Taking the lead in pet care:  Pet Angels

Pet care has been brought into the technological age by two friends with a passion for business and a love of animals.

Co-founders Lisa Casagranda and Laura Humphreys launched Pet Angels in 2006. Pet Angels is an online booking system for pet care services, where client’s needs are matched with employees (the ‘Angels’) capabilities and availability.

Services include dog walking, pet feeding, house sitting and home boarding and are delivered by carefully selected and screened Angels who are employed on a casual basis.

The business’ key point of difference is its fully automated search, matching and booking system.

All tasks, from bookings to payroll, are managed through the website, resulting in a repeatable and consistent experience for both clients and employees. It’s this business model that has earned the accolades of the 2009 Her Business Wellington Businesswomen of the Year and Best Wellington SME of the Year, along with a place as a finalist in the 2010 Wellington Gold Business Awards.

In the Wellington region, the business now has over 100 employees who tend to the pets of over 2000 clients, and the business is currently in the final stages of launching the brand nationwide.

Passion, planning and potential

It was a case of good timing for Lisa and Laura. Both were looking for a new business venture - Laura had recently sold her advertising business, and Lisa, an online management consultant, was looking for a business with a strong brand that she could take online.

“Laura’s passion for advertising and brands coupled with my passion for online business was really where it came from,” says Lisa Casagranda. “We saw the opportunities right away for doing this online, and knew if we wanted to scale across the country, then we needed to have a really robust system. The only way to do that was to have a really good website, and when we set up the company that’s what our efforts went into.”

Before leaping into designing a website, Lisa and Laura spent a lot of time on establishing some guidelines for their fledgling business.

“It took about three months just to really nut out the details of the business requirements,” recalls Lisa. “I wrote a really detailed overview on how I thought the business would work online from a business rules perspective – a list of what we wanted to achieve, how we wanted the customer experience to work, and how we thought the database rules would work.”

Choosing a website developer you can work with

The next step was to find a website developer. Lisa and Laura approached four different companies before making their final choice. As the website was going to be fully customised, it was important the developer understood the vision that Lisa and Laura had for Pet Angels.

“We decided to go with Signify (http://www.signify.co.nz) in Wellington for a number of reasons – they ‘got’ what we were trying to do, and they were really approachable.”

The work involved with customising a website was extensive, says Lisa, and a good relationship with the developers was essential to creating the unique database and website.

“To be honest I don’t think any of us appreciated exactly what we were embarking on – which is a crazy thing to say given my background – but we got there!”

Lisa says it’s the database behind the scenes that’s the really clever part of the whole system. Now that it’s fully up and running, Lisa and Laura can manage the website with little input from the developers.

“The first year we had an ongoing website management budget, because we constantly had little tweaks and fixes. For the past three years the core functionality has been working really well. The only time we need to go back to Signify is when we’re building new functionality.”

Lisa has some wise words of advice for those starting an online business and looking for providers.

“Do your research and make sure you are working with providers that you’re really comfortable with,” she advises. “I think particularly when you’re doing a custom development people sometimes don’t realise the amount of customisation they might need. Get your business requirements right, so you know exactly what you’re going to build, and then it will work for you.”

Advertising – all roads lead to the URL

As an online business Pet Angels’ most important asset is its website address. Advertising methods range from traditional print to radio to customised water bowls in cafes.

“Everything we do pushes our URL,” says Lisa. “We’ve tried all kinds of advertising, and the core call to action in anything we do leads back to the website. I think the name is pretty easy to remember as well, which always helps.”

Advertising for Pet Angels is all about visibility, says Lisa, who drives around Wellington in one of two sign-written cars that act as mobile billboards.

Central to the advertising are services brochures that are distributed through cafes, vets, letterboxes and at any other available opportunity. The responsibility of distributing these brochures is also given to the Angels themselves, so they can raise their profile in their chosen suburbs.

“Every time a Pet Angel comes on board we give them brochures and business cards that they can deliver in their immediate community,” explains Lisa. “They have personalised stickers to put on them, so people can look for them when they’re doing an online search.”

And if you spot a large dog on Lambton Quay handing out brochures, then chances are they’re from Pet Angels.

“It’s great because we get to talk to customers,” says Lisa. “We like to have a community focus to our marketing. We go down to the dog exercise parks and put doggy bags down there, which are all branded. We’ve got water bowls at cafes with our URL on them, and also do a lot to support the SPCA, such as Pet Angels annual ‘Strut your Mutt’ dog and owner fun walk, which donates all proceeds to the charity (the next Strut you Mutt is on Sunday Nov 7th at Lyall Bay beach).  We like our marketing to actually give back to the pet owning community.”

Pet Angels have also added Google Ads to their website, says Lisa. “They are new and we’re trialling them. We’ve just done it with keywords, and we’ve been really, really specific so our competitors don’t come up!”

Launching onto the social media scene

Social media is next on the list for Pet Angels, and Lisa says it’s important to realise the time commitment required to run the various networking tools.

“The time commitment issue is why we haven’t done it yet on any scale,” she explains. “Once our nationwide expansion is underway and meeting targets, we will revisit our online marketing strategies and look to embrace social media more.  The timing makes sense as we will then have a nationwide service to link back to.”

Lisa concedes it’s a new way of thinking for a lot of businesses. “It’s a whole other area for businesses to get their head around. Quite interesting and exciting too!”

Keeping it all online

It’s not only the clients who benefit from having the convenience of an online service. Lisa and Laura use online service providers to maximise administrative efficiency and flexibility.

“Everything we do is online,” explains Lisa, including our accounting  and payroll.  We also have our 0800 number following us, so as long as I’ve got my laptop and mobile, I can literally work anywhere!”

Taking quality pet care nationwide

Pets across New Zealand are soon to get Pet Angels of their own.

“We’re launching with a licensing model that will be available right across the country,” explains Lisa. “There are about 15 different license areas that will be up for sale and we are literally in the last phases of doing that. It’s exciting. We’ve always intended on scaling the model, and now we’re finally here!”

Pet Angels: http://www.petangels.co.nz