So, welcome to today's where we are. It won't be a presentation, but more of a discussion. So thank you for taking the time, out of being here today.
So today's topic is actually, more of a question, and the question is, will automation change the role of veterinary receptionist? We will be running a live Q&A. There is at the bottom of the screen a button, a Q&A.
Please use this button if you have also any question, during, during the time of this webinar. Also, if you miss anything, don't worry, we'll be sending the recording when it will be available. So, I'm going to introduce Kate Morris and Alisa Lam, so thanks to them for accepting the invitation to join us for the conversation.
So Kate, is a partner at Sedon Vetterary Group. She has been . For 25 years.
She's an ophthalmology certificate holder and C down is the three sides that practise doing mixed and also referral appointment and they are based in the New Forest. Alison, obviously everyone, everybody knows Alison or at least a lot of people knows Alison. She's a well recognised speaker.
Alison has been, also practising for some time as a vet. Then she moved in the industry and then founded on Switch around 20 years ago. She travelled the world and a job, a role, a goal is to inspire change and create customer centric, practises.
Me, I'm Julian Renaud. I, I have also worked as a vet for, for several years and I co-founded Vettoria. Vitoria is providing real-time online booking for veterinary practises and integrated with the practise management software run in, in the practises.
The plan for today, we are going to discuss the impact of COVID-19, and, we're going to use some data, that, we've been collecting through, all customer usage, on the, on the system. We will also review the challenges reported by the receptionist. So we have done a large survey recently and we will share these results.
We will also discuss the automation can support this receptionist and Kate and Alison, we can say hi now, I've not said it before, we'll have the opportunity to share the opinion on how they see automation and what, what they believe will become a receptionist of the future. So, Alison, Kate, thanks for coming. Hi.
Thanks for inviting us along. Thanks for joining. OK, I'm just going to share my screen.
See it Yes, marvellous hair. It changes colour. Yes.
All right, let's move on and go. OK. So, where are we know as an industry, so this slides, represents, the activity of Victoria user.
The blue line, which I'm going to show you on the screen, the blue line, you see, yes, the blue line represents the number of appointments taken online. The green vertical bar represents the number of live practises. And what we can see these two major observations that we can see on this chart.
We can see in, in March, April, actually, that's April, but we can see in April, a big dive of number of appointments. And the second observation and also the number of appointments, but also the number of sites. So at that time, some practises decided to stop the online booking system and what we see.
Also afterwards, after this recovery is simply the fact that In January, which is the first red bar, and in July, which is the 2nd vertical red bar, we have the same level number of appointments. However, we can see that much less sites are, are scheduling online. So what it means is simply the fact that the clinic which actually have implemented this automation, this automated online booking system, and also scheduling more appointments online than ever.
So, Alison. You are the experts. What does the recovery, shown on the chart tells you?
Obviously, you have a lot of insight through your work at Uswitch, and I think that you are very well placed to commend this data. It's, firstly, welcome everybody and, it's nice to be here just to, to discuss around the table where we are now. And this chart, I think, is really useful to indicate where we were before, before we start saying where we are now.
So, pre-COVID, which is your, your, your pink bar there, you can see that the, you know, the adoption of online booking was growing. It's very steady, number of sites taking it on board. The moment that we went into a COVID-19, you know, essentially that first, you know, end of March, beginning of April, the total shutdown.
At that point, many people switched their online booking off, as, you know, it was an option, and people did it. But then they went, Oh, heck, the phones are going crazy, we better switch it back on again. And I think what it tells us is, however much we might feel at times that online booking is something we don't feel we can control, or we, we can't get a handle on.
It's entirely normal for our client base. And so switching it back on again, it just shows, well, it's entirely normal for the clients to say, I can book online, I want to book online. And I know when we talked to Kate about the impact it had on her practise, is by switching it off, you've created a downstream problem for inbound telephony.
All this chart says is the general public book things online, and they're happy so to do. So, it, it's For me, it's just an indicator of if you're not already using online booking and you, you haven't switched it back on yet, 1, get it, and 2, switch it back on. OK.
I've not paid Alison to say that. There are other booking capabilities. We talked about this the other day.
I'm I'm joking. I'm joking. Would you ring up Ryanair or Qantas or BA and book a flight?
No, you'd go online and you'd book it online. It's entirely normal for our clients. We as a profession just have to get over ourselves and just go easy, you know, just get back on.
OK, so the, the next slides, is good. The next slide is actually just to be aligned on what is automation because we discuss here the, the topic is to discuss online booking because that's one thing that can be automated and later on the The webinar we are going to discuss about what can be automated. So it's not only really about online booking only, but just to be aligned, just going to just read the definition of what is automation.
So the automation is the creation and application of technologies to deliver services with minimal human intervention. And What we have done What we have done recently, I think 2 or 3 weeks ago, we have simply asked a question to I would say a database of user but also non-user. And the goal was to understand what they think, what will be the impact of automation on the role of the receptionist.
So we did this poll, and the objective was to collect this data, feed, obtaining this feedback and sharing, an accurate assessment of what the actor of the industry, believe or think about automation. So, There were 5 options suggested. The first one was it will free up some time for the receptionist to focus on more important tasks.
The second suggestion was it will enable receptionists to provide more value. The third one, it would make little difference. 4th, it will lead to some job losses.
And the last option was it will make the receptionist will completely redundant. So more than 600 people responded to this survey and what we will do, we will share the result at the end of the discussion. We will also run during the webinar or on polls, so we will ask you exactly the same questions would be happy if you can share your opinion to at the end of the webinar.
No. The Second question that was . If you feel, maybe if you don't mind just asking, I can see that the port is displayed now.
Can you, let's do that later. . The second question was to identify what are the biggest challenges the receptionists face today.
And the response, are overwhelmingly pointing towards the direction of this phone which keeps ringing. And 6, that was a response of 69% of the people who responded. 15% also responded that managing the schedule at the moment is quite, is quite challenging and payment also chasing that, was, were mentioned, but less of a problem.
So, Alison, once again, it's gonna be you for, for the next question is, You have been observing What have you been observing through your activity at On Switch? What have you been observing but also measuring, recently? This is a really good one because you've asked a group of people how it feels for them at the moment, and how it feels for people is very clearly that there's a lot of calls coming in.
And that's, that's definitely, where many people are. When we feel the situation is there's too many calls, we're overwhelmed or that there's a challenge, we also have to go to the data. And for those practises who do actually have phone data, inbound phone data.
What's been very interesting is those who have seen their call volumes, you know, and know what their call volume normally is. So then, you know, there are 4 or 5 vet practise and normally they have 4 to 5000 inbound or outbound calls. So, you know, in total, 1000 call activities per full-time equivalent vet.
So that's, that's a steady state, you know, maybe 4000 in winter and 5000 in the summer. They knew that, so they could see the call volume moving because they had the line of sight on their data pre-COVID. So they could see it creeping and we're going, hang on a minute, we're going to fall over here.
So at that point, they went, why is it going up? And the number one reason for most of these guys to have increased call volume was, give us a ring when you get here. Because that's an additional call that we never had before.
Give us a ring to tell us you're still here, give us a ring to pay, give us a ring. There was a lot of give us a ring things going on, and the people that knew what their standard call volume looked like could see that they were, they were generating those additional calls by the change in the client journey. So those folks were able to say, hang on, we need to change the give us a rings.
So they moved reception outside, or they did wave at the window, or they put, you know, shed quarters. I still love the, the guys at Henlow Bets put a little shed outside, and you, you checked in outside via a Wi Fi enabled, tablet and meds were dispenser, payment was there, arrival, the meet, greet arrival didn't require inbound phone calls. So their call volumes kind of are more normalised.
So if you haven't put online booking in and you haven't done external meet and greet and you haven't found ways to take payment that don't require ringing. The chances are you've seen what might have been your normal 4 or 5000 phone calls a month may well have gone up to 200 to 25,000 phone calls, because you're self-generating, you're asking clients to make 2 or 3 additional calls. So that feeling for some is very real, that there have been a burdensome amount of calls.
But for others, they saw it coming, they had line of sight data, they put steps in place, so they haven't had it. So this is, this is a, I suppose, a sign of those people pre-COVID. Who were on top of their client journey, and they knew their client access points, like this number of people ring us, this number of people book online, this number of people contact us via an app, this number of people, you know, social media messages, they knew when it was moving, that they could turn certain things on or off and put it right.
This is all about transparency of data and I'm talking to Kate earlier, you know, that your Kate's data is brilliant, and I think it's interesting to bring Kate in here because, You know, the lived experience for your team was there were a lot of calls of online help us manage that, you know, there's that that managing of it, knowing there was an issue, you could move quicker, so it's about data. Sure. And actually I have another question regarding data, so we discussed obviously what happened from, from March, but you mentioned around 1000 calls per full-time equivalent of that, correct?
1000 call contacts, so that's usually 75% inbound and 25% outbound, but you could move that all through outbound, you could switch off the inbound, move to outbound, move online. You know, more proactive practises will have a higher percentage of outbound. Now, the question before COVID, is it, was it steady and stable for a long time, or do you see some big difference in between practises?
Very proactive practises that have really figured out their client touch points have moved their outbound calls up, and the reason for that is that they If you just take a standard every day, something that happens in a veterinary practise, pre-COVID, cat comes in to be castrated. Cat arrives, something happens, give us a ring at 2 to see how he's doing. That's a generated inbound phone call.
Those practises when, we don't need to do that. We can outbound, either a call or a message or a text message or an app message. So those practises that knew their touch points, like, this is what happens to a cat castrate.
Why are we asking them to ring us? When we could have rung them. So if you move to outbound thinking, it doesn't have to always be a phone call.
It could be an app, it could be a text message. But when, if you thought that through, you actually take away the number of inbound calls. So the thought through client journey practises have a higher number of outbound call activities, high number of online, and a higher number of, say, for example, app usages as well.
Interesting. OK. All right.
So what I'm going to do now, because I think that we started the conversation and which is really the objective of, of the webinar, I'm just going to, I'm going to stop sharing my screen so we can see people a little bit better. And I have actually another question for you. So we How automation can support the activity and the role of the reception is really the core for discussion today.
Now, what do you think From your point of view and your experience, what you've been observing, what do you think in a practise can be automated? And that's why I discussed earlier. I mean, it's not only a bullet online booking, it's, what do you think can be well implemented if there is an automation which is put in place?
That's me, yeah. Yes. I will say something.
Oh, poor Kate. . Do you know what?
I, you know my view on this. I don't, I don't like the word receptionist because it implies a passive recipient of inbound stuff. Like you're sitting there waiting for the phone to ring.
And the role we've got now, these team members have been glueing together clients and veterinary care. Is that their client care coordinators, their customer care coordinators. They're like air traffic controllers, we've got clients inbound, we've got clients outbound, we've got clients stacked.
We've got clients that have lost their baggage, we've got clients that, you know, it started snowing and we can't do anything. They're air traffic controllers and the role. Is so much more than this, what is a passive inbound recipient of activity, which is the receptionist role.
For me, this is totally changed the game into client care or customer care coordination. It's outbound, it's it's seeing the world coming, it's acknowledgement, it's anticipation, it's interactive, it's, you know, it's proactive management of the client journey and the patient journey. So I think automation freezes up to have that role now.
And I genuinely think that that will make a difference to the way that the clients utilise the practise and the amount of, you know, I can foresee a day where the phone never rings. Well, there is, there is, well, there is plenty of businesses now who run the majority of the activity without phone that's for sure, yeah, absolutely. OK, yes, and, so.
Kate This is your this is your moment. Well, it sounds like I need to burst into song now. You have to say something now.
OK, so it would be interesting to understand, from you, obviously, I mean, as I say, as I said yesterday when we prepared this webinar, I mean, I listen and we, Alison and I, we can talk, we just, you know, do technology. I listen to. Data and audit, you are the person that does the real job.
And we'd like to understand really, well, first of all, if you can just tell us a little bit of story of what happened at at C down for the last 8 months, that would be really interesting to learn from your, from your experience. Yeah, no worries. I think for us the moment lockdown was announced, our entire client advisor, not receptionist, team, they were furloughed immediately, and I think in hindsight we might not have done that, but that happened.
And we divided the clinical staff into two teams, and the nurses then basically had to become the, client advisors, . Answering the phones, doing the emails. How many how many receptionists do you have?
We have about, we probably have 8 to 9, over the 3 sites. OK. Sort of full time, .
So, and then the nurses obviously were helping the vets, and looking after the inpatients, but obviously our work had cut down to, emergencies only at that point. Sure. I, yeah, that was in March.
I realised we sort of you probably had to automate as much as possible at that point so that clients could get access to us, make appointments, get their medication, and pay their bill, without having to keep my nurses on the phone because we needed them. So in a way, it, it sort of forced us into the situation, and I think 4 things that helped at the time as well was we had changed our practise management system to a cloud system in January. The staff had had 2 months to get used to it, which, bearing in mind then some of them were off for 5 months.
They're now coming back to what feels like a very new system. We'd already set the online booking tool up, at the end of January, and so that had started to be used. I think the staff hadn't fully embraced the benefits at that point, but, but it had, it was there.
Yeah. . I returned from France literally just before lockdown, coughing, so I had 2 weeks at home, which meant that actually I had 2 weeks to, to try and sort all this out.
And I also was really lucky. I had a team that was really happy to try out new ideas. I think they groaned when I came in in the mornings and was just, yay, let's just try something new and see how it works.
Do you think that the attitude. Was different than it used to be, or do you have a forward thinking team usually, or? I think it, I think the attitude was different.
In a smaller team, I think we communicated a lot better. And, I think everybody went into this, World War II type situation. We all wanted to get on board, we were helping each other out, we were communicating really well and.
Yeah, the team that, that, that, that I was working with were, were really sort of quite happy to give things a go. I would come in and go, this is what I think might work, let's have a go. Then we'd have a go and then think, OK, there were a couple of things I hadn't planned on there that let's try a different thing.
So, so that worked really well. So I think the first thing we did was, update our website and our phone message for ways for people to contact us, and we actually asked them not to call us unless it was urgent. Because we we and we put on Facebook as well, we, we were like, look, our phone line is inundated, we cannot, we're trying to deal with emergencies, please try not to call us.
These are all the different ways of calling us or or trying to get in touch. Obviously that meant that we were suddenly receiving massive numbers of emails. And Facebook messages.
So I had to say on Facebook, look, I'm not gonna monitor Facebook as well, so please email us, because it was too many different things to monitor. We already had the online booking tab on our website. We already had an online, a website connection for ordering repeat medication.
We had a contact form on there and a register your pet form. So that was already there. But I just had to change some of the, the content.
. So then the second thing I did, was I thought, right, we need to set up some video consulting. So at the time, a lot of companies hadn't actually sort of started anything at that point, so I set up, our own sort of video link, with, well, it was whereby actually rather than Zoom. And sent out our own emails with the link, and we, we worked, we did that until, the story, you sorted out your own platform.
I tried a few of the others, and. Basically that's how we ended up dealing with the video consults. We turned off all the appointment types on our online booking apart from video consults, video and phone consults, .
And we, subscribed to PetsApp, which gave the clients a different way of chatting to us. But we had control over when we chatted back, effectively. And, what else did we do?
We introduced pre-authorization, the, the payment part to the telemedicine when that came available, and we added a payment link to the website, so that clients could pay invoices online. And I can't imagine we would have got through it without doing all of that. .
I wouldn't say it was all plain sailing. There was a lot of trial and error. Clients struggled sometimes with the online booking, so I had to tweet the information we were giving them.
They struggled with the video consulting. We, I, we saw a lot of ceilings, sky, floors, rather than any pets. .
We set the pre-authorization amount to a larger amount than our consult fee, so that we could take payment for medication at the same time, because otherwise we were having to call to do it anyway. And a lot of clients then thought we were charging that for the actual appointment, so we then kept getting emails going, well, we're charging too much. The huge number of emails was pretty much a full-time job.
And also reintroducing the client advisors has, has, has been a bit trickier because obviously they left. One job and have come back to a completely different situation. So, and, and of course it's very difficult, we're so busy, it's very difficult also to get everybody together, do group training, you can't do that.
And a lot of them aren't comfortable doing like Zoom training, so, so that's been a few, few glitches. OK. One thing I think just listening to Kate there, just, just has struck me as kind of, that's the reason it worked.
And you mentioned that kind of, you know, that, that blitz spirit is you had a common goal. For once in practise, it was, we all know what we're meant to be doing because we have to get through today. Our common goal and purpose was absolutely clear, is get through today, however we can, turn everything on, see what happens.
But for once in the veterinary psyche, we actually had a common purpose in practises. And I, it genuinely, it feels like that brilliantness of like, we're in this. Together, we're all pointing in the same direction, is that feeling of what everyone is describing.
It's like, can we not just keep that after COVID? What is that, what is that shared purpose after COVID? Is, is just amazing to see, to hear how your team have just cracked on and got it done.
It's just keep cracking on and getting stuff done. Yeah, they've, they've been brilliant. I think since, since then we sort of introduced things, sorry, Gillian, do you want to ask me questions?
Yeah, I was going to say so you what you described it was basically the challenging, the challenging part of, I would say the early stage of COVID. So what's happened after is very much like what I'm, I'm also looking to understand. Yeah, so I think the next thing we did was then we decided obviously we needed to try and get the vaccinations back up.
To date. So, we, we opened up one of our stables, and did all the dogs and rabbits down there. We didn't do cats down there, but we basically had a separate site so that, somebody from the other team could work without coming in contact with our team.
And we did vaccination clinics. So we sent emails out. We had a link to book, book it online.
They pre-authorized pre pre-authorized their payment. An email was sent out prior to the appointment with a health questionnaire and to pre-order medication so we could have it all down there waiting. And then the clients just turned up at their allotted time.
We knew which car they were in. They had their appointments, they collected their meds, and then the payment was taken off the, pre-authorization. So the vaccination clinics basically had absolutely zero client advisor contact at all.
It was all done remotely and . Again, there's always going to be glitches, there were some people didn't want to book online, there were some people that just wanted to make a phone call, but actually we, the feedback we got was that it was very efficient. We did do that every we did 10 minute ones initially, but I think after a while, the, the vets were just like, look, we just can't be doing the whole getting out into the car park, backwards, forwards, etc.
So, unfortunately we then ended up doing less per day, but, but, you know, it worked really efficiently and. And I think everybody agrees that it, it potentially is a really good thing to carry on, not necessarily in a stable, but, but carry that on. Great things started in stables.
It's good. Stables are a good start point for many good things in history. Well, I think the next thing is we'll probably move that into a portacabin cos the, the equine decks wants want their stables back, so, so that's, that's one thing.
And then, then I, I don't know, my mind churns a lot at night or 4 o'clock in the morning and I started thinking, right, how can we improve the repeat prescription ordering? How can we do this? So, we basically, at the main, to start with, it was like a six step procedure.
We had the client advisor either reading the email or taking a phone call. They had to transfer that onto the practise management system. The vets then prescribed it, dispensed it, and the client advisor phoned the vet, the client to take the payment and organise collection.
And obviously that's more steps if they don't answer the phone or haven't got their payment card, so. We changed it, and it's, it's early days, and it's working the majority of the time, but it's now 3 steps. Clients book their collection slots via Vitoria.
So effective they're booking an appointment to come and collect their meds. They, we've put a block on that. They can't do that within 48 hours of the time they're actually booking it.
So it gives us 2 days to get it ready. I was not even aware, so thank you, you're OK. They, they put what they want to order in the reason for appointment bit.
Yeah. And they pre-authorize this payment. OK.
So the vets just come along, they prescribe, they look 2 days ahead or a day ahead. They put the meds up, meds are all waiting at the desk. We don't have to call the owner to say they're waiting because they've already got an appointment booked, and we collect the funds from the pre-authorization amount.
Again, no client advisor contact. OK. And it's working pretty much the majority of the time, .
We still need to train more clients to use it, but it's, but it's there and it's waiting and the pre-authorization thing, we've put like a 150 on there. But of course, if they're only ordering one worming tablet, you get some people that don't want to, so we still have to make a phone call. But you know, it, it's working, it's, it's reducing some of the, some of the symptoms again.
So if I understand well you have automated your appointment, you have automated your repeat prescription, what else? So, obviously we've opened up normal appointments again now, so, so they're also being booked online as much as possible. We, we have still tried to encourage clients to book online as much as possible, unless it's a same day or emergency appointment.
Again, they, a lot of them that have previously done it during lockdown are perfectly happy to do that and it's quite natural. There's still people that aren't, aren't doing that as much. But, but we're aiming to improve on that.
And what, what, is the What's the, what is, what's happening current? I mean, you mentioned the What's the mindset of your reception as far as I understand, your reception team and or client care team, as we know, need to, call them. What is the mindset?
What is their mindset, when they interact with clients? Do you think that client wants to go back to as it was before? Do you think that your staff wants to go back to as it was before?
What's your, what's your take on this? I think this very much depends on who you speak to in the practise. I think, .
The, I think a lot of us that worked through the lockdown period in smaller teams, actually quite enjoyed it. We really enjoyed the camaraderie, we enjoyed the communication, . And We had a chance to be a lot more sort of personal with the clients, even if it's, even if we weren't speaking to them on the phone, we could, you know, chat to them on a, on a email and know that that that is going to carry on as a continued conversation, etc.
. I think receptionists. The client advisors, they're, they're probably a little bit like rabbit in headlights still at the moment, because it's all very different. Yeah.
And I think probably the majority of the vets just want it to go back to how it was before. So, so, there's a, there's a, a little bit of a a a a division. Why?
I haven't, well, I don't know, I think we, I think just I most vet practises are finding it that that everything is very busy at the moment and we're running around. Sure. Being very busy and and you know, I think just thinking, oh, let's just get off the the the the hamster wheel.
But I'm trying my hardest to try and set up processes that will work for us long term. In order to make things better anyway. OK.
So, Alison, I started by asking you what can be automated? What can't be automated? Good question.
And just listening to Kate and how her team have, you know, dealt with, you know, here's a pandemic now, go figure out how you run your vet practise. I mean, I think hats off to everybody because you have done it, you know, all over the world, everyone has just got on with life and patients have been cared for, you know, you know, good welfare has happened and emergencies have been dealt with, and we're getting to some more more predictable nature elective consultations and activity now. But we got through it.
So we got there. So automating things that enabled the last 6 months to happen, you know, the obvious things are obvious. The bit that I don't feel we can automate, is that that personal empathic connection that a client needs when they need That, that helped to know what to do.
And I think Kate summed it up nicely, is there are some things that you can automate, and it's predominantly administrative. So I need to book an appointment. I need to order some meds.
I need to pay a bill. I need to check, you know, I need to admin my pet. I need to admin my veterinary activity.
That can all be automated. That's administrative. Just like we don't ring the, the airlines to book a flight ticket, and we don't ring Mr.
Amazon to order stuff on Amazon. We, we, we don't do that. That's an admin activity.
What the, the client care role and the practise role is for when clients don't know what to do. So it's not admin, it's like, what do I do? This is happening, what do I do?
And that's the practise and enabling that client to get the right care. So I don't think we can automate that intellectual empathic enablement. Now, that for me is the client care, customer care coordination role, which is owner ringing in going, I've just got in from work, the dog's flat out, there's blood everywhere.
What do I do? That is, oh no, you sound really worried about, but come on down, we're here, we'll get ready for you. That's, that's the empathic enablement.
I don't see us automating that now. Inevitably, you know, when I'm old and dribbling in a corner in an old folks' home, someone will have found a way of doing that, because we'll all be doing clever things. You know, if there's driverless cars, there'll be peopleless veterinary practises, you know, but that's beyond my intellect and, and, and timeline.
The big thing for me is there's two types of contact from a client. And Kate summed it up brilliantly for me, the stuff that they just need to do, prepaid, book, order meds, do things. That's admin.
That's, that's client activity admin. Automate all of that, just get a shot of it. The bit that they need you for as people is, what do I do?
That enablement of great care. That's the bit that we can't automate at the moment, because we can't automate the variability and the randomness of you sound worried, best is you bring Bobby down. You know, that bit we can't automate just yet.
And I don't foresee that happening, because I know there's people with bots and Algorithms and all the rest of it. Quite frankly, you know, now we struggle with people when they say he's bleeding a little bit. Oh, well, you know, just put some pressure on it and we'll see you in the morning.
They arrive and the jugulars hang hang out, you know, it's like your little bit of mindful bit of two very different things. That bit. So admin, automated, enablement and care, empathy.
We're not automating that. And do you think that Because you could potentially free up some time by taking out the, I mean work, could actually enable more empathy, more personal touch, more, more communication with clients, but make it much more personal than potentially before. Yeah, you know, and I think one of the things that I, I was talking to some folks, I can't remember who it was, because I'm at that age now.
I don't remember who I speak to anymore. And they said, you know, we've had 20 years of change in 6 months. You know, the, the 20 years that it would have taken us to get to where we are now, our profession is incredibly conservative, small c.
We're incredibly slow at making decisions like this that aren't clinical decisions. We make really good decisions like we want a CT scanner, or buy one tomorrow. We make those decisions really quickly.
But this stuff, which isn't clinical, like we need a better phone system, we need a better software system, we need a better chairs and, you know, stuff that isn't clinical, we take a lot longer to make those decisions. So we've come through a huge amount of change very, very quickly. Where it has brought us to now is it's, it's really asking us to look at the roles in practise of those people.
The vets, MR CVSs, the registered clinicians have to do that vet bit. That's the law. The nurses, they do their bit.
That's the law. The bit that wraps pre-consult and post-consult, which we called reception prior to COVID for a lot of people. That for me is is client care coordination.
This is patient management. It's almost like a concierge service, you know, you imagine, you subscribe to the veterinary practise and they just sort it for me. You know, this is getting so close to vet Uber.
Like, you know, I, here's my credit card details, just fix what I need doing as and when. And I, I think we're a lot closer to that than we were 6 months ago. I think it throws up the role of client care.
It's an outbound, proactive, we know what you need before you've realised you needed it. So, asking for a script check, we would have known they needed one, and we'd been outbounding, we've approved your script. We're gonna send you it.
Why are you even packing it? For me, it's a home delivery, that one. That's the only thing you're not doing, Kate, for me is just home deliver that.
Oh, actually, no, we're on there. Oh, you're brilliant. I knew you would be.
I've just noticed your curtains are the same as my bedroom curtains as well. They're very nice. But no, the home delivery, we have actually, that was something I also put in during the, lockdown situation, thinking this is gonna help us a lot.
But actually then didn't quite get any more time to sort it out. So, my meeting yesterday was a actually moving that forward. So no, we're, we're going there, definitely.
And I noticed in the question box there's a question about how do you manage the script check. So if someone rang up and said, I need some more nonsteroidals, and you're going, yeah, that's great, give us some money, and we'll bring you in the stable, come and pick them up all that your current process. The question was, what if they need to become need to patient needs to be seen.
So script check, they need to be seen. So in your delivery service, that automation step of, yes, you can have meds, no, you can't, you need to come in. If you need meds, we're just going to send you them.
You don't need to come in and they're all paid for on a subscription. That takes away another step for you. We still need the scripts people to come in.
Presumably you elongated the script interval for some people, did you? If you felt comfortable. Yeah, so we made it 48 hours just to give us time to have seen it and dealt with the situation if they did need to come in.
A game where we're reacting to them requesting rather than going like, you know, Bobby's been on non-steroidals now, you know, for forever. We know he's only got 4 days left. Why are we waiting for them to ring us when we could go, we know you're going to run out.
So therefore, we send you some more. I'm writing this down. I'm gonna, I'm gonna find that it's all this is, I know, I'm so excited.
This is all about anticipatory, proactive. We know that you live with a dog and that dog's on non-steroidals. We know you're gonna run out, so you're gonna ring us.
So why don't we get it sorted before you ring? Call gone, admin gone, clarity, paid, jobs are good. She is.
There you go. I must admit I sort of er sorry Julian, it's, it's using the automated system again though, don't worry. But it's but I did almost do this for a client who basically said, can I just order this monthly?
And so I just set her up a monthly repeating appointment in the repeat prescription bit. So that it was seen every month and done. So it was a sort of a, a, a, a way of doing it that we, we could work on for more, more things.
Isn't it amazing when our clients say, can you do it this way for me? We go, yeah, of course we can do it for you, Mrs. Mggins.
Meanwhile, your other 12,000 clients would also like that. But when the client says, it would make my life so much easier if you just did this. And we go, OK.
Let's do that. So if we summarise, Kate, let's say what are the three major Thing, task, job that you would like your receptionist to do by order of importance. Oh, OK.
So I think for me, something we had discussed before this, and this is now making it a lot more important, is that Maitre Dro. So agree to that at the reception. So that person is checking people in, making sure that they've, you know, maybe they can pre-order their meds as they come in rather than anything else.
So, so actually a, a, a much more personal check-in procedure. Sure. So that definitely.
. Do you see that, do you see that the interaction would be different? Is it still people? Behind their desk or you see that the movement in the practise, moving around, iPad.
You know, being a lot more sort of personable rather than a stuck behind a desk. Have you have you, are you trying that now? No, that will be happening in the next few weeks.
OK. All right. Hopefully.
Are they all with you aware? They are now. No, no, no, yeah, yeah, basically.
They, they had, they had an idea. So, yeah, so basically having somebody with an iPad actually physically in front of the desk. Obviously, we, we've got to do the social distancing thing, so we've got to work that out.
But, but yeah, so there's that. I think, vaccine reminders, we, we sent out a lot of emails, but because we were desperately trying to get people in when we needed them, and we actually phoned a lot of them. And I, yeah.
And I, that actually worked because, I mean. Amazing, isn't it? Yeah.
Part of it was me sitting at home doing it when I was not actually in the building. So, but it was outbound phone calls, getting hold of people, them saying, oh, I didn't like to call because you looked really sharp and or really busy, etc. So actually actively calling them if they haven't responded.
I will probably still send an email first, but if they haven't responded, then call them rather than just post a reminder or something. So that, and actually I did think this morning, actually, it's about 4 o'clock in the morning, we could actually do that for more things like dentals and neuterings, etc. We've got the data on the system.
Sure. We know when things have been recommended. The dental, we know when animals have got to neutering age, so we could actually preempt it and call them.
So, so I, I've learned a lot through speaking to Alison the last few days. So I think outbound calls, definitely, . And I think also somebody manning a communication centre.
So we've got the pets out, we've got the emails, we've got Facebook Messenger, we have got the ability to do web chat, although I haven't turned it on. I think my nurse might go into meltdown I've turned on the web chat. But, but having, having, somebody manning a communication centre that isn't just about the phone, I think is a massive step forward and will improve client care a lot.
OK, actually a question regarding the chat. Do you need, can a receptionist do it or do you need someone with clinical background to do it? Well, at the moment I think because it morphed from a nurse job while we were in, well we didn't have client advisors, we have still got the a basically a nurse admin role which is now which was created.
So a nurse sits there doing all the pets App calls, a lot of the emails and also sits there and checks all the prescriptions and phones the clients. So, so they're sort of doing that at the moment. But as we move forward, my thought is that the receptionist can, although they can't check prescriptions, but they can do a lot of that other stuff and only send the ones that need nurse inputs to a nurse.
So makes sense. So, so we may well merge that role, but no, I think, I think a lot of that could be a reception role and only passing things on to a nurse if it needs to be a triage type situation. Yeah, same age and what they do today over the phone.
OK, that makes sense. OK. All right, .
I'm just going to move on to the next slide actually to actually show what you have done through some data. So I'm going to reshare the screen. So So at the start of the of the webinar, we show you this big dive of appointment made online around April, because some of the practise decided, oh, you know, automation at the moment is just not the right fit for us.
But Kate, and that was, you know, what we just discussed for the last, last 30 minutes, she took a completely opposite approach and decided to actually push for automation at that time. And the see down data actually on the screen, on this chart. So what we see is the light blue line, light blue bar, sorry, vertical blue bar it represent the number of offline appointment.
So that's, that's March. And the purple bar represent the number of online appointment. And what we see is, well, you were, you, I think you started in, in January, if I, if I remember well, you said end of January, and then February we are March, I think that you were 95 appointment scheduled online.
But basically, around April, you decided to actually push it and change the way you were scheduling appointment. And what is pretty impressive is in about, yeah, 3 months, you are now scheduling half of your appointment for the last 3 months just through automation. And that's, that's pretty impressive.
The number, first of all, 50%, but on top of that, the time it took to actually implement this change. Within your practise, but also communicate that to the pet owner is absolutely, yeah, it's, it's quite, it's quite incredible. OK.
The, the, the other type of data we have here is where we have the, the green, don't see it very well, but this is the number of new clients, scheduling their first appointment through online booking and the purple line represent the number of, of payment that you are now taking also through, through automation. So, as far as I understand, understood, sorry, based on the, on the, on the conversation we had, you, you don't have any plan to actually go back to where it was before or I mean, people call it, some people call it as normal. I think that you're willing to carry on and move towards this, this direction.
Is that correct? Absolutely, yeah, I, I just think it would be. Ridiculous to go back to where we were because actually where we were wasn't 100% working for us anyway, so it would just would have taken us, like you say, Alison, 20 years to actually have implemented these changes.
Yeah. Of being forced into it. I have a question for you that is, is, you said that vets or your colleagues were not really up for it.
Do you, do you, do you know the reason? So no, I think they're, they're fine, oh, I don't know actually, . It's not that they don't want to automate things, .
But like Alison said, they want to just get the clients in, they want to see the animals, they want to dispense the meds, and they want to sort out the animals' problems. They don't think about all the other stuff that's happening external to that. So as long as they get their clients in, dealt with, out, then they're, it doesn't affect them, whether or not the payment's done online, whether or not how that client is booked in.
I understand. And I suppose that the only thing that they see is then when there's a glitch. So when the, the online appointment thing hasn't recognised which client it is on the PMS for example, or you know, when the client complains that they couldn't or couldn't sort out the pre-authorization or.
That, you know, that sort of thing. So I think in a way, because the vets don't see how it can benefit the running of the practise, they, they, they see it only when it affects how they do. They only see the few problems which are happening from time to time, but they don't see that across thousands of appointment, the majority goes absolutely fine, is that what you.
Yeah, yeah. And they would, and even with the video consulting, the platform itself worked fantastically, but they would prefer to see the clients face to face. So that's why they want to go back to how it was rather than embrace the, the new changes.
Sure. Any, any question, Kate, sorry, Alison, or, or comment on this? What I love about this, and we've talked quite a lot over the last few days about, you know, Kate's data and what's been happening, it's just the fact that you look at the number of appointments that were booked online, you've got, you know, 1200 people who quite happily booking online.
That would have been 1200 phone calls. For those people still moaning about the phones ringing off the hook, and they've switched their online booking off, or they haven't embraced using apps, or they're not doing, you know, the meet and greeters outside the building. I mean, this is the, for me, the most powerful piece of data to say, look, just stick it all out there.
And you know what? You build it, they'll come, you know, it, it's there. The, the client behaviour.
Clients have changed fundamentally in the last 6 months as well. The way we run practises has changed. But our clients have found self-service, self-management.
They've found ways of doing things online, booking, buying, service, everything has been embraced in the same way by the client side as well. So to expect those people to go back to picking up the phone and dialling a number and speaking to a person when they actually found clickbook, they're not gonna go back. They ain't gonna go back to how it was before, because they've learned that the new normal for them is my life's a lot easier.
I can just eat this is seamless. I don't need to speak to the vets about the meds. They just arrived.
I don't need to ring them up to book an appointment. I just click. For me, it's just a stark example of, you know, that has gone now.
You know, we've closed the door on, you know, pre-COVID. We, we've opened the door into a world of opportunity and different, and each practise will do it differently. There's no debate about that.
It will be done differently by different people. But to want to go back to the pre-COVID process map. I I think probably a sign of madness because it wasn't working.
And I think this is what Kate's saying, pre-COVID we weren't great. We got by because we could, we could, we could glue it together because we could see them in the building. It wasn't perfect.
There were problems. So I, I just think you, you know, just put your brave pants on and run around and go, yeah, we're doing it because to go back to pre-COVID is now just, that, that would be crazy mad stuff, crazy mad stuff. Alright, conclusion on the date of my view.
Last, last, you know, at the start of the, of the we be now I mentioned this, this poll that we did, on the automation. So actually, I should not show you the question. Phil, do you mind just to actually, oops, doesn't go in the direction I would like.
Here you go. Do you want to show the question to the audience and maybe we can run the poll? Can you or not?
And you go. Oh, I can't vote. Oh really?
Oh, I wanted to vote as well. I can't disappointed now. So to the audience, if you, to the audience, if you don't mind voting, that would be great, and then we share the result afterwards.
That's the first time I'm doing it, so I don't know what we look like, but let's do it. They give you like 30 seconds to do that. What we're talking about is change, isn't it?
We, it's like, oh God, we've got, we're comfy, we've got our comfy, comfy slippers on and we've now got to buy new ones. It's like, oh, that's that kind of feeling of change. It'll be marvellous.
All right. All, all good, conclude that. All right.
So, Now, the question is, how do I get the result of this online poll? I don't know. The automation, Julian, that's the problem.
You've automated the poll question. I want to say I was made aware of this like 1 minute before the start of the webinar, so I'm a little bit, OK. Anyway, so I can share the result of, of the poll that we did like 2 or 3 weeks ago and that was, responded by 600 people.
The respond and we're going to see actually, if, if this results were consistent with the result we're going to get now, but we have. There you go. Mm.
Do you see it on my screen or not? The, there you go, but so we've not been lying actually. 60%, 64 free up sometime reception is like 6064, enable receptionist to provide more value 34, yes, and job losses actually a bit more than the 2% we had, so fairly consistent.
It's interesting about the job losses, sorry to interrupt. Actually we're talking at the moment about having to recruit more, because actually it has created. In a way, more work, which hopefully will generate more work, for us, because there's different roles now.
So, I mean, fair enough, that could just be the whole post-COVID, you know, catch up that, that, that we're finding we are getting a lot more communications, whether that's emails, apps, phone calls, online bookings, etc. Far more than we did originally, . And, and somebody needs to deal with those so that the client gets value out of it.
And potentially we can work out of it. Just looking back at your slide, I mean, yeah, it looks like oops I'm struggling with this. Yeah, clearly, clearly, you also, well, I, I don't have the data of, of January and February, but clearly for the last two months, you're also booking much more appointment than you used to.
Yeah, yeah, that will be. Yeah, precisely, I mean at the end of the day, yeah, but equally, clients are getting in touch a lot more with the, with the, you know, with, with the app and the emails, etc. And then just, I, I think we can.
Utilise that a lot more to generate more appointments or or even remote appointments, for example. So, but somebody's got to deal with that. Somebody can't do that in a rush.
So, you know, rather than it being the thing that somebody does if they've got a chance during the day, it needs to be somebody actually actively doing that. So, so it has sort of created more roles rather than, rather than less. Mm.
OK, makes sense. So that's, that's the, the, the, the last slide here, before we go to the, the Q&A session. The, Alison said something, while we're preparing this will be now, she said, is, is before better or, or just familiar.
So I think that what is on the screen is a, is a nice illustration of, of what I said. So I think we don't have much more time left and so now that you have heard. About the audience and, and what Kate and Alison had to say.
I think we, we might have the chance to go through a few, a few questions. How many question, we've got 20. I think there are some questions that we should answer questions, right, OK .
So from Jordan question to Kate, do you charge the same for video concert as a normal concert? So during lockdown, our in-clinic consult fee went up. Our video and phone consults were the same as our original appointment charges.
However, now our in clinic appointment charges have come back down, although they're a bit more than they used to be. And our video and phone consults are, the same as our sort of, lowest consultation fee. And that was more to try and encourage people to use it a bit more because it's dropped off.
And, we'd quite like to be able to continue that as a service. So, so, no, we don't, but it's a, a bit of a moving. Moving thing at the moment.
OK, I've actually just a quick question for Kate there. So you just, I just want to check what I heard. So you put your standard consultation up during the lockdown period.
And now you've moved it down now that you're out of the major lockdown period. Yeah, only in the last week actually, we were starting to get a lot more complaints. I think people were going, oh, it's back to normal now, and we were just starting to get a lot more complaints about it.
So we actually just dropped it. It was, it's more than pre-COVID, but it's, it's less than we had it during, during the lockdown. People were happy to pay during lockdown for the higher number.
I think they realised that it was er. It was a privilege to be seen at that point, and we're happy to pay for that. Now they just, want us just to go back to normal, so they now are just getting grumpy that they just can't come in the building.
So, we, we wanted to stop the complaints about the, about the finances. But as I said, equally, we didn't want the telemedicine to drop off completely, so we've reduced the charges oppose now to encourage a few more people to use that as an option. OK.
I've actually a very good question from Ed, for you, Kate, but maybe I'll listen to, with the increase of use of technology, are you changing your requirement for new receptionist? For example, Do they need to be more tech-savvy? In terms of job role specification, I, I, yeah, absolutely.
I, I do, my, my observation is we're asking a group of people to now be multitasking, multi-coms channel, so your web chat, your emails, your social media. Your proactive management, all of those, you know, live chat, real chat, some chat, asynchronous chat. There's there's a skill base there what you've got to be able to probably work in 3 or 4 systems, which for some people isn't there.
They're not digital natives, so that they have to learn that. So I think there's a skill specification there that probably wasn't in that role in the beginning. OK.
Oh, also, like everybody, some people are just really good on the phone, but not that great with other stuff. And there's other people that are much better at multitasking, talking remotely, as it were, and I just don't come across as well on the phone, . And then there's just some that just would rather sit there just taking payments, so I think it has meant that the client advisor role has sort of split into, into different factions, and I like Alison's analogy and of .
The air traffic controller because that front of house person, the check-in person, effectively is going to have to be like an air traffic controller in order to manage clients coming in, that's coming out, socially distancing, getting the client in in time for the vet to see them. So, so it, you know, it is gonna be very much a, I think on the feet type role, which I wouldn't say is necessarily what we have previously recruited for. We haven't asked people to do that before.
So I think, you know, to be fair, it's if you were doing a job role outline or a job specification now for someone to do your meet and greet at Maitre D or your air traffic control role, there'll be things in that that you would not have put into the job role outlines that your team had maybe 3 years ago, 2 years ago, because we didn't have that, that, that system data enablement for that job. We didn't have it, it wasn't there. So this is just change, and you, your, your people spec will change.
And I think it'd be a really good role because you're going to be very, you're managing the pre and post consult piece seamlessly in I I like the air traffic control analogy because I think it allows the fact that sometimes you lose the baggage or it snows and something unexpected happens. You've got to deal with it. OK.
I have a question of Laurie now. So, I think it's a question for Kate, so I'm kind of discovering at the same time as you, so, how to ensure client book the correct appointment online, long appointment for blood taking versus nurse, vet appointment need to be a main branch to ensure help with handling. I'm not sure I understand the last part of the question, but, yeah, that's what you get.
So yes, so we have, we have tried, this has been done by trial and error, to be fair, and they, and the clients still get it wrong. So we have different branches for starters, so they have to pick a branch before they go any further. Say for example, .
Let's pick laser treatment, because we only offer that at the main branch. So if they want a laser treatment, there's a first laser treatment, which has to be with a vet, or there's a follow-up laser treatment, which can be with a nurse. So we have it, so that it will only offer the specific appointment slots, or the correct appointment slots to, to the client.
Also, we don't offer laser at our branch surgery. So again, that's not an appointment type that comes up for that branch. So we got set up.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's a, a very flexible setup. I mean, even they do get it wrong sometimes and, but we do keep an eye on the appointments. We get an email when another client has booked an appointment, so we just always just quickly check, it's been the right, a very, it's a very good point because, you know, scheduling online doesn't mean.
I close my eye and I just look at the diary. No, it's, it's the, the client care manager, as we want to call them now, need to check and just making sure that everything makes sense. And as you say, 95% of the time or even more, it's, it's all right, but from time to time they is one that needs to be adjusted.
It's just about education and changing a process with them that makes sense. The good thing from experience from countries that have been using online multi appointment type booking for a long time. So if you go to Northern Europe, in particularly, if you go to Scandinavia, Finland, Those guys have been using online booking forever, and their, their veterinary diaries are managed differently to, you know, the context of the UK.
So the idea that you would book your cat in to be, you know, desexed or you book in for an X-ray your dog has been lame or lameness workup. They've had variability of appointment length from 15 minutes to an hour to an op. Those things have been their normal for a long time.
So with Good, clear guidance, eventually it becomes the normal and for people who are digitally savvy, which the predominant pet owner demographic is going to be, there's more people who will get this if we just give them, you know, if it's this, you're gonna need longer if it's that, if it, you know, that frameworking is something that we as a profession have to get right. But our colleagues in Northern Europe have got it more right than we have at this stage. Sure.
OK. I think I've got one last question regarding video consult for you, Kate. So what feedback have you had from client regarding the video consult?
So I would say that some clients love the convenience of it, . And some clients just can't quite get to grip with it. I don't think the vets particularly enjoyed it.
They found that they spent a lot of the appointment time just trying to get the camera, the client to point the camera at the right bit. And, and, you know, yeah, so they said, so they said it did take a lot of time just to get clients to do it properly. We sort of got over that by suggesting to the client they emailed through a photograph of what they were trying to show us beforehand, so that we actually had a fixed, you know, a fixed view of what it is they're trying to describe, but obviously things like seeing animals in their own environment can be really helpful sometimes, and, .
And so, so I think for there's gonna be certain things that it's going to end up being really good for, behavioural issues, . I don't know what else, post-op checks, all that sort of thing, where we can just, they, they don't have to have the faff of bringing a pet in, pet gets really stressed. So I think that it's, they love the convenience, but I think they've still got to try and, I think now we're all used to doing Zoom calls, we're all used to doing it.
I think a lot of people will have have learnt how to do this sort of thing now. One of the interesting things about remote medicine is our medical colleagues have been using remote access medicine, and I just happened to put my hand out and got a paper from the BMJ about the medics looking at, how that's gone for them during COVID, . And when you're looking at 80% plus of all GP appointments have been done remotely, our client base are getting used to medical conversations through remote access.
And one of the things that came through from the BMJ study was the need to be able to take a photo, send a video before we have a conversation, so you can see the bits that we want to see. And the continuity of care consultations for our human colleagues, our medical colleagues is they see the application for remote consulting as a continuity of care. So we've done the hands-on, we've done the physical assessment, we know what we're doing.
So we've seen you for consult one, consult 2. But continuity of care, so consults 3, you know, script checks, post-ops, nurse behavioural, puppy socialisation, cats that don't like coming in, yada yada, that kind of continuity of care. Our medical colleagues have gone through the, we did it for everything.
It doesn't work for everything, but it works for some. And we have to find what is the sum, it does work for, and there's absolute familiarity with our client base with remote medical consulting, because that's the only way you can see doctors for most people at the moment. So I think there's a real thing.
I think there's a real thing there for continuity of care. I think we need to be very mindful about the use of consults and origination prescribing. We need to be just very clear about our processes for that.
Yeah. I think I've got one last question. There's more question.
I know you're making the, the questioners feel that there's, if it's not theirs, it's getting. This one is a very, very, very, very interesting one. So, it's a question from Shili.
This time? And she's asking, are we not losing that human bonding opportunity by, booking more online and less over the phone, or do we fill the gap? It's a really good question.
What you have to. You have to stop and go, right, OK, we want to make connection, we want to get that bonding opportunity. But when that's an administrative task, I don't need to bond with British Airways or Qantas or Ryanair or Amazon or Tesco's to book my order, my flight, my goods.
I don't need to have human contact, that's admin. The bit that we need for the human, the human connectivity is this, the maitre D, the air traffic control, the outbound coms, like, oh, how's Bobby doing after his procedure? Oh, he's doing good, great.
So you got your post-op calls. Oh, we can see that Bobby's coming to the end of his medication, so we just get all that sorted for you, just to let you know, it will be arriving. Don't worry, we've got it under control.
So our outbound client comes because we are acknowledging and anticipating. We connect with people on an incredibly personal 1 to 1 level, but we create that connection. I, I, I genuinely don't need to ring British Airways and have a personal connection with them to book a flight because that's admin.
It's, I think we put it into admin or enablement and we can be very personal and we can listen and empathise and personalise incredibly well. If we do the outbound anticipatory connection, which is what Kate's talking about for her team. It is that your feedback too?
Yeah, I, I, I feel quite inspired by this, in the fact that. I feel it will almost make us be able to be more personable with our clients, than less. I think, completely right, just by automating some things to then allow our, our client advisors to interact with our clients like Alison says on a much more personal level, .
You know, the amount of people when I phoned them myself to book in vaccinations, you could go, oh, you know, they, they would be shielding, and you'd be like, well, how are you doing? Are you all right? And, you know, and they just wanted to, to, somebody to care.
And by calling them, they felt special, they felt cared for, and they felt looked after, and, and. Whereas waiting for them to call us, they feel like they're in a queue, they feel like somebody at the end of the phone is really hurried, they can't get through. They get a different person every time they call, it's, I think, I think we could massively improve our client care by doing this.
But you, in order to have the time to do that, you've got to automate the rest. Sure. One of the big things and to answer Shelby's question, we've had conversations many times about this, .
It's the bit that the client actually wants and needs is to be heard, to be cared for, to feel part of this community, and that you get them, you get them, you get their relationship with the pet that they live with. And this triangulation of the practise, the client, and the patient. And if we can just say that connection moment, that connection moment is when we do have a real time, whether that's a, you know, ear to ear or face to face conversation.
Is we have to personalise it. We have to really value that we're honouring that relationship between that owner and that patient. And that's a skill set that we did not do well pre-COVID, because we were so busy with the phone banging out appointments, banging out queries and inquiries that we lost that, that lovely triangulation of connection, because we were so busy with those calls that were admin.
For me, get the admin calls into automation. Leave the enablement calls to the connection and personalization. And it's, it's, it gives us a whole breath of fresh air for how we can build a a a concierge focused personalised veterinary service business ongoing.
It, I think it's just, just the opportunity we've all been screaming for and it took a pandemic for us to do it. It's just a bit scary, really, but we did it. This is a perfect ending, I mean, Alison.
I have a big message on my screen, the end. I think we are forced out. So, well, look, I, well, first of all, thank you, Alison.
Thank you, Kate, for, for your time. Thanks for sharing your experience, Kate. That was very, very useful, very, very interesting.
I hope, the audience also find it, interesting and Hopefully inspire them on maybe changing the way they are working and hopefully carry on towards the direction that we have been discussing. So thanks a lot to everyone. I wish you a good day and hopefully we'll be in touch soon.
