October 31st , 2008
PetPoint Journal #28
ShelterCare Program Goes Green
Microchipping and valid email addresses now key to pet insurance offering.
We are using this week's Journal to announce that the ShelterCare pet insurance program is 'going green' effective January 1, 2009. We wanted to give our shelter friends who use the ShelterCare program as part of the PetPoint package enough advance notice to allow for any questions you and your colleagues might want to ask.
No-one would disagree that, after the economy, the environment is the hottest of the hot button topics affecting our daily lives. Environmental considerations are not lost on us. Even though, as a service provider, Pethealth's carbon footprint is less than other companies that work with the animal welfare community, we are nevertheless conscious of the amount of paper that our programs generate. Indeed, we estimate that the 1,000+ PetPoint users would use over 2.5-million sheets of paper in 2009, weighing 12.2 tons providing our services to adopters, if we were not to make changes to our program.
For most of you, environmental concerns are not the only issue with respect to our ShelterCare program. The cost of paper, wear and tear on printers, and additional staff time are also matters which you have identified to us as concerns.
In response, we are moving the ShelterCare program to a paperless format. Starting January 1, 2009, all insurance documents and all confirmation papers relating to the 24PetWatch and ShelterCare insurance programs will be delivered electronically to your adopters' own email addresses. This move will lead to an immediate and drastic reduction in the amount of paper our programs generate, saving you time, money and effort and making our world a more environmentally friendly place.
Of course this also means that effective January 1, the ShelterCare gift coverage of 30 to 45 days (depending on the program selected) will only be available to those adopters providing you with a valid email address at the time of adoption. This should not be a cause for concern. Marketed properly by your staff, this move should in fact help you increase the number of email addresses that you collect from your adopters. As many leaders in animal welfare will tell you, collection of valid email addresses is directly proportional to the level of donations a shelter will generate from adopters and the corporate sponsorship money which will be made available. James Bias, President of the Texas SPCA, says collecting email addresses from adopters "will energize your corporate partnerships and bring your adopters more into the fold of your shelter electronically."
In this current state of financial uncertainty and when many of you have already experienced a reduction in the level of donations received and value of your endowments, this will be a good thing.
Over the next few weeks as we send out reminders, our Marketing team will also be giving you tips on how to position the ShelterCare gift of insurance not simply as a policy against post-adoption health issues, but also as a more effective marketing tool to help you gather a higher percentage of email addresses from your adopters and higher donation levels as well.
Changes to 24PetWatch
By now, our model of providing free Internet-based software, low-cost microchip technology with free registration and a prepaid gift of insurance for your adopters is well known. Indeed, we take great pride in the fact that over 1,000 animal welfare organizations are now taking advantage of this bundled package, clearly the most progressive of its kind. Our offer of providing free software and the exemplary service which goes with it is based on the mandatory use of our 24PetWatch microchip and ensuring that every adopted animal is microchipped. Microchipping has come a long way since we entered the market in 2003: growing levels of awareness; the slow but sure convergence of technology; and the increased accuracy of databases, led principally by our 24PetWatch, have given microchipping a new relevance to pet owners looking to offset the future risks of their pets becoming lost.
For us, a microchipped animal also allows us to maintain contact with your adopters and to offer a variety of lifecycle value-added services that will make their job as pet parents easier and more enjoyable. When you adopt out a pet that is not microchipped, we are limited in our ability to contact the new owners post-adoption. This not only increases the financial risks associated with that pet, but it also reduces the efficacy of our customer service model.
However, this year to date, we have seen a reduction in the use of microchip technology by PetPoint users yet the price we are charging for microchips today is now only 10 cents higher than it was when we entered the market in 2003. Thus on an inflation-adjusted basis it is considerably lower than the price we charged then.
Effective January 2009, and tied in with our green initiative outlined above, only PetPoint adopters who have both provided a valid email address and whose new dog or cat has a microchip will be automatically enrolled with a ShelterCare Gift policy. In cases where animals are not implanted with a microchip but where the adopter has provided a valid e-mail address, we will invite adopters by email to call us to enroll in a ShelterCare gift policy. As in the past, all completed enrollments will continue to go into effect at midnight of the second day of adoption.
Animals which have been surrendered or taken in by your organization and which have been previously microchipped either with a 24PetWatch chip or any of our competitors' chips are eligible so long as that animal is registered with 24PetWatch through PetPoint and the new owner has provided a valid email address at the time of adoption.
As a commitment to our PetPoint shelters, we will again do our part to hold microchip prices in 2009 to 2008 levels.
No doubt many of you will have questions regarding these changes which might require additional clarification. While we will be sending out reminders and marketing tips on a regular basis, please do not hesitate to contact any of those listed below if you have any questions for us specifically. We believe that these changes are very positive for the program as a whole and will in many ways allow you to more efficiently and more cost effectively offer the services we provide to your adopters.
Tel: 1-866-275-7387
Mark Warren, ext. 223
Steve Zeidman, ext.405
Gilberto Gandra, ext. 225
Mary Bart Houston, ext.651
Roma Newell, ext.288
Shelter Outreach Team, ext. 425
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