Richard Booty Managing Director Pet Software Limited

Forward to this Edition
Its all about more for less!

Hello and a very warm welcome to this the 3rd edition of Pet Sitter Business News.

Talking in recent weeks to pet sitters up and down the country its clear that most are, in some way or another being affected by the current economic conditions. If you like to read the glossy magazines (my wife likes “Red”) then you will know that the theme for a long time has been “how to do more with less”, the point being that when there is no more money around, the only real way to make a difference to your life is to cut costs.

This month we interview Kerry Richards of Cheshire Pet Care who has literally revolutionised her Cheshire based pet business by installing Pet Sitter Plus. But for her its not just about saving time and money (although she has done both) – her clients think the new system is great too and they love the new level of professionalism and service they receive. Read more about this article….

Also in this edition, Jackie publishes the second part of her serialised book “How to Grow your Pet Sitting Business” where she talks about the pros and cons of employing part time staff Versus a full time staff model. Read more about this article….

And finally, if you think you have insurance covered, think again. Debbie Clarke of Kelty Doggy Walks has the best insurance that money can buy but was astonished to find that her policies exclude her own pet dogs for public liability. Read more about this article….

We hope you enjoy the articles in our newsletter and if you have any comments or if you have an article you think might be of interest to pet sitters in the UK, please don’t hesitate to email these to us at
newsletter@petsitter-software.co.uk.

With Best Regards

Richard

Richard Booty
Managing Director
Pet Software Limited

Kerry & some of her team at Cheshire Pet Care

The Interview.
Kerry Richards of “Cheshire Pet Care” answers questions about Pet Sitter Plus.

In todays world, a prolonged period of economic uncertainty and general gloom has become the norm. So with levels of new business either depressingly flat or on the decline for many pet sitters around the country, the question for most of us is “how can we do more with less?” This month we interview Kerry Richards of Cheshire Pet Care who thinks she has the answer. Kerry has been running her Cheshire based pet sitting business and day care centre since 2008 and in this months interview she tells all about how life has changed for the better by implementing Pet Sitter Plus….

Richard Booty
You’ve been using Pet Sitter Plus for about 6 months now, can I start by asking you about your diary? How did this work before you subscribed to the software and what have been the benefits of the new system?

Kerry Richards
Before we had the system, like most people we operated a manual diary. This was a nightmare because by the end of the month it was full of crossings out and notes of new bookings and it was very difficult to read. The thing is, I knew what it all meant but none of my staff could make sense of it so I was the only person who could read the dairy. To get round this problem I used to write the days work on a white board so that my staff knew what they were doing but this took time and it would also get out of date very quickly.

Now, with Pet Sitter Plus, my diary is always up to date, its clear to read and all my staff have access to it. I don’t have to use my whiteboard anymore and I am not the only person who knows what’s going on. Its save me so much time and my staff are a lot happier.

Richard Booty
So how did you record your services for your clients each month so that you knew what they needed?

Kerry Richards
Again – this was all done manually in the diary. 45% of my clients order the same thing each month and I would have to remember each person’s order and write it in the diary. This took loads of time at the month end.

With Pet Sitter Plus there is a feature called recurring services which stores all my clients’ regular bookings. The thing is, I don’t have to remember this information anymore because it’s all on the system but the best bit is that setting up my diary for a new month takes literally seconds and this has saved me hours. Then – once my diary is set up my invoices and staff payments are calculated automatically by the system and this saves another big chunk of time.

Richard Booty
So thats fine for regular clients but what about the ad-hoc people?

Kerry Richards
I used to have to remember to put the ad-hoc bookings in my diary manually but now with the new system it’s so much quicker to record cancellations and bookings as the month goes on and this makes my invoices more accurate. The amount of customer queries I have to deal with has definitely gone down.

Richard Booty
So what about the quotation system – do you use that?

Kerry Richards
Yes – we didn’t have a way of sending quotes before because it took too much time but now when I get a new enquiry I can log it on the system very quickly and have a quote out the door via email in seconds. This makes me look very professional – like a proper business.

I have got some clients who want to know what they owe weekly so I send quotations weekly to these people – if they pay me weekly I add their payments to the system but then I only have to raise one invoice at the end of the month which saves time.

Richard Booty
What about invoicing – how did you produce invoices before and how has Pet Sitter Plus helped?

Kerry Richards
Before I had Pet Sitter Plus, if I wanted to know how much to invoice someone I would have to count their services in my diary and it was very easy to get this wrong. Now its all on the system and its easy.

We would only send out a few invoices before we had the system – just for the clients who asked for them. We had no method of emailing these so we would have to type the information into a spreadsheet, produce the invoice in word, print it and send it by post. It was expensive and time consuming.

Now all I have to do is click three buttons and all of my clients receive a professional itemised invoice via email. This has really improved my company image. Existing customers think I look a lot more professional and new customers are impressed by how quick I can respond with a quote and an invoice. They think that I am a proper company.

Richard Booty
So has invoicing people made it easier to collect your cash?

Kerry Richards
Yes – definitely. Rather than having odds and sods of cash coming in which is expensive when you have to keep going to the bank, I now get most of my payments electronically. This saves a lot of time because I don’t have to keep going to the bank and cash comes in quicker and in bigger chunks.

Richard Booty
How did you know who had paid you prior to using Pet sitter Plus and how has this changed?

Kerry Richards
The credit control report is really useful. It tells me exactly what money is outstanding so I can budget more easily. I don’t need to worry about running out of money because I always know how much I’ve got by looking at this report. This information wasn’t easily available before I had the system.

Richard Booty
Do you use the credit control emails? – how has this helped?

Kerry Richards
Yes – I’ve set up some standard emails for credit control and if someone doesn’t pay I can remind them via email very easily. This has saved so much time and it means I can treat every customer the same.

Also, when I’m sending out my invoices I can even tell them on the email about changes to terms and conditions or special offers etc.

Richard Booty
So how did you calculate your staff payroll prior to Pet Sitter Plus?

Kerry Richards
Manually! On a Sunday night I would do the timesheets for the week ahead. I would have to create each timesheet manually, email each one to a member of my staff and work out the payroll manually. This is all done by the system now. My staff login at 6 pm on a Sunday to see their work diaries which are always available online. This has saved me about 5 hours a week.

Also because clients change their bookings, the changes are now reflected instantly on the system so I’m no longer spending time changing information on timesheets and telling staff about what’s changed.

Richard Booty
You’ve told me that your staff get access to the system to get their client and job information, has this made a big difference?

Kerry Richards
Yes – definitely – I get far less queries from staff now not just because they have access to the information but also because they get information earlier. If they have a query, they have more time to speak to me so mistakes get made far less often.

Richard Booty
Do the staff use the holiday management facility?

Kerry Richards
Yes – this is great – when my staff book a holiday I get an email telling me what they have booked, and when they get a reply from me saying it’s approved – it’s approved. Then – if I book services when a staff member is due to be on holiday, the system warns me so it’s impossible to book work for someone when they are off.

This is also useful in other ways – I have a member of staff who has another job. When she is working she marks this time as holiday in her holiday planner and I know I can’t book work for her on those days.

Richard Booty
Do you use your Smartphone to access Pet Sitter Plus?

Kerry Richards
Yes – this is really convenient. When I am not near the computer I can log in via my phone and this is great if there is a problem with a computer – I always have a backup.

Richard Booty
What is your favourite feature of Pet Sitter Plus?

Kerry Richards
Definitely the diary – being able to see my bookings and the total revenue on a day to day basis is just fantastic. Also being able to allocate and re-schedule work is very quick.

Richard Booty
What feature do you think has saved you the most time?

Kerry Richards
That’s an easy one to answer – Recurring Services – Using this feature I don’t have to worry about remembering who has what service anymore because it’s all stored on the system and I can schedule a whole months work in literally seconds.

Richard Booty
How do you rate the support you have received?

Kerry Richards
Fantastic – I feel like I get a “one to one” service and that I matter to you as a customer. Also I get everything I need is in one product. You have listened to your market and I am now getting updates to the system with really useful features that I didn’t even know I needed.

Jackie Booty Business Owner Dog Days Limited

How to grow your pet sitting business.
Recruiting Staff – Full Time or Part Time?

Jackie’s book “How to Grow your Pet Sitting Business” is currently in production but is also being pre-released as a series of short articles in Pet Sitter Business News. The following article, the 2nd in the current series examines full and part time staff models.

“I ended my article last month with a question……If I am going to employ staff as a means to grow my pet sitting business; do I need full time staff or part time staff? This answer to this question is more important than you might think and ultimately will determine some of the characteristics of the business you end up running. So what are the pro’s and con’s and how do you choose which is best?

In this article I am writing about the benefits of my own business model at Dog Days which focuses on using part time staff and which has been successful for me. But here’s the health warning! My articles are designed to help you consider the relevant issues so that you can decide how you would like to run your own business. They are intended to be a discussion not an instruction. Whilst Dog Days has evolved into the right business for me, I am not in any way advocating that you do what I do. Instead I hope that our experience helps you to better understand your choices so that you can build the right pet business that works for you.

So what drives our business model? Well, sensibly it’s our customers. When we talk to our customers, the things that are important to them are generally;

1. Continuity of service – Our clients generally would like the same walker each day.

2. Reliability – Our clients want to know we will turn up.

3. Price – Some clients are more price sensitive than others.

4. Flexibility – At Dog Days (perhaps unsurprisingly) many of our clients are business people with constantly changing diaries. So – to make life easier we operate a flexible booking policy which allows clients to book or cancel walks up to 9:00am on the day.

5. The lunchtime slot – As 90% of clients are away from the house from 9 – 5 or longer, 90% of clients want their dog to be walked over the lunchtime slot. This makes a lot of sense as it means that our client’s dogs get the shortest period of time either side of their walk when they are on their own.

Here’s how it works;

Each walker generally works a maximum of 2.5 hours each day walking a maximum of 4 dogs. This can sometimes increase to 5 hours (two walks of 4 dogs) at busy times but this is not the norm. Each staff member picks up their work from the online diary where they get full access to all information they need to complete their work. (If you want a demo check out http://www.petsitter-software.co.uk/employee-access ) As our clients are able to book or cancel up to 9:00am on the day, our staff are trained to check their work after 9:00am by which time the schedules have been finalised. Each staff member acknowledges their work when they login so that I can see they have looked at their diary.

A big advantage of the part time model is reliability. When you are thinking about growing your business, a really important question you must ask yourself is – how am I going to cope when people are off sick or on holiday?

At Dog Days, each of our clients understands that they have a regular walker (who they get to know well) but equally they know that their backup walker will show up from time to time when their main walker is on holiday etc and this gives them peace of mind that we will always turn up!

If you employ full time staff then there is perhaps an obvious disadvantage in that it is much harder to re-allocate a full day’s workload (of possibly 12 dogs or more) from one member of staff to another when all your other staff members also have a similarly high workload. However with the part time model, if someone is off sick or on holiday it’s not so difficult to re-assign 4 dogs to other members of staff if they themselves only have 4 dogs of their own. After all, walking 8 dogs in 2 groups of 4 is quite achievable for most walkers. However, if two full time walkers each walk 12 dogs a day, then for one to be off sick, the other is now walking 24 dogs which is pretty tough going by most people’s standards (apologies in advance if anyone out there does this all the time).

This problem only gets worse when a walker leaves. Taking another full time workload and spreading this out amongst your remaining staff can cause people to be overworked and driving too many miles which is costly. This can go on for some time if you are unable to recruit a new member of staff quickly and if someone else leaves during this time, you really are in trouble. With the part time model however, staff can leave and (most of the time) you don’t have to face these types of problems.

Employing part time staff also means that it’s much easier to guarantee your customers the coveted lunchtime slot. If each of your walkers is only doing one walk a day with up to 4 dogs, there is no reason why this should not be conducted over the lunchtime slot and so you can keep the vast majority of your customers happy. If you are employing full time staff, by implication you have to keep them busy all day which means walking some dogs early and some late and (whilst I am not saying it’s impossible) it’s much harder to find a large volume of clients who are not bothered about the lunchtime slot.

Next month I am going to talk more about this subject, examine the downsides of a part time model and talk about the typical profile of person that makes a good dog walker / pet sitter.

With Best Regards

Debbie Clarke of Kelty Doggy Walks www.keltydoggywalks.com

Insurance in the spotlight.
Think you’re fully insured? – Think again!

How many of us like to take our own dogs out when we are on a “business” walk? I suspect its most of us, but have you ever considered that your own dog might not be insured. I certainly hadn’t until I was contacted this month by Debbie Clarke asking if we had any experience of a problem she had encountered with her insurance.

Debbie (pictured above) runs Kelty Doggy Walks which is a walking and boarding service based in Scotland and regularly walks her two pet dogs alongside her customer’s dogs. She’s covered by some of the best insurance policies on offer which include “top flight” health cover from Pet Plan (circa £50.00 a month per dog) and full insurance for her business from Pet Business Insurance.

On deciding to adopt another rescue dog, she began making enquiries about insurance cover and was astonished to find out that not only would no-one cover her new foster dog for public liability (in her particular circumstance) but that her two pet dogs were not covered either.

Basically – every policy, be it a business policy or health plan cover usually offers some level of public liability insurance which (generally) covers you up to at least £1M for circumstances where a member of the public is injured as a result of the behaviour or actions of your dog. However, what Debbie discovered was that in both cases the insurance policies she had in place excluded public liability when her pet dogs were exercised as part of her business activities.

Not being too concerned at this point, Debbie set about phoning round a few insurance companies but quickly realised that this was common practice. Drawing a blank she tried online research but after some time came up with nothing. Eventually, she approached a specialist insurance broker to find out if he could help but he too came up with nothing.

We thought this would be an issue of great interest to our readers. Having no cover for public liability (for your pet dogs) when out on a business walk is something that (at the very least) everyone should be aware of. Some of you might know about this problem and have found a solution. If so, Pet Sitter Business News would love to hear from you. Please email your thoughts on this article or any other issues raised in this edition to newsletter@petsitter-software.co.uk.