10 Things to Look for in Your Pet Grooming Software [2021]
- How do you know what pet grooming software is right for you?
- Do you need an installable software license anymore?
- Does the pet grooming software meet the needs of your company?
- What if you grow?
These are a few questions you may be asking yourself when trying to decide on which pet grooming software to use and it is no easy question. When I think back to when we started our mobile grooming company I can see where a wrong choice as we were getting started could have seriously hurt us, or ended our business.
If you’re operating an already established grooming business, you really don’t want to move pet grooming software anymore than you absolutely have to, because its a pain (MethodPet has a cure for this pain point, we’ll get into that later).
We’ve written this article to help guide you through the thought process of selecting a new pet grooming software from people who have been there before… and then decided to make an enormous investment of making one for everyone.
1.) Does the Pet Grooming Software Have Straightforward Pricing?
If you read the internet forums or the groomer groups on Facebook, you’ll see tons of groomers saying
“Hey wait, I thought the price was “X” but now I’m being charged ‘Y’ “
This is standard practice among many subscription apps across the web and we don’t care for it. They want you to see their price as economical so they can get you on the hook. Once you’re subscribed and you spend hours moving clients and appointments they get you with the charges.
Additionally, many of the current pet grooming software services will mention items like “0.0012/email” so other pet grooming software companies are charging you for an email??
Whoever you go with, make sure they’re not layering fine print every step of the way. MethodPet for example has a rule called “Straightforward, no B.S Pricing”
2.) Mobile Access (for free)
This is short and sweet:
No company should be charging you for mobile access.
If they are, you have the wrong service in our opinion. Plain and simple.
3.) Pet Grooming Software Reputation
A good way to find out about these products is through message boards or online in groomer groups such as on Facebook. Here you will find many groomers with real-life experiences with theses apps, offering their thoughts.
We noticed when building our grooming scheduling software that many of our competitors do not have a “Google My Business” page, where users could leave reviews.
I wonder why… because without it, how do you provide social signals to others?
Remember above when I mentioned that choosing the wrong service early in our grooming startup could have really hurt us?
By using the forums or groups (because like I mentioned, no un-biased review source) you may run into stories where there was a data hack or a poorly configured piece of technology failed and groomers lost appointments, clients or everything. Be careful of the ‘too good to be true’ pricing. It could be that super low price is a last ditch move to get customers as others jump ship to more stable platforms.
4.) Grooming App Features vs Usability
One problem I had in the past with other pet grooming scheduling apps was the menus were overloaded with.. stuff! If I’m a mobile groomer who is only interested in grooming, why am I seeing kenneling options & settings clogging up my menus? If I’m running a kenneling or doggy daycare company, why am I seeing mobile groomer mapping options?
Additionally, as the competition for software in this space heats up, some will try and throw in ‘features’ that aren’t really features in my opinion. For example the trip routing in a lot of other company’s ‘features’ list. Why would I want something to re-route my whole day with none of my clients’ knowledge? We have a more in-depth article here about mapping.
If I’m a mobile groomer who is only interested in grooming, why am I seeing kenneling options & settings clogging up my menus?
MethodPet has alleviated this in one way by turning on and off features with a flip of a switch!
Don’t really care about tracking vaccinations? Turn them off in the settings and now you don’t have to see them clogging up your app!
Decide in the future you’d like to use the feature? Flip a switch in the settings and turn them on!
We spent a ton of time templating out these features to make the best experience possible for our users. I believe that thoughtful ideas like this only come because we were groomers ourselves and have been there before. Just another feature of the “By Groomers, for Groomers” motto.
5.) Client Dashboard Access
Can your clients access a dashboard to see appointment histories or upcoming appointments?
Can you clients request appointments, see add on services or products you offer?
They can with MethodPet Grooming Software.
We’re now in the second decade of the new millennia and your app should be working for you while you’re grooming, asleep or being at home with family. We’ve set up our client dashboards to act not only as a utility for you and your clients, but also as a salesperson.
6.) Useable Mapping Functions
I touched upon this slightly, above but it is a real thorn in my side. Read more about Common Sense Mapping Here.
7.) Data Security & Your Grooming Scheduler
Again this was touched on above, but you must be cautious regarding the security of your pet grooming software. As mentioned, in the industry there have been hacks, data breaches, data loss, crashes and more. The software in this industry is not regulated for safety and if you look up the terms and conditions of most software in this industry, there is a clause essentially saying they have no obligation to you regarding app stability.
For example, we used cloud technologies that fortune 500 companies use. We’ve written rules at the code level, added CDN rules, included a powerful firewall, use app monitoring, use security monitoring and more! We have a page explaining more here.
8.) Data Transfer Capability
Let’s say you’ve used the same grooming software for 2 years. You have hundreds of clients stored, the history of thousands of appointments, you have 6 months of future dates booked, hundreds of pets, but now you’d like to try a new software – what do you do?
Well, until MethodPet, you were kind of out of luck. Companies don’t want it to be easy to leave their service, they want to hold on to you as long as possible. That’s what happened to us when we tried to leave. No other software could transfer any data (not much at least) AND they wanted to charge for it!
Luckily when we built MethodPet, we had this problem in mind and we’ve built a solution that allows us to go in and get your data for you. After we get your data, we can easily upload it to your MethodPet profile in minutes. Additionally, if you ever want to leave our service, there is an easy export button in the settings that allows you to take your data with a few mouse clicks!
9.) Customer Service
Try to get a feel for the customer service level of a potential grooming app.
Do they even have a phone number?
Some prefer to use a live-chat only style which allows them to outsource their customer service to a 3rd party.
If you have questions give them a call and see if anyone answers, or email and see how long it takes to get a reply.
These factors can be early indications of the level of service you can expect to receive in the event you have an issue or question.
10.) Grammer
It may seem kind of trivial, but grammar is important to me and I’ve experienced at least one grooming app in particular that had awful grammar. The live chat and our email correspondence read as though the person responding was from an overseas company – which is fine. However if you’re from the U.S.A, you may want to do business with a local U.S company.
In my case, there seemed to be a language barrier and it was OK for me to overcome when asking a pre-sale question, but if I were in a situation that required immediacy I may not want such a barrier.
In the End
In the end we hoped this helps! Obviously, we want to promote high points for MethodPet since we’re so proud of it, but honestly these 10 criteria do come from real-life examples we here at MethodPet have encountered. Our goal is to provide you with the insight and knowledge to make an informed decision and we hope we helped you today. Thanks!
