Episode 14 – Leveraging Technology to Transform Veterinary Practices

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In this week’s episode

• Focus on People and Environment: Richard White emphasizes the importance of creating a supportive environment and a customer-centric culture in veterinary practices, with people and personalized care being the key to impactful client experiences.
• Technology as an Enabler: Pickles has integrated technology, particularly through custom-built software and subscription models, to streamline operations. However, Richard notes that while technology supports efficiency, the core value comes from human interaction and care.
• Innovative Subscription Model: Pickles adopted a bold, all-in subscription model for its services, aiming to deepen client loyalty and reduce the transactional nature of veterinary visits, which has proven successful for their business.
• Future of AI in Veterinary Care: Richard highlights the potential of AI and pet wearables to enhance communication, data collection, and client interactions, although it’s still crucial to focus on mastering the basics before diving into advanced tech solutions.

Additional Guest Spotlights

• Andy Green: Shares a hilarious vet story about a goldfish named John West who swallowed something unexpected, leading to a series of misadventures in the attempt to remove it—find out how this quirky case took an unexpected turn!
• Thom Jenkins & Harnessing Technology to Empower Veterinary Teams and Enhance Pet Care: Next week, Thom Jenkins dives into how technology, beyond the telephone, is transforming veterinary workflows and improving the pet owner experience—don’t miss his insights on the future of the field!

Show Notes

• Out every other week on your favourite podcast platform.
• Presented by Jack Peploe: Veterinary IT Expert, Certified Ethical Hacker, CEO of Veterinary IT Services and dog Dad to the adorable Puffin.
  
• Jack’s special guest was, Richard White who shared insights on revolutionizing veterinary practice management through innovative technology, visionary leadership, and a customer-focused approach.
• Many thanks to Richard White, An experienced entrepreneur with a track record in bringing a vision to life. As CEO scaled a PropTech company from inception to over 150 people. YPO, ICE, TEDx speaker, listed in top 30 UK start-ups. Richard is also the CEO of Pickles and his  resource recommendation is; The Tim Ferriss show. The four agreements.

Transcription

Jack Peploe: 

Coming up on Modern Veterinary Practice. 

Richard White: 

Our biggest impact on our clients and the experience is our people and the environment we’ve created. That was what I was really, really, and I still focus on doggedly day in, day out. And actually, that’s what a lot of our people get the most satisfaction out of, is getting those thank you cards, getting those reviews, getting that, “Oh my goodness, the time that you’ve taken has just made such a difference.” 

Jack Peploe: 

Welcome to the Modern Veterinary Practice podcast. I’m your host and veterinary IT expert, Jack Peploe. In this episode, I’ll be welcoming Richard White to the podcast, who will talk to us about revolutionizing veterinary practice management through innovative technology and visionary leadership. 

The interview. 

Richard White: 

Hey, so I am Richard White, co-founder and CEO at Pickles. I suppose I’m not your normal owner of a veterinary practice. My background, I suppose from school, heavily dyslexic, didn’t really get on with the whole education system. Battled through, but I always from a young age had ideas businesses from the age of 12 of doing discos in local pubs, to then running big club nights and promoting bands and artists, to then being an estate agent, to then starting a software company in the estate agency world, to then starting Pickles. 

So I haven’t had the most traditional journey. It’s been interesting, to say the least. But I suppose what really drew me to the place that I’m at today is just the drive to solve problems, try and make things better. And on that journey, was getting a dog, Pickles, and just kind of becoming face-to-face with the veterinary industry and seeing what great jobs people do and the amount we care for them. But just seeing a lot of things that we can do to make things better. And that’s why I’m here, basically. 

Jack Peploe: 

Cool. Well, definitely something I can resonate with, especially from your educational journey, had something similar. Side difference with the estate agency aspects, but I very much share the same vision as you, in the sense of trying to make a difference within the veterinary practice or veterinary world. But Richard, it’s really great to have you on the Modern Veterinary Practice podcast. How are things your end today anyway? 

Richard White: 

Yeah, good. A little tired. Excited though. It feels like things are getting brighter outside, the year’s shaping up to look really good and exciting. And yeah, just buzzing to kind of get on with things, but also a little tired. 

Jack Peploe: 

Yeah. No, I know the feeling. So in this episode, I’m keen to explore the intersection of technology in veterinary practice, a realm where you personally have made some significant strides. Now, your journey with Pickles as a tech-focused veterinary practice offers a fascinating case study on the power of innovation to redefine veterinary services. Now, with that transition from scaling a proptech company to leading Pickles, it’s quite intriguing. Can you share what inspired the shift and vision you had for Pickles when you took the helm? 

Richard White: 

Yeah, so it genuinely started with Pickles, the dog. I wanted a dog from such a young age. My grandma used to breed them, from Great Danes to Dachshunds, and also introduced Kooikerhondjes to the UK, but I was never allowed a dog. So I finally got one and I loved him to bits, just wanting to do all the right things. And that’s what got me really intrigued in the sector, from veterinary to all these new online tools which were popping up. And I got obsessive about it, really. Thinking as a pet owner, “I really want to do the right thing, but what is the right thing?” Navigating all of that kind of space, looking to my veterinary practice at the time for a bit more guidance. And maybe not getting exactly what I wanted, so looking elsewhere. 

And I just thought, “There’s something here. There’s something to be done here.” So, I started on the mission of speaking to everyone. So going to the groomers that we used to go to, taking them doughnuts, just sat there, having a chat with them, spending a bit more time in the local veterinary practice, just being really inquisitive, asking them questions, and just trying to get under the skin of the industry and learn it. 

Because look, I am very cognizant as well that so many people, I’ll use the example like, “Oh, you’d like to eat out in restaurants, so I’m going to open a restaurant.” That’s clearly crazy. I very much believe that you have to earn the right and do your time to do this. And I’d like to think that I’m not one of these people from the tech world that has just gone, “Oh, okay, it’s the new fashionable thing. Let’s go and do this.” 

So we started off and thinking, “What tools can we build to enable veterinary practices to provide a service that’s more in line with what some customers want, but also make their lives easier?” It struck me that they’ve got so much demand on their time and their skill set, but they’re using a lot of digital tools or no tools at once to try and cope with that demand coming at them and that change in what a customer wants. And they just don’t have the tools necessarily at their disposal to meet those needs. 

So, we started off by thinking, “Right. Well, we’re going to build some software to try and help in the classic way.” Obviously, on the backdrop of I don’t necessarily believe in buy into the thing that software in itself solves it. And that was going to be tough, but we came to the realization that doing that by itself, we were going to get stuck in what I would call the messy middle, where we build something that we think people want, but everyone wants to do things slightly differently. We’re not quite sure really who to listen to because someone says, “Hey, look, I’ll buy your software if you develop X, Y, and Z feature.” And then you go, “Oh, great, I’ll do that.” And maybe you sell it to them, maybe you don’t. But you continue to do that and you dilute what you’re trying to do. And I’ve kind of been in that place before, and we had this realization over time, “What if we do the software and do the physical thing ourself? Is that a bit crazy?” And we just made a decision, “Let’s give it a go.” 

Jack Peploe: 

That’s cool. And to be fair, talking about that, and I know a big aspect to that you’re referencing is the practice management systems. And you’ve pretty much defined what a typical PMS looks like, in the sense that they try to appease everyone and you end up with this absolute mess. 

Now, you guys have obviously gone and done this yourself, which is really quite bold, but exciting at the same time. What were the initial challenges you faced with the integration of this type of tech within the practice and how have you overcome them? 

Richard White: 

Yeah. So, it was how would you build it cost effectively? It was the big one. My last business, we had over 60 developers were being paid eye watering sums. And we’ve done more in terms of features and impact with this company than we did with that one, which is pretty crazy. So, the main one was, “Okay, how do the economics stack up? If you’re going to do this, how do you do it?” And focus as well. Starting up a veterinary practice is really hard. Hiring great vets is really hard. Starting a culture from scratch is really hard. Getting all the process and procedures is really hard. All these are very hard things which require bandwidth. So, it was working out prioritization as well and realizing you can’t boil the ocean. You got to pick the things that really matter initially. 

So, when we first started off with the PMS, it was far from perfect, far from did all the things we needed to do, but there was a core set of things it just had to do, which were non-negotiable, which were legal matters. So we started off by saying, “Right. Well, it just has to do that. And if it doesn’t send out booking emails to clients and text messages to clients when they book from day one, that’s okay. Because when we’re not so busy, maybe we can call them, maybe we can remind them ourselves,” knowing that we’ll bring that in and bring it in pretty quickly. So it was that trade off of saying, “As a team, there is a bunch of things that we’d like to have but we don’t need to have, and we can fill the gap ourselves and then we can start to come up and build behind it.” So, those were the real challenges. 

And I’ve got to say as well, I’ve been really impressed with the team acceptance, ’cause I’ve done the whole selling in software into industries that they just don’t care that much. They just want to do their job. They just want to do the job really, really well, and they don’t care about filling in this extra information, doing all this stuff. They just want to give the best care they can. And all of that stuff is just a bit of a pain, and it’s not really enabler to their job and doing it really, really well. 

And I continue to be really humbled with how the team has just been very forgiving, patient, and bought into that journey we’re on, ’cause we’re still far from perfect. But I think what they can see, is it has a real impact on our culture and how we look at problems, and our ability to be flexible with processes and bring things in quickly when we have to or want to. 

Jack Peploe: 

I think the big thing there is that, like you’ve again alluded to, is that they’re invested in your vision. And I think rather than buying an off-the-shelf solution, they can see directly the impact of any changes that you make and the fact that you are listening, which is something that’s incredibly difficult if you’re supplying a product to a multitude of effects, all with differing and different needs. 

So I think that’s probably a huge aspect, and they can see that you’ve got a slightly different approach. Because even your model, you were one of the, would I be right in saying one of the first? Maybe not the first, but one of the original people to bring in the subscription model and enforcing everyone to go through that? 

Richard White: 

Yeah. Yeah, we were. I think there was other people that did membership or subscription only, but we did it in a very different way to how we thought. The rationale behind it was twofold, really. Everyone or majority of vet practices know out there that they’ve got X percentage of their customers that are really bonded and are really bought in and drive a lot of their business. 

So it was really thought in, “How do we get more of that section? Or how can we get all of that section? And then how can we change that transactional nature from just every time they come in, we’re just like, ’60 quid, 70 quid,’ consultation fee?” And it wasn’t born from this fancy spreadsheet of, “Oh, what if we do membership and subscriptions? Or, “Everyone’s doing subscriptions, let’s do a subscription.” It wasn’t born from that. It was born from the fact of wanting a certain type of customer and wanting them to not feel a certain way. 

And we toyed with it so much as, “Do we just do membership or do we do choice between them?” And we just put the flag in the ground, said,” No, we really believe in this. We believe in this. We’re going to put ourselves out there. And if we have to change it, we have to change it, but let’s not water this down. Let’s stand for something and try and do it and see if it works and give it the chance as well.” 

Because if we’d maybe given the choice of both, we probably would’ve a false positive somewhere, where we were like, “Oh, people don’t really want it.” But we think timing was right, price point was right. If we’d done it in Germany or if we’d done it in the US, it might’ve been a little bit different, the outcome, but we kind of looked at the market dynamics, what was happening, we thought, “Let’s give it a go. We think that this is the right thing to do, so we’ll stick our neck out.” 

Jack Peploe: 

Yeah. Cool. So, going back to the customer side and the technology, how has the technology enabled Pickles to enhance that customer experience? And would you be able to share a specific example where the tech may have massively supported you in a significant difference for the client, or indeed, their pet? 

Richard White: 

Yeah. Look, I’ve got to say that our biggest impact on our clients and the experience is our people and the environment we’ve created. That was what I was really, really, and I still focus on doggedly day in, day out. And actually, that’s what a lot of our people get the most satisfaction out of, is getting those thank you cards, getting those reviews, getting that, “Oh my goodness, the time that you’ve taken has made such a difference.” 

But the technology, a lot of times this might have annoyed people a little bit, because we haven’t always got it right and it’s not been perfect, but I think that that drive to do something different and that cultural undertone has been really important. But I think to pick out the individual thing that’s made the difference, it’s probably our payment system, and how someone can sign up online pretty quickly and easily and we can get a membership attached and it will charge every year, saved card, that kind of stuff. 

So I think without that and with us going, “Okay, we’re going to do this membership model, how are we going to do it? What direct debit company are we going to use? Are we going to make someone fill out a paper form or are we going to send a link to another third party company to fill it in? How do we reconcile that? How do we do it?” The real pain for all of that stuff, we could have set ourselves up for a real nightmare for admin. 

So I think that for us, technology is about enabling what we want it to do. And I think without really getting our payments right and making it easy for ourselves, as well the customers, the membership thing could have been a real pain. ‘Cause we’ve got so many people now on memberships, the admin alone, just to do that whole management of payment reconciliation, chasing people up, would just be unsustainable. 

Jack Peploe: 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I suppose, like you say, ultimately the technology has better enabled your team, giving them more time to focus on the clients and more importantly the animals? 

Richard White: 

Yeah. Yeah, that’s what it is. It’s, we want them to spend as less time behind that screen and on the PMS. It will probably be a KPI that we’ll bring in, is how little time is someone spending? But it’s all the little decisions that build up. It was decision to give everyone an Apple computer, not just have a few shared computers. Makes big difference. Means that when someone’s sat in the kitchen, that they can do some work, they can communicate with clients, they don’t have to wait for a laptop to become available or a computer in the consult room to become available. 

But it’s lots of different things together. And I suppose that’s one reason why we’ve done our own tech, is I didn’t want to die by death by 1,000 cuts. It’s not just one thing. It’s lots of little things that you end up watering down, you’re like, “Oh, we’d like to do this, but ooh, we’ll have to do it slightly differently because our payment system or the PMS doesn’t do it.” And yeah, in one isolated thing, not a big problem, but when you add 20 things together, it becomes a bit of an issue. 

Jack Peploe: 

Yeah, 100%. So, looking ahead then, what emerging technologies do you see playing a pivotal role in the future of veterinary practices, and how is Pickles preparing to adopt these technologies? 

Richard White: 

So I think the way that we think about it, or I think about it at least, is doing the basics really well and right. And so before we get onto all the fancy things, we have to earn the right. So, our database has to be structured well. We have to be collecting good and accurate information on consultations. We have to have good information coming in, ’cause without that and without it being structured in the right way, we’re not going to be able to do any of the fancy stuff. But I think assuming that we have all the structures in place and we’re collecting some really great information. 

And I think another example that I’d give you is we’re really excited about pet wearables and the extra data layer that could bring, but actually, there’s a step before that, is what information are we not collecting from the pet owner on other things that we can get without putting a wearable on a dog or a cat? 

And there’s some really cool stuff you can do with that, if we collect it. But definitely, AI has got to be there, the thing. We use it already in client communication. So, we use it to help us pre-write emails, pre-write messages, to make sure that things are structured right. 

So, we are doing a lot of communication, more communication than a lot of other people will do out there. So, we’re always trying to think about, “How can we save us time writing things out? How can we make sure that it’s being checked?” And we’re using it to check for spelling and grammar, but also structure and being understandable. It’s always being checked by human, but gets us 80% there and then we do the rest. 

Tagging on client communication. So we know we’ve had 100 communication in bounds this week talking about previous pet health records. Maybe we’ve had 150 talking about something else. And it allows us to then go, “Okay, what are people contacting us about? What are people needing to come to us about? So how can we say, ‘The biggest majority of these people do this?’ How can we serve them up without a person interact with, doing some kind of self-service on these things?” 

So, we’re really using that for the customer communication part and also the analytics on that, to optimize that, because we want to have more communication. We want to be over communicators with our clients, but we can’t rely on just people doing more, and that’s just not what we want to do. 

But I do think that there’s some really cool things, and we are playing around with our own internal AI that people can ask it questions, and it is trained. We’ve uploaded textbooks and things like that, and we’ve trained it to always reference where it’s from so people don’t need to thumb through lots and lots of information to find the answer. They can ask the question. It can say, “Okay, look at this place and this textbook. Here’s the reference.” 

And I think there’s some really cool things. And we think of it more about nudges to help people cut down on that time moving around or things that they might not have thought of. Or just if there’s a product they use all the time, serving that one up in a list first before any of this stuff of customer talk to an AI to try and diagnose your dog. Yeah, I think- 

Jack Peploe: 

Richard White: 

Yeah, exactly. 

Jack Peploe: 

No, that’s cool. No, well, I literally could go down the rabbit hole on the AI conversation. And I think I’m going to have to drag you back on to talk more about that, because yeah, unfortunately we’re running out of time, but- 

Richard White: 

There’s some great things that I’ve been doing recently, because we use a supplier that doesn’t really do very good reports, say, drop an Excel into it and be like, “Okay, what’s the top thing?” It’s just really fun, cool stuff you can do. But yeah, you are right, it’s something that I could spend a lot of time on. 

Jack Peploe: 

Yeah. No, and there’s so many use cases. Like you say, what I’m finding is, especially for myself, I’m finding new things every day and how you could incorporate AI and utilize AI. I pretty much live on the platforms. And I’ve been mucking around with Microsoft’s Copilot, which is quite interesting. Obviously, I’m native on Microsoft, but a really interesting solution. But equally, we utilize quite a number of different AI engines and they’re just superb. And actually incorporating some ideas in practice, even down to using it for differential diagnosis just to make sure you’ve covered everything. 

And it’s not to say that the AI is the expert. It’s very much the very professional is the expert. This is just a reference tool. But like I say, I could chat about this for ages, but Rich, I want to say a massive thank you. Obviously, I’m sure the insights from what we’ve discussed today have undoubtedly eliminated the path that many of our listeners, that are thinking about either whether it’s launching a startup or looking at ways in which they could integrate technology better into their practice. So thanks so much for sharing that with us. Before we close off, can you tell us how listeners can find out more about you and get in touch? 

Richard White: 

Yeah, so the easiest way is add me on LinkedIn. It’s Richard White, very easy. Feel free to shoot me an email. I might take a while to get back to you, but ultimately will, hopefully. 

Jack Peploe: 

It might be the AI. 

Richard White: 

Yeah, I’ve been testing, honestly, it’s been writing my replies and things like that. It’s not great, but yeah, I might turn it off. It’s just Richard at pickles.co. Changing to .net that soon for the right time, but it’s just .co. 

Jack Peploe: 

Cool. Well, Richard, thank you so much. That was such an awesome session. Really appreciate your time. 

Richard White: 

Thanks, Jack. Take care. 

Jack Peploe: 

Each episode we sprinkle a bit of humor by inviting our guests to share their most unforgettable animal-related bloopers. This time, we have Andy Green who takes us back to his early days as a vet for a particularly quirky encounter involving a goldfish and a troublesome marble. Join us as Andy recounts his memorable veterinary adventure that is sure to bring a smile to your face. 

Andy Green: 

I’m going to take you back to an earlier, simpler time. I was in my first job out of practice. It was a proper mixed practice job up on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk. We did a bit of everything. And a really lovely practice, I had a great time there. And I was on duty one weekend, and as most of the time at that point, the duty started on Friday morning at half past 8:00, and it finished on Monday evening at 6:00. 

And we’d got to Sunday evening and it hadn’t been too bad. So I could see the finishing line was in sight, and you get to a certain time on a Sunday evening and you’re just praying for the phone not to go. Actually, it wasn’t the phone. The pager went off ’cause that’s how long ago this was, 30 years ago. 

So the pager went off, so I call the pager company. And it’s never good when you phone up the pager company and you say who you are, and the other person at the end of the line is laughing. That’s not a good sign. And I’m like, “What?” And they said, “Oh, we’ve got someone with a problem with their goldfish.” 

Now, my first thought was one of my friends was winding me up, because they did have a tendency occasionally to phone up and pretend to be clients with awkward problems. So, I did think it was a leg pool to start with, but they convinced me it wasn’t, so I phoned these people back. 

Anyway, they were very worried. They were lovely people. Very concerned ’cause their goldfish had managed to hoover up a marble from the bottom of its tank and got it stuck in its mouth. So, this fish’s favorite job, or favorite pastime was sucking up and spitting out little stones from the bottom of its tank. That’s what it did. But one of the kids had dropped a marble in the tank and it had managed to get the marble in, but the marble wouldn’t come back out. So we were really worried. 

Now, I think I had maybe one fish lecture at college, and I hadn’t looked at a fish for any time since then. So my knowledge was you could have written on a postage stamp with a plasterer’s paintbrush. But anyway, I explained the emergency fee and they said, “No, no, we really want to be seen. Okay, come in.” So they come in, I registered them on the computer. “Okay, what’s the fish’s name? John West.” Seriously. 

And I look at this, it’s the fattest goldfish you’ve ever seen in your life. It was massive. It was was like Mr. Creosote kind of size of goldfish was huge. This goldfish, John West. Oh my goodness. Right, okay. So, it got in this little tank there, and sure enough, I can see the marble. 

Now, the challenge obviously with the fish is, is its oral aperture is fixed. It doesn’t have sort of stretchy lips. So I’m working out, I’m getting into the tank going, “Right, I’ve got to try and do something with this marble.” And the fish wasn’t particularly easy to pick up to start with in the tank. It wasn’t super cooperative. 

So just having a little feel there and I go, ‘Okay, I’ve got a couple of options here. I could see if I can just a little bit extra pressure might get the marble out.” So I give the fish a gentle squeeze. Well, it did have a result, which was his eyes bugged out a bit more. So I immediately stopped squeezing. Mercifully, the owners hadn’t noticed, sweating a bit now. 

So then I’m thinking, ‘Okay, I’ll grab the marble with something. What have I got? Rat tooth forceps, that’ll do.” So I’ve got the fish and I’ve got my rat tooth forceps, and I managed to wiggle them into its mouth and I’m trying to close them round the back of the marble, but it’s a marble, it slipped. 

So rather than doing that, what I did is shot the marble down the fish a bit further. So I stopped that very quickly, removed the rat tooth forceps, and literally tipped the fish upside down. Gravity wasn’t working either. So I started to run out of ideas, sweating quite a lot at this point, the textbook of no help whatsoever. 

And fortunately, inspiration hit. You know when you think there’s nothing else and the universe gives you a gift? So I had the fish in one hand and I’m just feeling around underneath its jaw and its throat with the other thumb from the outside, I went, “I can feel the marble.” And I managed to hook my thumb up from the outside, underneath and behind the marble, and sort of try and flick it forwards. 

And fortunately, I was pointing the fish in the right direction. ‘Cause I did this a couple of times and there was this feeling of pressure, and then pop, out come the marble at about 100 miles an hour, shot out the fish’s mouth, just missed the owner, bounced off two walls, and then rolled across the floor under the table. 

Quickly popped fish back in the water, try not to look like I was as shocked as I actually was, that it had worked. Mopped my brow a bit, accepted the plaudits of the owner. They paid the bill, they took the fish home. And I got a lovely message the next day to say they were thrilled, John West was doing brilliant, and he was backed to his old tricks of hoovering up stones and spitting him out again. But they’d made sure to get all the kids’ marbles away and put something over the top of the tanks so the marbles couldn’t get there anymore. So yeah, so that’s my goldfish story. 

Thom Jenkins: 

I’m going to start with a negative. The technology that has had the biggest impact is the telephone. And I think we’ve clung onto it for dear life for a very long time, asking it to do lots of different jobs for us. And some of those jobs, like emergencies coming in, it works pretty well for even 200 years later. But some of them, it doesn’t work at all well for. It disrupts our workflows. It requires us to treat everything as if it’s an emergency until proven otherwise. 

So finding alternatives to the telephone, where appropriate, allowing our teams to have more control of their own workflows, allowing them to prioritize at a glance, while still surpassing the expectations of the end consumer, the pet owner, I think that’s where technology has a really great role to play. 

Jack Peploe: 

Coming up next week on the Modern Veterinary Practice podcast, we welcome Thom Jenkins, a vet by training who has managed vet clinics across the globe and is now the co-founder and CEO of PetsApp. Thom will share his journey from veterinary practice to pioneering technology solutions that enhance client communication and engagement in veterinary services. 

We’ll explore how his love for animals and passion for technology has led to innovative approaches that are transforming veterinary practices. Tune in to hear Thom’s insights on integrating technology with veterinary care and the future of digital advancements in the industry. 

That’s it for this episode. All links and recommendations we talked about are in the show notes. Don’t forget to subscribe and share the podcast if you found it useful. In the meantime, thanks for listening and see you next time. 

• Please send any questions, ideally in audio-form (or any other feedback) to jack@veterinaryit.services.