We're five years old!
Here’s what’s changed since 2020
It’s been five years since Practice Made Purrfect launched in the veterinary industry – and it’s fair to say it’s been an eventful half decade!
While we are obsessed with staying at the cutting edge of developments, it’s sometimes hard not to feel like we’re all just reacting to things we can’t control. Hi there Covid! We see you AI!
Nevertheless, everything that’s happened has brought us new opportunities to engage with our clients and improve our service, and it’s been a pleasure to help practices to navigate this over the last five years.
As the old adage goes, if you’re not moving forward, you are going backwards.
Let’s take a look at what’s changed in that time – and what we’re doing to stay on top of things.
Remember the pandemic?
It’s hard to remember what life was like pre-Covid. The effect it had on our industry was so overwhelming.
Almost overnight, we were flooded with new pets and clients, at rates it was difficult to keep up with. The battle was keeping team members physically and mentally protected, and finding new recruits to plug the gaps caused by Brexit. Not to mention all the extra admin and heartache caused by social distancing, isolation and illness!
Even after Covid subsided, we were kept busy with all of those pandemic puppies and corona kittens.
Many practices shut their books to new clients, and marketing efforts to find new business were redundant.
Now all of those pets have grown up and many practices are quiet again. We can see empirically that new client numbers have slowed. For many UK practices growth is almost exclusively coming from price rises..
We’ve spent most of 2025 developing a suite of new client and lapsed client campaigns designed to get pets into practices.
We have to be honest and say at times it’s been hard work – we’re fighting against a proven fact that there are less new clients out there. But the evidence shows that we’re helping our practices to be the first choice for pet owners when the opportunity arises.
Investigations, remedies and headaches
We don’t yet know just how much impact the CMA’s judgements are going to have on practice life – we’re not even sure when those judgements are going to be released – but if the remedies suggested in May are anything to go by, there’ll be adjustments to make.
Justin gave his verdict on those suggestions back when they came out, and since then the CMA have requested extra time to consider all of the… feedback we’ve passed their way. Well done everyone!
But regardless of the end result, the investigation has been a cloud hanging over our industry for the last couple of years and has already led to changes in the way we approach things.
From a renewed focus on transparency to encouraging our clients to fully contextualise the value of independence, we’ve been making positive tweaks to get ahead of this potentially negative situation.
Let’s hope the fallout doesn’t turn out sour for us all.
The tech revolution
The number and quality of tech solutions on the market today is so much more impressive than when we started.
From the old trusty titans like Vetstoria and iRecall, to now established disrupters such as PetsApp, Digital Practice and VidiVet, through to the next wave of exciting developments like Lupa, VetNotes and Boop, our industry is well and truly in the 21st century now – even if some areas still have catching up to do!
A key part of our journey has been figuring out each piece of tech, pushing the boundaries for what they can do and then creating oven-ready playbooks, so we can set them up time and again to help practices we work with deliver exceptional client care.
The rise of the robots
We won’t be going in depth here, either, as AI is another topic we’ve explored in detail earlier this year. When we said we’re obsessed with keeping up to date, we weren’t lying!
But to put this into context, here are Justin’s opening lines of that AI blog from June:
So, I don't want this to be a doom-mongering blog post about how everything's changing and everything you knew is no more. But…
Everything is changing and everything you knew is no more.
AI is big news no matter what walk of life you’re in, and our industry is no different.
From how clients find us, to how you take notes, to use cases we can’t even imagine yet, AI is going to rewrite the rules – and our job is to keep pace and make sure it’s working for us, and not instead of us!
We’ll finish on a bit of fun.
When Justin launched PMP he wrote a blog that never saw the light of day, predicting what veterinary practice would look like in 2025.
How accurate was his vision? Here’s what he predicted:
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Online booking with prepayment
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Information linked to the booking sent straight to a client’s phone before the appointment, with links to buy associated products
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Video screens advertising in windows
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Receptionists with iPads and relaxed uniforms upselling key products while clients are waiting
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No paper anywhere
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Booking in the next appointment at reception
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Post-consult information sent digitally
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Home delivery
So, how did he do? If we’re generous we can say we’ve moved in the direction of most of these things, but the real world application is perhaps lagging behind his dystopian vision.
But everyone loves an optimist!
And the good news is there’s plenty of work still to do to build our practice of the future.
Do you want some help in your journey?
Vet practice marketing
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If you’re eager to improve your practice’s marketing but you’re unsure where to start, I’m taking on new clients for the next quarter! Book an initial discovery below!
