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PetRays Front Line Customer Service Team

How to EnterCompany: PetRays Veterinary Telemedicine Consultants, The Woodlands, TX
Company Description: PetRays is the leader in providing veterinary telemedicine services to veterinarians around the globe.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Front-Line Customer Service Team of the Year - Other Service Industries

Nomination Title: PetRays Front Line Customer Service Team

Tell the story about what this nominated team achieved since the beginning of July 2012 (up to 525 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

PetRays Veterinary Telemedicine Consultants (PetRays) makes Board Certified Veterinary Specialists available to virtually every veterinary practice world wide. PetRays was founded in 2006 with the mission of providing high quality healthcare to animals and domestic pets in a timely manner and with a great sense of urgency. With this mission came the necessity for strong, experienced, and technologically advanced sales and customer service teams.

Since telemedicine is a highly technical field, sales and service greatly overlap. PetRays utilizes a unique sales/service cross training module to ensure that clients are provided outstanding service while creating new opportunities for PetRays. The sales and customer service departments are nationally recognized as well as being recipients of numerous awards and accolades. In addition to winning awards for customer service department and sales department, PetRays was the 133rd fastest growing private company in America in 2009 in the Inc. 500 rankings and also ranked 65 in the 2010 Inc. 500.

With outstanding sales and support personnel in place, PetRays became a recognized leader in the veterinary industry by the end of 2007. In 2008, company revenues increased 397% and were also up over 250% in 2010 and in 2011. Growth of almost 200% was achieved in 2012.

Since PetRays’ clients are veterinary clinics around the world, our sales team is frequently asked to turnkey a new client set-up in less than 30 minutes as the clients are actively treating critically ill domestic pets, expensive livestock, or even a seeing eye dog for the blind. PetRays sales staff and customer service staff must be available 24/7/365 in order to assist our customers in providing the best possible healthcare to the customer’s veterinary practice. PetRays guarantees 30 minute turnaround for STAT consults. Therefore, the sales and service teams must be readily available, be efficient, and be knowledgeable of dozens of unique client systems in order to provide timely healthcare to the clients critically ill animals.

Because veterinary medicine is a 24/7/365 business, PetRays customer sales and service is also available 24/7/365. PetRays provides telemedicine services to 10,000+ veterinarians worldwide. PetRays sales and service teams are thoroughly cross trained to ensure that all members are proficient at providing both sales support as well as service and technical support. This training philosophy means that every service call is a potential opportunity as well. This approach has markedly increased current customer utilization and satisfaction while decreasing the number of service calls.

Significant performance milestones and accomplishments since July 2012 are:

- Revenue growth of over nearly 200 %
- Over 150% increase in customer base
- Greater than 99% customer retention rate
- Over 85% increase in current customer utilization
- Over 99% positive feedback for both sales and support departments
- Over 100% increase in referrals from existing customers
- 75% decrease in service calls despite nearly 200% growth rate by identifying common service issues and implementing specific sales training upfront
- Winner of multiple sales/customer service/support awards

With no client reaching voicemail, live 24/7/365 sales and live 24/7/365/service has driven the PetRays success story.

 

Provide a brief (up to 125 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated team:

Melissa Fields Tugwell: PetRays co-founder. Most recently, she was awarded Best Young Entrepreneur at the 2009 Stevie’s for Women in Business and 2010 Stevie winner for Sales Director of the Year and the 2010 Sales and Customer Service Awards.

Anne Bahr , DVM: Chief Radiologist and Chief Medical Officer for PetRays.

Frank Powell, MD: PetRays board member and co-founder.

Joe Casarez: IT manager, PetRays