Greg Liberman, CEO of PuppySpot, believes that his company’s core service is, in essence, a loyalty program.
PuppySpot is a service committed to helping responsible breeders place their puppies with caring individuals and families in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Dallas, and across the U.S. PuppySpot is a community of dog lovers that makes lives better by placing healthy puppies into happy homes. The PuppySpot brand is rooted in the belief that dogs should be celebrated, and owners deserve to experience trust, confidence, and transparency when searching for their new companions.
“We really view our core service as a loyalty program in that we are here to support our customers for their entire puppy journey,” Liberman explained to Loyalty360. “That being said, we also recently launched a more traditional loyalty program that we call our VIP (Very Important Puppy) Program, which gives PuppySpot’s new puppy parents access to free and reduced-cost deals on essentials such as food, toys and pet-sitting. Examples of offers customers may be eligible for include a free overnight booking with Rover.com, the nation’s largest pet-sitting and dog-walking network; a free 30-day supply of pet supplements from NuVet; and, a free at-home visit from a vet right after your puppy arrives. In addition to preferred access and great deals, PuppySpot parents also collect points for each Very Important Puppy offer they take advantage of, which can be redeemed for PuppySpot merchandise. For now, it’s invitation-only, but we hope to continue expanding after we get more feedback from the program’s first members.”
Liberman talked about the origin of PuppySpot.
“The PuppySpot concept was started, in part, by lifelong dog lovers who found it hard to responsibly source a new four-legged family member without falling prey to puppy scams or puppy mills,” Liberman explained. “For us, it’s a true labor of love. We now have approximately 200 employees who have more than 200 dogs in their homes. Many PuppySpot employees [myself included] have used the service themselves and know exactly what it’s like to be in the customer’s shoes. As a result, we have evolved to a point where we don’t simply connect people with responsible breeders, we have built a community and customer experiences that continues long beyond the point of sale. What we tell our customers is that our relationship with them begins, it doesn’t end, when they find their puppy at PuppySpot.com. As a result, we get emails every day from customers just to share updates on how their puppy is fitting in, which is a bit of validation that we are accomplishing our mission to be more than just a service.”
Recently, PuppySpot earned the Feefo Gold Service Award for the second consecutive year. The award is an independent seal of excellence that recognizes exceptional business experiences rated by real customers.
“Being recognized for providing exceptional customer service is gratifying and inspiring for our team, since that is really what we are all about,” Liberman said. “It’s so hard to establish trust and separate fact and fiction nowadays, especially when it comes to reviews on companies and products. Feefo’s system is unique in its approach to verifying reviews come from real, living, breathing people who are actual customers. Going two-for-two in winning a Feefo Gold Service Award both years we have been eligible, again gives us an external measurement tool to show that all of us at PuppySpot are doing our jobs and embracing our mission. We’re going to keep asking customers to tell us anything and everything about their experience because we want to continuously raise the bar higher for ourselves and the industry.”
For Liberman, “finding a new family member is about as emotional as it gets, so we take emotional loyalty very seriously. As CEO, I read each and every review, not because I have to, but because adding a dog to your home is one of the biggest decisions of your life, and I want to make sure we are delivering on our mission. Although PuppySpot is filled with dog-loving employees who naturally want to make sure we are placing happy puppies into healthy homes, we have also intentionally built our internal incentive systems to prioritize creating the best match between our puppies and customers, as opposed to creating financial incentives to place the most expensive puppies. That may sound counterintuitive for a business, but being authentic is critical to how we operate. You really can’t fake emotion when it comes to animals, although plenty of companies seem to spend a lot of time, money, and effort to do so. Our customers, like our puppies, can smell fake a mile away. That’s why we don’t just ask for trust, but we work hard to earn it through transparency and action.”
PuppySpot’s mission, to make lives better by placing healthy puppies into happy homes, “is our North Star,” Liberman added, “and I am proud that we have a team of dedicated employees committed to delivering on that mission. That’s what makes it fun to come to work every day. While we don’t run the business for the purpose of earning awards, recognition like these Feefo awards for providing verifiably excellent service and playing a meaningful role in helping people avoid puppy scams is something we take great pride in. By highlighting the extraordinary work of certified, responsible breeders [ultimately, only about 10 percent of breeders that enter our review process are invited to work with us] and separating them from opportunists who prioritize profit over the welfare of animals, we work day-in-and-day-out to ensure our puppies come from responsible sources.”