London Vet Show 2022: A fantastic showcase of the innovations that will help our industry thrive
In over 10 years in the veterinary industry, I’ve learned so much about how marketing principles can be applied to help practices do what they do best: care for patients and look after their team members. Now as the founder of Practice Made Purrfect, I have an opportunity to share this knowledge with as many of the fantastic people who give their time and energy to keeping pets as healthy as possible. In this new series of blogs, I’ll be casting my eye over the industry and highlighting trends and techniques that excite me. This week I’m reflecting back on another fantastic London Vet Show – my sixth time attending!
I absolutely love the London Vet Show – it’s one of the highlights of my year.
It’s massive, and the opportunities to learn, network, connect and party are absolutely endless. At the end of the show I crawl back north to sleep, recover and implement all the ideas in my notebook.
It’s always so much more enjoyable going to a congress when I don’t have a speaking engagement, but that’s not the only reason this year was particularly memorable!
Ten years ago I walked into a congress alone and baffled by all the science and equipment. These days it’s an opportunity to reunite with so many friends.
For the 2022 edition that included Petplan’s Senior Leaders Networking Reception on the Sunborn Yacht, where I reconnected with Sanjay from The Vet Method and did shots of Sambuca with Jamie, Kristie and Tim from Harrison Family Vets, followed by a quick Uber into the city to join iRecall at The Alchemist in Canary Wharf for dinner and cocktails.
Now I’ve had a chance to recover, I want to focus on the innovations that caught my eye, and that I’m backing to make a positive impact on the veterinary industry in the 12 months between now and the next edition. I can’t wait to go back already!
IRECALL REINTRODUCE OURVET.SHOP
iRecall has been around for a decade and is the industry leader in sending clients reminders and driving footfall back into practice.
Two years ago they launched OurVet.Shop, their first attempt at home delivery on behalf of a practice to a client.
It promised a lot, but unfortunately it under-delivered. I tried it myself with a number of practices but it didn’t solve the problems it was there to solve.
Now they’ve rebuilt it from the ground up and they used London Vet Show to launch the new version, which has the potential to deliver a range of over 2000 products to a client’s door on behalf of the practice – a really exciting prospect.
As we all know, home delivery is embedded in our lives. That’s why it’s great that a solution is coming to the market to enable practices to offer it as a service.
We've encouraged our client Stellar Vets to sign up which means Practice Made Purrfect will be among the first in the UK to gain access to the service, which we’re really excited about 🤓.
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On paper, it’s smart and it retains the bond between client and practice. We love to lead from the front, testing new things out ourselves so we can recommend them back to our clients from a position of authority. Watch this space!
PETSAPP CONTINUES TO GROW
PetsApp are developing tech at a rate of knots.
They’ve been the big disruptor in our industry since lockdown, and the speed at which they’re bringing new services to the market is really impressive. It’s an ever-evolving product.
We’re lucky and excited to be at the forefront of testing out two of their latest services.
They have created a pet health plan module, allowing clients to sign up and manage their plan via the app, allowing them to perform even more of their pet admin through PetsApp.
For practices it’s flexible, it’s low friction and it should incentivise sign up because it’s easy for clients to use and it integrates with the communication tool they’re already using. It sounds like a win win, and we’re currently trying it out with our friends at Stellar Vets.
They’ve also built a reminder module. Until now the two real options for managing reminders have been through a practice management system, or via iRecall. PetsApp are introducing a third alternative.
Their system promises a lot and it will be very interesting to see how it goes. Small World Vet Centre will be my first opportunity to get my hands on that and I have meetings to start working with it coming up very soon.
VETSTORIA REMAIN AN UNDERUTILISED GEM
Vetstoria continue to have an intuitive product which saves practices time while driving revenue.
They’re really good at what they do, and practices need to use them more widely.
My favourite benefit of their service is the ability to ask clients to prepay for appointments in full at the time that they book them.
I know that a lot of people in practices are nervous about this. But we all know how frustrating it is when clients don’t turn up to appointments.
If they’ve paid for it in advance, they’re going to turn up – it’s as simple as that!
I also particularly liked Vetstoria’s recyclable stand and movement away from disposable conference swag. Kudos for that, guys.
VIDIVET IS COMING – AND PRACTICES CAN BENEFIT
VidiVet are a new tech product coming to the market founded by Ben Sweeney, a vet who has been around the industry for many years. And he’s bringing something different for practices that makes a big difference.
VidiVet is an app through which clients ask clinical questions, with a VidiVet vet answering on behalf of a practice.
The aim is to drive better informed clients back through the doors of the practice, giving clients the right information at the time they need it.
At a time when practices are struggling to recruit vets and nurses, VidiVet gives them an almost infinite, expandable workforce. If you can’t fill roles in practice, you can use VidiVet to help fill those gaps with high quality vets.
Several of my vet friends work flexible shifts for VidiVet, they are highly competent and very experienced.
It’s an exciting development.
WHY IT'S ALWAYS NICE TO DO WELL BY DOING GOOD
ezyVet are a practice management system which began in Auckland, NZ, and have since grown internationally, with offices in New York and London.
They’re an interesting tech disrupter bringing new ideas to the market, and it’s been a pleasure to work with them on their PR as they expand into the UK.
As part of that, I helped to broker a deal that saw ezyVet donate £1 to Vetlife for every person who attended their stand during the show.
Seeing this emblazoned on their giant video wall was particularly satisfying.
The beauty of Practice Made Purrfect’s unique position is when multiple objectives can align to raise money for a great cause and drive a financial return for a business.
One of my favourite phrases is “doing well by doing good”, and I want to say thanks to the ezyVet team for giving me one of these situations at London Vet Show!
If you’d like to talk to me or the team about any of the innovations I’ve discussed above, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.