Pet People is a multi-site veterinary practice founded by Dr. Ian Stroud, open seven days a week and built around the care of animals and the people who love them. As the practice expanded across multiple locations and teams, the volume of information staff needed to absorb grew with it: regulatory training, clinical protocols, safe handling procedures, and the firm's own ways of working. Pet People brought everything together in Waybook, creating one searchable place that scales with the business, supports Dr. Stroud as he focuses on clinical work and strategy, and makes new-hire training feel like second nature.
Like any growing veterinary practice, Pet People reached a point where the systems that worked in the early days needed an upgrade to match the scale of the business, the pace of new starters, and the depth of regulation in the industry.
Pet People's processes, protocols, and training guidance had built up across large Word documents over time. As the practice grew, those documents grew with it, eventually splitting into multiple files of around 200 pages each. The team wanted a format that made it easier for new starters to take everything in and for managers to point people to the right section quickly.
As a veterinary practice, Pet People operates under the Practice Standards Scheme and a stack of health and safety regulations covering prescription medicines, the safe handling of animals, X-ray and CT equipment, and dangerous drugs like chemotherapy agents. Every member of the team needs training on these protocols, and the practice needs to evidence that training to regulators on demand. Pet People wanted a faster, cleaner way to manage both the training itself and the proof of it.
With multiple sites, multiple teams, and more remote working across the industry, Pet People wanted to make sure every team member was working to the same standard wherever they were based. The goal was to give new starters a clear, consistent reference for how things are done at Pet People, rather than relying on whoever was sitting next to them.
"Before, it was all spread out in documents that got ever bigger. You would end up with a Word document about 200 pages, and then we would split that into two, and they would both grow to 200 pages. You could never find what you wanted, you could never find what you'd agreed, and you would never know which version was current."
Pet People brought their protocols, training, regulatory guidance, and ways of working into Waybook, creating one defined place the whole team learns from and refers back to.
Waybook gave Pet People one home for every protocol, process, and policy. Instead of tracking which version of which document was current, the team has one reference that everyone works from. As Ian puts it, it's the place to say "this is how we do stuff, this is what we decided."
Whenever a question comes up from staff, leadership, or a regulator, the answer is a search away. Ian highlighted the search experience specifically: he types what he needs and Waybook surfaces the right information without him having to remember where it was filed.
Waybook lets Pet People test knowledge as part of training, so the team can demonstrate they have absorbed each protocol rather than just read it. The review-and-publish workflow also means team members can update pages while a designated person signs off before changes go live, keeping the source of truth trustworthy as it evolves.
"What's brilliant is to have that 'this is how we do stuff, this is what we decided' - the defined area in one place that can be updated, shared, taught, and introduced to people in a whole variety of ways."
Pet People was introduced to Waybook by a trusted IT advisor, and adoption has grown steadily since. They have now been a customer for nearly four years. What's stood out for Ian over that time is how the product has developed alongside the business, with new features, improved search, mobile access, and AI capabilities arriving as the practice has grown.
"What's really surprised me is how it's grown - how it's developed, how it looks, how it feels. It's more intuitive, it's got more features. You can use it on mobile, it can be a plug-in widget on your desktop. It's just a better product."
The impact across Pet People shows up in compliance, in onboarding, in consistency, and in how Ian spends his own time.
Pet People can demonstrate that staff have read and tested on the relevant protocols at the click of a button. Audits and award applications under schemes like the Practice Standards Scheme become a routine task rather than a project.
Onboarding takes much less time, and the time saved goes into the things that matter most to Pet People as a business. Instead of walking new starters through the specifics of every task, Ian and the team can spend that time talking about the values of the business and how they do things.
New starters who join Pet People and work through the Waybook protocols can do things the right way from the start, without needing to ask colleagues each step of the way. The consistency that used to take time and repeated reminders to build now arrives with each new hire.
With the day-to-day delivery of process now handled in Waybook, Ian can stay focused on the two areas where he adds the most value: clinical work with clients and pets, and leading the business strategically.
"When we introduced Waybook, we saw real improvements in our business processes and the adoption of those processes. If you start people off who are new to the business and they read through the Waybook protocol, it becomes second nature. They just do it in the right way from the first place."
Waybook has changed the shape of Ian's role as a small business owner. On day one he was the vet, the nurse, the bookkeeper, the receptionist, the person ordering drugs, and the person answering phones. As Pet People has grown, Waybook has helped him hand off the day-to-day implementation work and stay focused on the clinical care he loves and the strategic direction only he can set. It has also given him peace of mind that the practice's collective knowledge lives somewhere reliable and available to the whole team.
"Your brain gets so full. There's so much to keep abreast of and keep on top of, and you can just park it there and know it's all taken care of."
With Pet People continuing to grow and the regulatory landscape continuing to evolve, Ian sees Waybook as a permanent part of the practice's operating fabric, and one that keeps getting better. He's especially interested in where AI-powered training is heading next.
"I can't imagine it's too long before my personal avatar takes me through and asks if I need any clarification and holds my hand through the quiz. If you can imagine it, there's probably somebody beavering away coding it as we speak."
For Pet People, Waybook has become the quiet backbone of a busy, growing veterinary practice. It's the place where decisions live, where new starters learn, and where compliance can be proven on demand. As Ian describes it, it's like a long-serving member of staff sitting in the back office: you don't notice them, but they're completely essential to the running of the business.
