Front page
LocalTapiola

PetHelp – A service loved by pets and owners alike

LocalTapiola and Solita have designed the PetHelp service concept that allows owners to get help for an ill pet right away. The service was developed together with pet owners and it has quickly become highly popular.

Case Solita and LocalTapiola PetHelp

Starting point

Owners are taking out pet insurance more than ever. The pet insurance market has heated up as new service providers have entered the competition.

LocalTapiola General Mutual Insurance Company looks to build services that meet the changing needs and wishes of customers. In early 2019, LocalTapiola began to survey the concerns and needs of pet insurance customers in particular, as well as whether they felt their pet insurance’s cover was good enough.

Service design based on vision

Customers reported their major concerns being pet health, increasing vet costs and the availability of health services. In addition, customers strongly felt that a high excess for vet expenses was problematic.

The LocalTapiola HealthHelp service offered to medical expense insurance customers had previously yielded positive results. HealthHelp is a mobile application that provides help quickly and easily in health-related matters and can direct customers to the correct professional, if necessary.

Could a similar service be offered to pet owners?

Together with LocalTapiola, we started to investigate how an equivalent virtual service could work for pet owners. Solia service designers helped determine the customer values for the new solution and create the customer story.

A service pilot was launched based on the joint design with real customers of regional LocalTapiola offices to obtain data of the customer experience in addition to the qualitative vision. Experiences from the pilot enabled the user experience to be streamlined, making ease of use a value proposition for the whole service.

Customer insight and joint planning methods

  • 10 contextual in-depth interviews of pet owners
  • 1000 pet owners surveyed for quantitative analysis of problems
  • 3 workshops with designers and pet owners
  • 400 pilot customers
We believe that we will achieve better customer retention thanks to the supreme customer experience. We have reduced claims expenditure and increased efficiency by using automation, which together help keep insurance premiums from increasing. PetHelp has also brought in new pet insurance customers. It is inspiring to see pet owners take an interest in our kind-hearted story!

Kari Lintunen Project Manager, PetHelp, LocalTapiola

Results

  • Within a short period, PetHelp has become one of the most recommended services of LocalTapiola. Its Net Promoter Score NPS has risen to an incredible 90 and beyond with an average grade of 9.6 out of 10 (scale 4–10).

  • Customer feedback highlights the service’s ease of use, speed, friendliness and the peace of mind it provides about pet health problems.

  • Customers have also given the PetHelp app five stars in both the Apple App Store and the Google Play service.

  • Over 70 per cent of diagnoses that would have previously required a vet visit have been handled remotely with PetHelp. Customers receive a better service at a reduced cost and may not need to take their ill pet to a clinic.

  • PetHelp can reduce stress for both owners and pets: help is available sooner and the service may help solve the problem, meaning that an ill pet may not need to be taken to a clinic, which may sometimes be a long way away. Less driving also means a smaller carbon footprint.

  • The artificial intelligence connected to the service has allowed LocalTapiola to enhance its internal processes, and in future, it can provide proactive health advice to support both vets and customers in PetHelp.

See more our work