Hi there pet business owners, 
Today I am interviewing Richard Booty the CEO of Pet Sitter Plus.
Q. Richard, what would you say is the biggest change in the world of Pet Sitter Plus this year?
A. Well, Kristin, it’s easy to assume that all Pet Sitting Businesses have similar requirements, but actually they are as unique as the people who run them and they all want to store different information. This year, Pet Sitter Plus offers new functionality that enables clients to make unlimited changes to their database. We call this feature “Custom Fields” and it has proved to be incredibly popular. Custom Fields means that our clients are totally in control. They don’t have to ask us to make changes, they simply add whatever they need to their own databases; questionnaires, new fields, new sections and headings, you name it.
We also added support for ACH which provides our American clients with an option to take payments directly from their client’s bank accounts. ACH can save up to 50% on standard credit card processing fees so there is an obvious benefit.
Q. Are you seeing any major trends in the pet industry?
A. Yes we are, but it depends on the size of your business as to what is important to you. Smaller business owners still do everything themselves, so often their highest priority is to be able to do everything on the mobile. Larger businesses have very different requirements. We support a growing number of businesses who are incredibly successful running huge teams of pet sitters. These larger clients often schedule between $30k to $250k worth of services each month and they typically have one or more office based administrators. Speed, reliability, ease of scheduling and invoicing are still key requirements of larger businesses and existing solutions are letting them down. Pet Sitter Plus not only enables our smaller clients to grow, but this year we have also attracted many larger businesses as new clients.
Q. Why do you think the larger businesses are coming your way?
A. If you are handling a huge schedule, you need your system to be fast and reliable. It’s that simple. We hear horror stories of owners waiting 50 seconds to open a client record or XYZ service being offline for 3 days in a row. Pet Sitter Plus is speedy and reliable and our clients really appreciate that.
To find out more about Pet Sitter Plus visit www.petsitter-software.com
