AVC Lunch and Learn tour explores client experience and pet experience

Dr. Drew Van Niekerk
InfoStream Staff Writer 

This month I had the opportunity to travel to four Canadian Veterinary Schools and share a lunch and learn discussion about the ‘Experience Economy’ and how it relates to the veterinary industry. The Pet Experience discussion in the Alliance for Urban Animals has highlighted a need for dissemination of collaborative, simple and effective messaging to pet families and communities.  These messages need to be delivered from all sectors of the animal industry in mutual support of each of the other sectors. Often we become isolated in our activities within our sector of the industry, and fail to see our very important role in providing support to the entire animal industry.

Students are buried in heaps of detailed study on anatomy, physiology, medical and surgical disease management. It is important to be able to retract from the minutia to consider application in the broader context of service provision, and the growing demand of the pet owner to ‘connecting’ on a deeper level for animal care. These connections form the basis of trust and lead to more engaged and proactive pet family behaviours, benefiting the well-being of pets and health of communities.

Our students, animal industry professionals of the future, are extremely fortunate to have pet families demanding a deeper level of trust and connection than ever before. This level of trust has much stronger and long-lasting effects on the health and well-being of animals in communities than was ever possible in a past era of ‘pushing’ information and messaging about ‘responsible pet ownership’.  

It is indeed a pleasure to share these concepts with the young and fertile minds of tomorrow’s leaders.

Summit Conversations: The Key to Designing Exceptional Customer Experiences

Patricia Cameron 
InfoStream Guest Author 

The quality of experience your customers have with your business has a huge impact on whether it thrives, scrapes by, or fails. If a person has a confusing, frustrating, or really bad experience when frequenting your business, there is a very good chance they will never come back.  In today’s connected world, there is also a good chance they will share their negative experience not only with the 11 people they traditionally shared complaints with, but with hundreds, thousands, or even millions of other people.  Ask United Airlines. 

So whether your business is an animal shelter, a veterinary office, a pet supply store, a pet insurance provider, or animal boarding facility, or a groomer, you can start today to design a customer experience that is clear and understandable, convenient, helpful, honest, high quality, and even fun.   The key to successfully designed customer experiences is a rare and precious resource — the resource of empathy. 

Often confused with sympathy or compassion, empathy is defined in a variety of ways, but basically, empathy is “understanding of another’s situation, feelings, and motives.”  Developing and growing organizational empathy is key to delighting customers, and delighting customers is key to a successful business. 

Every day, lack of corporate empathy creates huge numbers of dissatisfied customers. Below are a few examples of experiences designed WITHOUT empathy — that is without “understanding [your customer’s] situation, feelings, and motives.”

1.  Talking AT people (about yourself).  Many corporate brochures and websites start something like this:  “Founded in 1986, RuffnReady Pets has sold more than 2.5 million pet beds. Our factory is gleaming and modern, and our designers are educated in the latest computer-assisted design processes.”  RuffnReady (fictional) focuses on itself — its history, its sales, its  factory, its designers.  Customers are focused on their own needs (like getting a great bed for their pet) and you should be too. 

2.  Processes that put up barriers to satisfying a customer’s needs and desires.  Many people come to animal shelters hoping to adopt, and excited to help both homeless animals and the organization.  After more than an hour of paper work and what feels to them like interrogation, many go away with hearts and minds filled with confusion, hurt, and anger, rather than arms filled with a new furry friend.  Empathy would help shelters avoid this unfortunate ending.  For example, people are generally eager if not impatient to directly connect with animals, so let them.  Finding out hands-on they have no control of a dog will be more persuasive than engaging them in an argument about whether they have the experience and skill to work with a rambunctious pup. After such a lesson, being directed to animals more suited to their homes will be experienced as helpful rather than interfering or controlling.  

3.  Communication that isn’t. You get a new purchase home hoping to put it to good use, only to be frustrated by the “instructions.”  Since so many products are now made overseas, the use of diagrams rather than text has become commonplace.  Often these diagrams are rudimentary and unhelpful because they were designed on the cheap with little or no concern for the customer’s needs.  If your company sells a product with such horrible instructions, they have a bad experience not with the manufacturer but with YOU. Check for these sorts of problems and provide customers with support — “Hey, the instructions are not great.  Here is an example we assembled.”  Or, “The first few times you use this product can be tricky. Here is our card; give us a call if you have any difficulty.”  

4.  Lying.   There are many examples of companies lying.  Lying really annoys some people who then go on social media and tell everyone about it.   Ask Kashi. Here’s a personal example.   As a consumer interested in personal and environmental health, I choose not to support Genetically Modified (GMO) foods and unless specifically labelled organic, canola is all GMO.  I was looking for a canola-free, Non-GMO mayonnaise at my local grocery store. After much searching, I was excited to see Hellman’s had a mayonnaise boldly labelled “With Olive Oil.” As Yogi Berra memorably said, “You can see a lot just by looking.”  With that in mind, I looked at the label.  The first ingredient was canola oil; olive oil was way down the list.  Now the people at Hellman’s are no dummies — they know the label “With Olive Oil” will be a beacon to consumers seeking Non-GMO mayonnaise — they just lack empathy. If they had empathy, they would know that being lied to results in bad feelings and motivates people to never buy their products again. 

Having empathy, that is truly understanding the people you hope to attract and retain as customers, is a simple path to designing amazing, satisfying, high-trust, loyalty-building customer experiences.  Simple, but not easy.  You will have to talk WITH customers not TO them.  You will need to stop focusing on your needs, your interests, and your agenda.  You will have to let their agenda dictate how, when, where, and what services and products you deliver.  You will have to take the time to really look and to observe how people interact with your organization and its products.    And finally, you will have to be honest and authentic.  

The ninth annual Summit for Urban Animal Strategies is days away. Throughout the year, leaders in the industry have identified dilemmas and developed conversations to recast dilemmas into opportunities. 

The 2014 Urban Animal Forum™ on Friday, October 24th, develops industry conversations into strategies and tactics. InfoStream articles by recognized industry experts, are presented to prepare delegates for this activity.

Get the facts, have YourSAY, move the industry.

An Interview with Louis McCann of PIJAC Canada

The Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council of Canada, PIJAC Canada, has long been the voice for Canadian Service Providers, Suppliers and Retailers.  Since 1991 it has been lead by Louis McCann, an Executive Director with a background in Enforcement, Humane and Rescue and a vision for a collaborative industry that meets the needs of the ultimate client, the pet family. InfoStream caught up with Louis recently at his home in St. Pascal, just outside of Ottawa.

InfoStream: Louis, you have the longest tenure of any Executive Director in the Canadian Industry. What is the secret of your longevity?

Louis: I've had a lifelong passion for animals, I have confidence humanity ultimately does what is right and I  have lived to realize progress being made toward a more collaborative future. These elements together with the support of my colleagues has given me a certain resilience as an industry spokesman and as the executive director of the association representing those who serve pet families across Canada.

InfoStream: Everyone who meets you sees the passion for animals. Tell us more about how this came to be.

Louis: As I grew up, I imagined myself becoming a veterinarian and working with animals. However, circumstance led me in a different direction. Equipped with a degree in Wildlife Management and certification from the McGill Institute of Management, I became the Director of Cruelty Investigations and Director of the Wildlife department for the Canadian SPCA in Montreal. Eventually, my interest in working with the urban community extended from intervening in the lives of more than 10,000 animals each year to developing a store inspection program. But, the component I enjoy most is contact with pet families who are experiencing the joy of owning a pet. This gives me a great deal of satisfaction.

InfoStream: The pet experience is big for you. Tell us about your pets.

Louis: My family and I have two Newfs, a yellow Lab and three cats. These animals don't judge us, they give us unconditional love and they provide our family with incredible impact and enjoyment. We can't imagine being without them but I know we sometimes take this for granted. Recently, I was attending a Reptile Show in Quebec and I saw first hand the kind of excitement and enthusiasm those owners projected toward their pets in a day and age when video games or computers capture a lot of attention. This kind of positive pet experience is what we need to celebrate and promote as an industry.

InfoStream: So let us understand something. If the companion animal industry only works when pet families have an awesome pet experience, why isn't this the foremost priority?

Louis: That is a question that is often debated. Sometimes I wonder if it is because some of us think 'good' only comes from one source. For instance, we are all involved in 'animal welfare', but sometimes we project this as the priority of only one sector of the industry. I think we confuse the pet family when we ask them to choose one industry member at the expense of another. The pet experience is 98% social and we all need to work together to achieve the awesome experience our pet family clients deserve.

InfoStream: It sounds like this is aligned with 'TheExperience Economy', Joe Pine talks about. What are the next steps for moving forward?

Louis: Some of us are involved in an industry wide conversation about the pet experience that was initiated at Summit 2012.  Dr. Drew Van Niekerk is leading this initiative and I am a big supporter. We are working to identify the values pets bring to our lives, our homes and our communities as well as to understand the barriers that pet families encounter as they seek an awesome pet experience. I expect this conversation will  be expanded during the 2013 Regional Conference tour in April and at Summit 2013 in October. Some of us have a vision of a new industry wide initiative 'Celebrating the Pet Experience' for 2014.

InfoStream: What do you see as the greatest risk for the industry?

Louis: Perhaps the greatest risk is not working together. We've all seen individuals who try too hard to hit a home run instead of just hitting the ball so their teammates can work with them to deliver a win. In the face of a declining pet population and other pressures, I believe this conversation is an essential element for the sustainability of this industry.

InfoStream: Anything else to share?

Louis: In French we say 'Le futur est à la collaboration'. Collaboration is the future and the only way we will deliver the 'Awesome experience' pet families deserve.

InfoStream: Louis, thanks for telling us your story and for leading your members to support this initiative! When you have time we should book another interview to tell the PIJAC Canada story.