A high quality in-home veterinary service that was founded on the idea of ‘Uber for pets’, Vets On Call filled in a major gap in the veterinary industry. Born out of a personal unsatisfactory experience with a vet, the company deviates from the norm — making convenience a common factor for customers, pets and vets. With Newpath, Vets on Call created custom software, further developed into an app tailored to a rapidly evolving business model.
The Australian Veterinary industry is worth an estimated $4B annually, a value that is shared across approximately 3,700 clinics across the nation. Newpath Web’s directors saw an opportunity to invest in the platform that Vets on Call was looking to build towards. With a keen interest in the platform’s technology, we decided on building an app to help the CEO, Morgan Coleman, reach his objectives of providing national in-home veterinary services to Australians.
With consumer satisfaction diminishing for the traditional clinic model, and an increased usage of technology to the avail of services and products, building an app would aim to place a pet’s care in the palms of the pet owner’s hand. Initially, an MVP app was released in 2018 for iOS and Android.
During the MVP period, data was collected and analysed – information that would help us shape the brand presence, product model, service delivery, and overall user experience.
Director of Innovation and Design, Ben Dexter embarked on a process of improving the user experience across the website, mobile app and web-based admin control panel. The outcome: a well-designed, cross-platform app with tightly integrated backend administrative processes, helping tons of vets and their schedules around Australia, etc.
The React Native framework was chosen to cater to evolving organisational pivots, allowing us to swiftly rollout updates. As the major investor in Vets On Call, we also saw an opportunity to resource the project using smaller development teams – made possible by our decision to build and maintain the React Native app using a singular codebase for both iOS and Android.
2019 was a big year for Vets on Call. The startup expanded its reach into South Australia, New South Wales and held its first branded festival – a landmark event that gave the brand a stronghold in the Victorian market.
September 2019 marked the launch of Version 2.0 of the Vets on Call app. The new app has helped thousands of pet owners and veterinarians across Australia, by providing them with a transparent, convenient and stress-free platform.
To truly elevate the experience from a traditional clinic service to a comprehensive, convenient digital service, updates are regularly released. From new eCommerce facilities and automated communications to push notifications for users to follow up on appointment activities, the advantages of using the app only keep growing. As a part of our continuous improvement program, new products, such as pet wellness subscriptions and video consultations are released, tested and then incrementally improved to meet customer demands.
Vets on Call has been in partnership with Newpath for almost three years now. They have been instrumental in us achieving our traction to date. I have always found them responsive to work with and supportive of our business goals. They have gone beyond development partners and become key advisers in our product delivery and ongoing development.
Morgan Coleman — CEO, Vets On Call
