Published August 10, 2015

360 Virtual Tours at Animal Hospitals across the South East

360 Virtual Tours at Village Vets across the South East.

Village Vets are a fantastic chain of Animal Hospitals, Catteries and Veterinary Surgeries across the South East of England, including London, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

We love Village Vets, not least because our very own Head of Security, Viz the dog, gets looked after there when he’s poorly. Back in March 2015 Google Trusted Photographer Jo was on a visit to the vet with Viz and it occurred to her how well a Google Maps Business View would work there. She talked to them and they put her in touch with Village Vets marketing manager Elaine Lawrie, who was as excited about it as Jo was.

Village Vets | Striking Places

 

After some consultation, Striking Places felt a Google Maps Business View was the best option, with interactive overlay tool Tourdash. TourDash is a really cool Google approved product that provides a whole new dimension to your existing Google Maps Business View tour. As you can see from the tour below it enables you to add a content menu allowing visitors to jump between areas. It also offers hotspots, which are information points that can have text, videos images or graphics in them. 

 The benefits of being able to virtually walk around their branches are obvious. Whilst it would be too unsettling for the animals to have the public wandering around their living quarters, owners of pets understandably want to know where their beloved animals will be whilst in their care. The fantastic thing about a Google Maps Business View is that you can show areas not normally seen by the public. In all these tours not only can you see where the animals are kept and looked after, you can also see the places where they are operated on.

 

This gives an immense peace of mind to pet-owners who may be anxious about their care. It is easy to see from these tours how clean and safe everywhere is, and how well-looked after the animals are.

We have so far shot three of them; Village Vets Cayton, St Albans, Village Vets Whittlesford, both 24 hr hospitals, and Village Vets Cattery, St Albans. The whole concept of 24 hour animal hospitals is so reassuring in itself, and Village Vets are such lovely environments.

Of course there is the old adage about working with children and animals. So how was it?

“I love animals” says Jo, “and it’s such a great environment there. The animals were absolutely lovely. No problems at all”

We had to get there very early to catch them at their least busy. We then worked around and with the treatments and animals. If you look at the Cayton tour (above) you can follow the same cat through its treatment, starting in the prep room then through its operation. This kind of visibility is fantastic, for potential customers and for staff.

 

Village Vets | Striking Places

 

It was also great being able to include a dog having a scan. You can really get a sense of how restful and calm the surroundings are, and how competent the staff are.

The usual issue of having to limit the visibility of the people was overcome by the staff hiding behind doors, much to the puzzlement of the animals!

 

We had a great few days doing Village Vets and we greatly look forward to doing some more.