SUMMARY

Seeking a part-time Client Services and Business Development Coordinator who lives in Alexandria and wants to serve pet owners in our community. We’re looking for a friendly, organized, data-loving, pet-savvy person who wants to build up business for the most trusted and most experienced pet care team in town. Candidates must have experience in business development and the software we use:

• Insightly CRM (or HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho or other sales pipeline platform)
• MailChimp
• WordPress
• Canva
• Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides
• Loom screen and video recording
• Zoom or Google Meet web conferencing

OVERVIEW

The Client Services and Business Development Coordinator works in our Client Services team in a job-share arrangement, caring for inquiries, leads, existing clients and our field team of Pet Care Professionals. Altogether the Client Services team shares staffing of our weekday office hours and our on-call hours, 7am to 10pm, 15 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The Coordinator handles all stages of our business development and client experience from initial inquiry, lead tracking and follow up, prospect follow up, new client welcoming and onboarding, new client education, existing clients bookings and relationships, communication with lapsed (cold) clients, and wrap up with clients leaving our service whose pets are deceased or clients who move away.

The Coordinator reports to our Client Services Director, collaborates with employees across the company, and works virtually every week alongside other Client Services staff, our Pet Care Operations Director, and Pet Care Professionals.

Status: W-2 non-exempt part-time, hourly, remote work from home
Reports to: Client Services Director
Direct reports: none
Wage range: $20 – 27 per hour, based on experience

SKILLS REQUIRED

• Brings career experience in sales pipeline and business development processes: 1-50 years of working in evolving best practices of business development planning and sales pipeline execution
• Works from strategy to implementation of detailed tasks: understands how business development strategy relates to marketing, client service, and business success; collaborates with internal partners to create a seamless client experience
• Understands modern principles of communication: familiar with audience segmentation, personalized communications, email automations and/or email drip campaigns, and how messaging and relationships both influence the buying behaviors of personal/home services
• Communicates effectively: able to meet leads, prospects, and potential clients where they are, understanding what makes a qualified lead, mirroring pet owners’ needs and their pets’ needs, matching our expertise to their needs, creating a strong desire in prospects to hire us
• Wins new business with a track record of success and low ongoing client churn: a master of connecting and relationship building with prospects based on their needs and wants; using active listening skills with persuasion skills, and turning curious inquirers into raving happy clients
• Works with all sorts of technology: Enjoys detailed computer work using CRM software and enjoys complex multi-step processes among multiple systems. Enjoys a balance of working with people and working with technology

RESPONSIBILITIES
To handle all stages of our business development and client services, responsibilities include:

1. 80% Business Development: Supporting our company’s mission in our community by leading our target audiences to become new clients of our company
   • Documentation and Execution of Business Development Plans: planning the processes and activities to make our business more responsive, accessible and welcoming to our target market of pet owners in our service area
   • Inquiry, Prospect and New Client Tracking: maintaining our sales pipeline and lead database, shepherding prospects through our sales pipeline milestone steps in Insightly CRM until they hire us and move to our client CRM, tracking data and tallying metrics
   • Inquiry, Prospect and New Client Communications: talking and emailing with prospects to follow up on their inquiries, designing and deploying email drip campaigns targeted to specific audience segments at specific steps in our prospect pipelines, trying A/B split tests for effectiveness, helping prospects understand “what’s next” and what to expect with our services
   • New Client Welcoming & Education: creating and monitoring email campaigns and automations in MailChimp to welcome leads, educate prospects and onboard new clients, taking and making client phone calls, scheduling new client initial consultations and pet care visits, reviewing new client accounts, emailing new client reminders.
2. 20% Client Services Support: Supporting our company mission with our existing Client Services team as a job-share, by understanding our operations, services, prices, and policies. Example duties include:
   • Support of Existing Clients: learning the basic and routine functions of our CRM Time to Pet including scheduling pet visits, sending client confirmations of upcoming bookings, handling phone and email communications with clients, answering client questions, taking direction and sharing workload from the Client Services team, entering client information and instructions into our CRM Time to Pet, reviewing client schedules, following up on client satisfaction levels with completed services
   • General Internal Support of our Team: handling phone and email communications with Pet Care Professionals and other teammates; running local errands to pick up keys, pet supplies, or team supplies; coordinating logistics like teammate training tandem visits; understanding our Pet Care Professionals’ work, needs, and skills; handling employee urgent issues or emergencies; participating in internal team events, staffing our company booth or table at community events, attending zoom calls and in-person meetings
   • Operations documentation: updating and creating strategy and implementation plans, internal documentation, standard operating procedures, and publishing on our company intranet

WORK SCHEDULES

This position’s office hours are 15-20 hours per week completed weekdays between 9-4, with an added rotation of evening and weekend on-call hours off-site waiting to be engaged outside of office hours. Initial schedule would include:

• Working: Mondays through Fridays, 3 hours each day are required between 9-4
• On-call: Following onboarding and training, added responsibility includes on-call availability to monitor company office phone and email 2-3 weeknights per week from 5pm – 10pm, and on-call weekends every 4^th weekend from 5pm Fridays through 7am Mondays.
• Extras: Some off-schedule community events and team meetings are occasionally required

REQUIREMENTS:

1. An associates degree in progress or completed
2. 2+ years of: sales pipeline management, business development, marketing, email list management, client or member education, client communications, project management, and/or pet care logistics and scheduling
3. Work experience or volunteer experience with dogs, cats, and household pets other than your own
4. Formal training in sales or business development is a plus

OTHER REQUIREMENTS:

• Has 1 to 50 years’ experience in sales or business development, animal-focused environment, or both
• Lives in or within 5 miles of one of the zip codes we serve:   22301, 22302, 22303, 22304, 22305, 22306, 22307, 22308, 22309, 22311, 22312, 22314
• Is driven by a desire to serve the community, our neighbors, and their pets
• Comfortable in a virtual team, fostering close and trusting team relationships without working in a physical location
• Has the maturity to care for virtual team members visiting client homes, to calmly handle calls about pet emergencies, to think proactively, to ask questions, and to seek clarification
• Works well independently as well as in a client team environment where virtual teamwork and constant communication are essential
• Uses technology apps, email, and phone easily
• Works accurately from multiple sources of written instructions
• Retains verbal and written detail
• Learns to anticipate what’s next and what other tasks are connected to the current task
• Enjoys a balance of unpredictable and predictable; likes each day at work to be different
• Understands google maps, Northern Virginia geography, distances, and driving times
• Understands handling cats and dogs and other animals from prior experience
• Understands how to care for homes and pets’ safety, security, and wellbeing
• Passes a complete background check and provides references

TOOLS and SOFTWARE WE USE
Any candidate should already know how to use:

• Insightly CRM
• MailChimp
• WordPress
• Canva
• Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides
• Loom (screen and video recording)
• Zoom or Google Meet web conferencing
• Company intranet (Specific to our organization; publishing experience not mandatory)
• Time to Pet (general CRM experience is mandatory; this one is specific to our industry and experience not mandatory)

WORK LOCATION – REMOTE, DRIVING, and CLIENT HOMES

This part-time position includes work-from-home desk tasks and community errands for team support, which require residency in or near Alexandria, Virginia and proof of:

• a dedicated desk area at least 4 feet by 4 feet located in a quiet space for phone calls and focused concentration
• current drivers’ license and insured vehicle

WAGES, BENEFITS & PERKS
This is a work-from-home hourly W-2 employee position with wages based on experience. Time-and-a-half is paid weekend and holiday working time; quarter-time is paid for all on-call hours off-site waiting to be engaged.

• Part-timers working 29 hours a week or less qualify for basic company benefits: workstation computer, mileage reimbursement, working remotely after training, an expense account for job “gear,” training and development allowance, meal allowance, 401(k) Retirement Plan with company match following 1 year of service and 1,000 hours worked.
• Part-timers working 17.5 hours or more each week qualify for all the above plus our wellness benefit package bundle of health, dental, vision insurance
• Perks available and standard for all operations employees are:

• • flexible hours in a virtual team with work completed from home
  • $30/month (paid $15 per payroll) “tech reimbursement” towards your smartphone plan and home internet service
  • paid break time of 30 minutes for every consecutive 6 hours worked
  • meal expense allowance up to $12 for every 8 hours (non-consecutive) worked in a calendar day
  • gear expense allowance (up to $200 per year) for approved gear related to your position like computer equipment, accessories, desk and office supplies
  • professional development allowance (up to $200 per year) for approved training classes (specific job-related classes for skills relevant to this position)
  • company-paid Fear Free Certification in their Pet Sitters’ curriculum
  • 50% off employee discount for our services for employees residing inside our service area
  • and a completely awesome team of teammates in a thriving company…

ABOUT US

Alexandria Pet Care is a specialized in-home pet caregiving company providing personalized pet sitting and dog walking for almost 1,000 local households.  We’re known as the most trusted and most experienced team in town, and we’re the only local service with every employee Fear Free Certified® and CPR/First Aid certified.  Our service area encompasses 30 square miles including all of Alexandria City along with the portion of Fairfax County, Virginia between Huntington and Mount Vernon. 

We’re a relationship-based company with a stellar reputation and 5-star ratings on Google, Facebook, Nextdoor and Yelp.  Since the company’s inception in 2004, Alexandria Pet Care has only hired career pet experts to provide tailored in-client-home animal care for all types of indoor household pets.  Thanks to our excellent small neighborhood teams of employees who keep an ongoing high standard of client care, Alexandria Pet Care enjoys an extremely loyal client base, year-over-year growth, and a very strong recovery from the negative impact of the pandemic on our industry.

To streamline our client experience and employee scheduling, the company uses a comprehensive client relationship management system to schedule, track, bill, document client instructions, and log services, so we can provide clients with real-time visit updates and photos about how their pet is doing. We are a 365-day appointment-based operation with employee teams working 105 hours a week, from 7 am to 10 pm every day.

Alexandria Pet Care is committed to being an Equal Opportunity Employer, and does not discriminate because of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, disability, age, pregnancy, genetic predisposition or carrier status, gender, gender identity, marital status, citizenship status, or sexual orientation. We require full vaccination and boosters for COVID-19. New employees must submit proof of full vaccination. We also strongly encourage T-dap, influenza and hepatitis B vaccines also be up to date for anyone on our team working directly with animals and their owners, unless a medical or religious exemption applies. 

In closing, we are committed caregivers. Our team of deeply caring people takes great pride in their expertise and their work.   We are focused on a safe, fun, inclusive and fulfilling workplace for our team of employees, which allows us to maintain a top-quality personalized client experience for each pet owner who hires us.