Saving time and effort at a busy one-doctor clinic!
Tina Strickland, George Veterinary Clinic 
Mount Pleasant, SC
"[Vetstreet] is something that's made things a lot easier and quicker for us." says Tina Strickland, head receptionist at George Veterinary Clinic, a bustling one-doctor practice located in Mount Pleasant, a beach town just over the bridge from Charleston, South Carolina.
"We've only got three phone lines coming in, one of them is used for fax and credit card machines, and our lines are always busy," says Tina. "When people use their Pet Portals to request things, we can get to it when we have time, instead when the phone is ringing off the hook and we have all these dogs and cats carrying on in the lobby."
"I feel the clients get better service, because the doctor has time to give them his attention instead of doing things in such a rush," explains Tina. "I go in and check [the Vet Portal] every day, and I bring the questions to the doctor and he answers them."
The practice's boarding business has benefited too: "Dr. George was commenting on how we've been getting more boarders" since starting with Vetstreet, Tina recounts. She credits this growth to the efficiency of communicating online.
"When a [boarding] request comes in over the Pet Portal, we can look at the schedule and then call the clients back at our leisure." Because she's not rushing with a client hanging on the phone, Tina can often squeeze in one more pet--even when the schedule looks full at first glance.
Before getting started with the service, Tina worried that clients would be able to go in to the practice's appointment scheduler and set up their own appointments. "When we learned that they'd only be able to send requests [for appointments], we were thrilled about that."
"Another fear was that we would have to put the information into the Pet Portals ourselves, and that it would be time-consuming. But when we got it, it was just so simple. The [data] transfer is just so quick and it doesn't take any time out of our day."
Clients share Tina's enthusiasm: "A lot of clients communicate with us from work when they can't get to the phone. They just go to the computer and communicate with us."
"We had clients who were in Canada and needed to board their dogs but they didn't have their records, so they logged in to their Pet Portal and printed their records and the kennel accepted them as proof of vaccination," recalls Tina. "They were so thrilled to be able to do that."
"Our clients love the animated birthday cards," says Tina. "I get emails back to me saying 'Thanks! That's so cute!' They think it's so neat that we came up with that, but the best thing is, you guys did all the work."
"Everybody thinks I'm in here working my fingers to the bone sending these emails, but I didn't have to do anything," laughs Tina. "It's all going out without any effort on my part!"
With all the details of a busy practice to take care of, Tina appreciates that Pet Portals are "so easy for our clients. Even for the older people, who aren't as savvy with the computers as the younger generation, it seems that they all can get in there and pull up what they want... To date, I don't think I've had any questions from clients about how to use the Pet Portal, because it's that easy to use."
"I would highly recommend the Vetstreet to other one-doctor clinics. It's a convenience for our clients as much as it is for us," explains Tina. "Even when we're not swamped, people just use the Pet Portals to communicate with us because it's more convenient for them."