Happy June! We hope this letter finds each and every one of you happy, healthy and looking forward to a wonderful summer! This last year as we have driven to build our business and support Chris as a full-time Pet Sitter has been so exciting and we are so honored you have chosen us as your preferred pet care provider!
This letter is jam-packed with information, so we apologize in advance for the length and thank you for reading it all! J Since you have met us, you know we can be chatty!
We are proud to have celebrated our FOUR YEAR Anniversary in May! May also marked the one-year anniversary of Chris being your full-time pet sitter! We know having a full-time professional company watching out for your pets and home while you are away is important to you!
Since January, our concentration has been on developing our business to be better: better educated, better prepared, better customer service and better protection – for you and us! We have been working on this goal through:
- Participating in an entire weekend of pet sitter education at the Texas Pet Sitters Conference in February,
- Becoming Pet CPR & First Aid Certified through PetTech,
- Vetting and obtaining full-coverage liability insurance to protect you, your home and your pet through Pet Care Insurance,
- Investing in Time to Pet – a customer and pet sitter portal that will make booking reservations, updating you and your pet’s information and communicating with us super-efficient and easy,
- Becoming a distributor of a high-quality pet care product line that focuses not only on nutrition, but on overall health and wellness of cats and dogs, (check out the PawTree tab on our website for more information),
- And, we are in the process of finding and hiring a backup sitter to open up more availability when you need us most! For your peace of mind, any sitter we hire will be trained by us and be completely vetted and background checked.
We have even more things planned to improve our business through the next year and we can’t wait to reveal them to you!
With all of this change and excitement, we also have to bring up something that tends to be a bit less exciting. Historically, our focus has been first on providing the most affordable pet care option in this area. We truly believe that at-home pet care should be within financial reach of anyone needing and/or wanting it.
With our enhanced focus, we also want to make sure that we can support our family while continuing to develop our business so we are around for years to come! We have done quite a bit of research on this and have found the following figures based on a 20-30 minute visit and utilizing a base rate (not factoring in distance from their “base” or number of pets):
- The nationwide industry average for single visits for professional pet sitters starts at $15
- In North Texas, the average for single visits starts at $21 – $23
- The lowest industry per visit fee starts at $12; the highest industry per visit fee starts at $35
We currently start our “per visit” fee at $9 for a 30 minute pet sitting visit and $12 for a 30-minute mid-day/dog walk visit. Depending on your location, you may pay up to $14 for a pet sitting visit or $16 for a mid-day/dog walk visit.
With all of this in mind, we will be increasing our fees effective June 1. We have also adjusted the way we charge to make it easier to figure out your expected cost. We have made this decision after much consideration and know each of you will understand our need to do this. Pricing will start as follows (please see our website for specific pricing on your area):
Pet Sitting $11 per visit for two pets
Mid-Day Potty Break $ 10 per 15 minute visit, $ 14 per 30 minute visit
Dog-Walking $ 14 per20-30 minute walk, $ 18 per 45 minute walk
All reservations made prior to June 1 for future dates will be invoiced at our previous rates (starting at $27/day for pet sitting, starting at $12/visit for mid-day visits).
Finally, we want to close with a few of FUN things!
- We want you to get familiar with and set up your new client portal now! By creating an account and filling in all of your and your pet’s information, we’ll issue you a credit for future services for $10! This portal will allow you to book your reservations, communicate directly with us at any time, see and pay invoices and update information instantly! They even have an app you can download on your phone/tablet! Go to: www.furservicesfurpets.com/BookNow, then “Create Account”
- We would LOVE for others to see how much you LOVE us! Would you mind taking some time to leave a review for us? For each website you leave a review on, we’ll credit your file with $5 for future services! See our website for more information: www.furservicesfurpets.com/Testimonials
- We have updated our website! Take a look! We’ve added a Recommendations page with pet-centered businesses we know and love, a portal for you to book travel through (goes to a third-party website that supports Chris & Jessica), PawTree pet products (goes to a third-party website that supports Chris & Jessica) and a Reference page that supports other local, 380-area businesses that we highly trust (do you have a business you want listed on there, please let us know).
We want to thank you again for being so incredibly supportive of our business and trusting us to care for your home and pets! Without each of you, we wouldn’t be building our dream business and dream team! Have a FUN Summer!
Sincerely,
Jessica Smith & Chris Milam