Over 1,000 veterinary practices across the UK have signed-up to Vets Now, the leading provider of emergency veterinary care for small animals in the UK, to provide their clients with out-of-hours emergency care service.
Vets Now has launched a new dedicated emergency call handling centre within its Dunfermline support centre. The investment has been made to support the growth of its triage service, which was launched in February 2014 to provide pet owners with advice when phoning one of its 53 out-of-hours clinics across the UK.
Currently employing 53 staff including specialised call handlers and registered veterinary nurses, the triage service was initially trialled with a select number of clinics. The service is now being rolled-out across the wider Vets Now network.
Vets Now founder Richard Dixon said the investment has been made as the pet Accident & Emergency provider meets its commitment of delivering a responsive customer services function for both its clients and veterinary partners.
He added: ‘The expansion of the free triage service has given us the ability to offer an improved service for distressed pet owners who call us.
‘With the call triage service no longer being solely based in our emergency clinics, our staff can be dedicated to answering calls more quickly and spend longer on the phone offering reassurance.
‘Centralising our booking and escalation process has also freed up our vets and nurses in the emergency clinics to focus on the pets in their care, rather than juggling with answering the phones too.”
‘The service has been very well received and the new centre provides us with a dedicated facility to manage calls and focus on customer service as we make the service available across our clinic network.’
The triage service currently handles over 400,000 calls a year, the majority of these from pet owners’ simply needing reassurance at the weekend or middle of the night when their vet is closed.
