Avian & exotic hospital sees surge in organic visits after revamping website with PetDesk

Meet Danya from Griffin Avian & Exotic Hospital

Danya is a practice manager at Griffin Avian and Exotic Veterinary Hospital. Recently moving from Northern Virginia to North Carolina, she has over 15 years of experience in customer service and management in avian and exotic veterinary medicine, coming from the most advanced avian and exotic practice on the East Coast.

Danya loves to read, cook vegan meals, and provide advice and care for animals with special needs. An animal lover herself, Danya shares her home with a sand boa, a leopard gecko, a crested gecko, a tarantula, and two special-needs dogs.

Within two months of onboarding with PetDesk, Griffin Exotics already received exciting website traffic data to share from February and March 2024:

An exotic website for an exotic animal clinic

‘We looked at many companies, but PetDesk had the best response time.’

Danya had been researching companies who could help rebuild Griffin Exotics’ website. She remembers looking at one company, but they kept her waiting with sample websites, while another company took a long time to update change requests. Then, Danya found PetDesk as a recommendation through a premier buying group. 

“The number one reason we picked PetDesk is because the response time has been pretty quick. When we have a question, or if we want to change something, they get back to us quickly.”

—Danya, Griffin Exotics

Since Griffin Exotics’ services are dedicated to avian and exotic animals, it went without a doubt that their website needed to look the part, too. Danya tells us their old website looked so outdated that she wouldn’t even visit the clinic as a pet owner herself.

“I want our clinic to be up and coming and show everybody what awesome stuff we do.”

‘PetDesk helps us by updating our website on a day-to-day basis.’

Before investing in PetDesk, Griffin Exotics had a website hosted through WordPress, which meant that it had to be updated manually. Danya tells us that she used to update the widgets, forms, and sometimes other important information for the pet owners.

“I do not know how to code or have time to be able to update the website constantly. Our old one looked very dated; the colors did not stand out. I had to manually go and change the clinic hours or figure out which page it is on.”

‘Our customers love our new website.’

Griffin Exotics was onboarded with PetDesk in January 2024, and the feedback that they’ve received from their clients has been excellent. Having forms on the website has made it easier for pet owners and clinic staff to collect information and data, for example.

“Our customers love the new look of the website. We can now email the forms through a link, which has become much easier. Not just them, the staff loves it too.”

Danya recalls how they didn’t even have a ‘Contact Us’ page on their website before working with PetDesk, and feels that they likely lost a lot of business as a result of people not knowing how to contact them.

“Earlier, we just had an email address that needed to be copied and pasted, which is much more effort for a pet owner. Now, we get a lot of traffic from our ‘Contact Us’ page. People love filling in a ‘Contact Us’ form rather than calling us. I think people are going more digital nowadays.”

‘When we got set up, I had so much fun with the customizations they had to offer.’

To avoid having stock photos at all costs, Danya told us that she needed pictures of the team, the clinic, the pet owners, and their pets on the website. The team at PetDesk was able to help them achieve that customization, ultimately giving the clinic’s website a unique and personal touch.

“It was also effortless to customize it. If there was a block of color we didn’t like or how it looked, we could just click on it and leave a note for the PetDesk team, and the changes were made almost instantly.”

‘The photo gallery section on our website is a hit with pet owners.’

PetDesk provided Griffin Exotics with a section on their website where pet owners can upload their pet pictures, which became an immediate success. Still today, their clients love to see their pets’ photos on the website and continue to update them regularly.

“Our clinic deals with a very niche market and if someone has an exotic pet, there are only 2–3 clinics in the area that can help. Out of them, I can easily say that our website is the best, and having features like a photo gallery makes it very cool too!”

‘People are more likely to search for things on their phones than on laptops.’

When we inquired about Danya’s thoughts on incorporating tech tools into veterinary clinics, she shared an insight that was surprising to her: most of the clinic’s web traffic originates from mobile phones rather than laptops.

This revelation highlights the tech-savviness of today’s generation, along with the urgent need for mobile-friendly websites.

“I’m in my late forties. Half the people that work here are younger than me and will be more likely to start looking up stuff on the phone, than sit on a computer.”

Danya was vocal in bringing necessary change within the hospital administration. She wanted a few digital tools to make life easier for her, her staff, and the pet owners at her practice. 

“When I came to this clinic a couple of years ago, we changed the phones, computers, almost everything. It was a little hard for some vets to adapt to change but I feel they are happier now.”

‘The team at PetDesk has been a great help with the setup and onboarding process.’

We sent Danya and her team a questionnaire at the beginning of the onboarding process, which helped us understand things like the colors the team wanted to use, the look they were after, and their preferred photos for the website. The PetDesk team was able to structure their vision and bring it to life, which the staff at Griffin Exotics loved. 

Danya was also very pleased about the support she received from PetDesk, especially during Pet Dental Health Month in February.

“If I had to figure out how to post February’s dental month on the old website and have a pop-up going, I would never be able to figure that out. PetDesk not only put the logos and information up for us but also took it down at the end of the month. I didn’t even have to ask.”

‘I recommend PetDesk Websites completely.’

“I went to my old clinic’s website recently, and it just doesn’t look cohesive. I know they manually update everything too, which can be a struggle. I will definitely recommend PetDesk’s service to them as I know they too can benefit by avoiding stock photos and using a client’s rabbit to show what grooming looks like, for example.”