Posted Wednesday, August 02, 2017 by
CHRISTIAN HARGRAVE, Assignment Editor If you are a pet lover, you may not be surprised to here that veterinary bills account for 25% of the pet industry. Veterinarians have to charge thousands of dollars for procedures that could have been prevented, while "diagnostic" websites offer one-size-fits-all advice that raises more questions than answers. Service providers neglect the most important party to the transaction - the pet owner.
According to a Silicon Valley startup, Ask.Vet, all pet owners really want is validation - someone to listen to them, call their pet by name, and guide their decisions. Ask.Vet shifts the focus back to the human - facilitating live text conversations with licensed veterinarians for personalized advice.
The 3 ways that Ask.Vet wants to change the industry:
- It uses technology to get personal: Ask.Vet doesn't remove human interaction from vet care - on the contrary, its focus is human-to-human (vs. human-to-pet) interaction. And users aren’t limited to a single text - they can converse with a veterinarian until all their questions are answered.
- Attentive to the customer's needs: We’re all a little neurotic and could probably talk about our pets for hours on end. For a token monthly fee, pet owners can ask as many questions they want about their pets - no matter how trivial the inquiry.
- Acts preemptively by providing preventative advice: Most pet owners ignore their pet's wellness until a crisis hits. Ask.Vet prioritizes constant attention to overall health. Each Ask.Vet question gets answered within minutes, meaning just a single text could prevent bigger issues and hefty vet bills.
