter box constant clean and will alert the owner with notifications of when it was used so they can keep track of the litter usage. Then there are the smart pet feeders and these have come a long way since they were first introduced to the market. Originally just simple timers and dials that you turned. Now these allowed owners to set highly specific schedules to control feeding times remotely via a lot of times a smartphone app. Some Avon comm included with cameras, voice recording features, or a portion control to ensure that the pets receive the correct amount of food at regular intervals.
Meghan 08:12
Almost all of our cat clients use water fountains. These can be used for dogs as well, but they allow for a continuous flow of filtered water encouraging the pets to drink especially cats, and really stay hydrated. A lot of times they'll have multiple filtration systems and adjustable flow settings to suit different pet preferences. But as sitters we have to make sure that they are kept clean and that owners stay on top of their maintenance because they can get dirty really fast
Collin 08:37
well and some of them can actually get shut off when the power goes out meaning that the pets don't have access to water. So some of the more recent ones actually sit on top of a charging base and have a built in battery in the actual found so that when the power gets cut, there's a little bit of battery reserve to keep it going. So all you have to do is just lift these things straight up off of the base no worrying about cords or messes or anything like that to change and maintain them and clean them.
Meghan 08:59
In the past five to 10 years wearable technology for pets has exploded collars harnesses that are equipped with sensors that can monitor the vital signs of the pet the activity level even the sleep patterns. These are really cool and you can know so much more about your pet. These can really help pet owners and veterinarians to track the health and well being of the pets in real time potentially detecting early health issues.
Collin 09:21
When it comes to pet doors. Gone are the days of simple plastic flaps or just open holes in a wall that allow the pet to pass by freely. Now these smart pet doors use RFID technology or even microchip recognition to allow only authorized pets to enter or exit the home. Meaning that you'll have no surprise raccoons or other stray neighborhood friends entering your home if you don't want to. This ensures that the pet door maintains security and convenience for the pet owners without too much hassle. All of this
Meghan 09:50
may sound like it's taking away aspects of our jobs but it also gives us opportunities. We can troubleshoot automatic boxes or feeders or water fountains technology He breaks all of the time. So we can assure clients that we are still needed because the robot may break. And we will be there to continue to scoop the litter box and help troubleshoot what is the problem with it. Now, that doesn't
Collin 10:11
mean that we have to stay up to date and all the latest and greatest stuff, we have to read operating manuals, we have to watch the YouTube how to and help videos, we have to be the ones who know and understand exactly what's going on. So we can actually use technology, we can use booking software, we can use client management software to actually store and if you aren't doing this, it may be an idea for you to do. If if you know a client has a particular weird water fountain or they're using a little robot version three or four or whatever it is right now, you can have a user manual stored in that clients profile under their documents or somewhere that has easy access to that. So that when that breaks, when there's something you're not having to quickly frantically Google for how to overcome that, because you as the professional, that's a service that you get to provide is the direct support and connection to the real time needs of that pet in that client. And when technology is working, when the little robots are cycling, when the feeders are dispensing when the fountains are running, it means that we can actually focus more on socialization, we can have pets, yay, it turns out, right? Well, we actually wanted to do on the playing on the medications on all that instead of the actual chores. So in very in one very real sense, we should be embracing this technology, because now we get to elevate our services more than just a litter scooper. Now, that's still critical. And it's still important so that we could be monitoring the health of cats, or we can monitoring how much they're eating, or how much you're drinking for the dogs. All that is really important. But we get to now focus on a much higher level of care and a level quality of care that maybe we just didn't have the time or attention for before. But
Meghan 11:49
this does mean that because clients are now using a lot of automatic things, some don't see the necessity to use pet sitters as much. So we have to grapple with this we have to do a lot more education of know, even though you have an automatic litter scooper. And even though you haven't water fountain, we still need to come by because things break all the time your cat may be stuck behind a washing machine, the robot isn't going to check on the health of the pet and do a rub down to make sure that there aren't any tender spots on the cat. It's
Collin 12:18
interesting, I feel like we've we're almost coming full circle, because 30 years ago, it was not uncommon for people to leave for a week or more and throw some food down and have a water bowl out and then just leave for vacation then come back. Then we kind of went to this where people were really wanting a lot of hands on activity, they were wanting those real time updates through wanting all that. And now with the technology with the smart feeders and with the little robots or with the smart pet doors and the dispensers. Now, they can also leave again for another week. And they've got cameras in the home. And they've got wearable sensors on their pets, so they can see them and monitor their activity and their location. So why even have a pet sitter. But on the other hand, as technology becomes more commonplace and accessible, you're going to find that there are much more hands on pet parents than ever before, they are actively wanting to monitor the activity of the pet. That kind of sounds like somebody who'd be interested in real time updates and hands on attention in personalized care for their pet. Now there
Meghan 13:14
are still clients out there who don't really care about the updates. They think the pictures are cute, but not really necessary. On the whole though most clients absolutely love the pictures, real time updates personalized care that they get one on one with a pet sitter with pictures and videos and everything that you provide. A lot of clients love that and value that that's not something that a robot is going to replace that emotional connection that you build with their dog and their cat and that they wag their tail every time you walk in the door.
Collin 13:42
It also means that they may be watching you more while you're in a visit and monitoring your activity and giving you helpful, quote unquote helpful tips. You know what's going. Definitely
Meghan 13:51
a lot more helicopter parents out there. They know exactly the time that you enter their house. And when they leave. And for those type eight people, they're going to hold you to what you say they want to get their money's worth. And it's understandable. But just to know that you are always being watched whether by the homeowner inside the house or the homeowner outside the house or the neighbors peeking out their blinds as you walk the dog down the street.
Collin 14:12
It's definitely a real big consequence to us as the business owners being in people's homes knowing not only am I being watched, but the client is also monitoring their pet activity tracker that they have attached to their dog. They're also looking at the little robot saying how many times it's cycling and they can see how many times the food has dispensed and they can see what's going on. So we are being double checked in a lot of senses. And so it does kind of it does lead to the sense of we have to execute perfection every visit because we know we're being watched, you know 15 years ago or 12 years ago when we started if we forgot to scoop litter on day three of a 14 day petsitting trip the client wouldn't know unless we told them and owned up to it. And obviously we would correct it and do what we needed to. But now the client has eyes and ears everywhere including in the litter box allowing them to see it monitor exactly what's going on. And this again, this is totally fine. Clients have the right to know exactly what's going on in their home, they have a right to know and be up to date on the quality of care that their pets are receiving and the health of their pets in their home, it just means that we are going to be under more of a microscope more and more,
Meghan 15:19
yeah, we don't get to have an off moment. And if you do have an off moment or an off day, they are likely to know it. And not that we need to make excuses. But we need to own up to it and do better next time. Now maybe this is because I am a type A personality. And I like doing things 100% All the time. But I do feel like there is this pressure now to perform to get it right every single time we can't mess up. And I'm not saying we want to mess up. But there when we are human, there are things that are going to happen. And so when we are being watched, we have to just be cognizant all the time and try to not feel that pressure as much as possible. But also recognize that it's there
Collin 15:58
and realize that the camera that the client paid for is the camera that the client is going to believe more than your check in or your checkout time, they just will automatically ask, Hey, I saw that you sent an update. But it looks like you were there for five minutes, because I didn't see you on my camera. But then we have to we find ourselves having to talk to them about how cameras can be unreliable, and it might didn't catch us and blah, blah, blah. And just that as more data is introduced to a scenario, it doesn't always make it better for everybody that it has to be understood that it has to be put in context of what is being monitored, what is being tracked in relation to what we're doing. And again, those client expectations, what are they wanting out of this. And it really means that we as business owners have to educate ourselves about every single one of these things. And we don't have to do it ahead of time. But when something comes across our plate, the first time we get an activity tracker on a dog or the first time we encounter that litter robot, or whatever that is deep dive into that know the pros know the cons, how are you? Does it change anything about your visits? Now? Does it change anything about how you talk to that client or the updates that you give, because when we've got a little robot on our clients, we send updates about how the robot is doing was it flashing, we send videos of it operating we send videos of it being full, it changes how we communicate with that client, it's not just about the litter anymore. Now it's about hey, we are upkeeping this robot you have living in your home that is taking care of your cat. And here's how your cat's doing that requires thinking and processing of how we're going to involve technology, how much we're going to embrace that, or how much we're going to push it away and wait for another day. Technology
Meghan 17:35
does make our jobs easier in so much as we can handle more admin tasks. Because we can do things faster and more efficiently. Clients can schedule visits for a week from now in their PJs in bed at 10 o'clock at night, it makes the client experience better because they don't have to call us to schedule visits, it makes it easier to use for them.
Collin 17:53
And on our side the administrative, we're not having to waste so much time invoicing or following up with phone calls or tracking people down. We also aren't having to spend a lot of time just very practical your route planning. How much more difficult was route planning when we had paper maps, when Google or Apple maps were not a thing where we could just simply click one button and be transported in know the direct route to a client's home, including all of the traffic and brand new construction that saves us so much time and so much headache, and allows us to focus on a lot more things in our business and be actually present in the moment when we're in the visits with
Meghan 18:29
artificial intelligence. It is even easier to write emails and do blog posts and social media captions. You can ask Chad GPT a few questions and off it goes. And there you go, or brainstorm
Collin 18:40
and strategize about your business and where you want to be in five or 10 years, we went through a thing where we actually fed up ton of data, both locally and nationally about our target demographic, and worked with Chad GPT to come up with ways of marketing and targeting them how it would impact our services and what we would need to change because we fed it aspects about our website about our brand about our mission, vision values and goals. We fit it all into this stuff. And you can actually have a conversation with that bounce ideas about it. Think of pros and some cons. As you learn information. You can say, Hey, I just listened to this amazing petsitter professional podcast and they mentioned this idea how does that change my business plan? Or does it or what would I need to do in order to get there, it gives you a way to externalize this conversation where we didn't have before where it really brings all of this power directly to you on your phone while you're sitting at a stoplight. Again, that's what's just so mind blowing about this is that you're just able to do so much more than you ever could before.
Meghan 19:36
We can now provide so much more peace of mind to the client and solve their problems even more. If a client is having problems with a shy cat not showing up. You can suggest a camera to them so they can monitor the progress of the comings and goings of the cat.
Collin 19:50
Or maybe you have a dog who's not acting you know, how do you expected or they're more tired or whatever. suggest adding a wearable technology to that dog to monitor their sleep patterns are they staying up all night barking or they nervously pacing in particular parts of the home. That is valuable data not just for the client to know about their dog, but now for you to come up with solutions and, and work through that with them.
Meghan 20:13
It doesn't matter if you've been in this industry for 30 years or 30 days. If you are adapting technology to your business, we would love to know how you do that how it's been helpful to you and maybe some ways that it's not been super helpful. You can email us at Pet Sitter confessional@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Sitter confessional. Thank you for taking your time and listening to this today. We greatly appreciate you. Thank you also to pet sitters associates and our Patreon supporters. We will talk with you next time. Bye
