Veterinary Answering Service | After-Hours Cover for Vet Clinics
Veterinary Practices
A veterinary call at eleven at night is almost always the same question in a hundred different forms: should I put her in the car right now, or can this wait until you open? The owner is frightened, frequently crying, and describing something they do not have the vocabulary for. What they need back is a routing decision — see the on-call veterinarian, drive to the emergency hospital, or come in first thing — and what they must never be given is a non-veterinarian's opinion about whether the animal is fine.
Global Empire Corporation answers veterinary phone lines after hours, at lunch, and through the surgical block, working a written urgency protocol your veterinarians sign off on, escalating to your on-call DVM by the path you set, and referring to the emergency hospital you name rather than whichever one the owner finds first.
- After-hours calls answered live, so an owner gets a routing decision instead of a voicemail tone and a default drive to the ER
- On-call DVM reached by the rotation and escalation path you define, with the history already captured before the phone rings
- Referral to the emergency or specialty hospital you name, with directions and a call ahead where you have asked for one
- Daytime overflow so refills, food and boarding calls stop competing for the line an emergency is trying to reach
- 1.1B+
- Transactions Processed
- 11+
- Contact Centers Worldwide
- 27
- Service in 27+ Languages
- 35.5k+
- Over 35000 Happy Employees
- 10M+
- New Customers Acquired
The Call You Miss at Eleven at Night Ends Up at the Emergency Hospital
A missed call in most trades goes to a competitor who answered second. A missed veterinary call goes somewhere worse for the practice and often worse for the animal: the owner waits, or panics and drives to the nearest twenty-four-hour emergency hospital by default. The pet is then seen, worked up and discharged by a clinician who has never met it, the record sits with someone else, the follow-up and the recheck go with it, and the client learns that the place that answers at midnight is not you.
The daytime version is quieter and costs more in aggregate. Your phone rings while the whole team is restraining a fractious cat or scrubbed into a spay, so refill requests, food orders, boarding questions and vaccine bookings pile into voicemail alongside the one caller whose dog is bleeding. Nobody on the floor can tell which is which until somebody listens, and by then the urgent caller has made their own decision.
For small animal clinics, mixed and equine practices, and referral partners
What Happens on the Call Before Your On-Call Vet Is Woken
Protocol-Based Urgency Sorting
Agents work a written decision tree your veterinarians approve — species, presenting sign, how long it has been going on — and the output is where the call goes, never an assessment of what is wrong with the animal.
On-Call DVM Escalation
The rotation calendar, who covers which nights, how the on-call vet prefers to be reached, and what happens when the first attempt is not acknowledged, so the owner is never left holding an unanswered promise.
Emergency Hospital Referral
When the case belongs at a twenty-four-hour facility, agents name your partner hospital, give the address and directions, and call ahead where your protocol says to, so the hand-off is deliberate rather than accidental.
Toxin and Ingestion Intake
The my-dog-ate-something call captured properly: substance, quantity, the animal's weight, how long ago, symptoms so far — then routed to the on-call veterinarian or the animal poison control service you nominate. Agents never estimate a dose or reassure.
Farm, Equine and Large Animal Calls
For mixed practices, the after-hours question is whether the veterinarian drives out tonight. Agents capture the herd or barn location, the animal, the presenting sign and the access details a farm call needs before anyone gets in the truck.
Booking, Refills and Records Requests
Vaccine and recheck appointments booked, prescription and diet refill requests captured and queued for technician or DVM authorization, records requests logged — none of them confirmed on the phone as though they were approved.
Working Inside Your Practice Information Management System
Veterinary software is more fragmented than any other practice vertical, and the split decides what an outside team can genuinely do. Server-based installs of IDEXX Cornerstone and AVImark live on a machine in your treatment area; a cloud system such as ezyVet, Covetrus Pulse or IDEXX Neo can be reached from anywhere you grant a login. Any provider who promises to book directly into your schedule without first asking which of those you run is guessing, and the guess shows up as appointments that never made it into the book.
So we agree the split per practice before launch: which call types are written straight into the system, which come through as a structured message your morning team enters, and which are simply logged. Whichever path a call takes, every after-hours contact is delivered as a written record with the time, the caller, the animal, what was said and where it was routed — because the team opening at eight needs to know what happened at two without reconstructing it from a callback.
- IDEXX Cornerstone and AVImark — structured message delivery or hosted access into your practice server, depending on how the install is hosted
- ezyVet, Covetrus Pulse and IDEXX Neo — cloud systems where agents can book into the live schedule when you grant access
- Delivery by email, SMS and the on-call rotation contact you nominate, with acknowledgment tracked rather than assumed
- Your named emergency, specialty and poison control contacts held in the knowledge base, so a referral never depends on the agent's memory
This Line Is Governed by Your State Practice Act, Not by HIPAA
HIPAA covers human patients. It does not cover animal patients, and a vendor selling you a HIPAA-compliant veterinary answering service has not understood what actually binds this phone line. The real constraint is your state veterinary practice act, administered by your state veterinary medical board: the practice of veterinary medicine — diagnosis, prognosis, and advice on treatment — is reserved to licensed veterinarians, and a non-licensed person on your line cannot triage clinically or tell an owner whether their animal needs to be seen. Related rules on the veterinarian-client-patient relationship govern anything approaching advice or a prescription authorization.
That is why the whole page is built around protocol-based routing rather than telephone triage. Agents classify a call against a decision tree a veterinarian wrote, and produce a destination — on-call DVM, emergency hospital, morning appointment — instead of an opinion. Definitions, scope of practice for support staff, and the relationship rules differ meaningfully between states, and they change. Confirm your current requirements with your own counsel before the scripts are signed off.
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Frequently asked questions
Do we need a 24/7 answering service for a two-doctor small animal clinic?
Often not, and it is worth saying so. If you already refer overnight emergencies to a twenty-four-hour hospital, buying round-the-clock cover mostly duplicates a hand-off you have already arranged. What two-doctor practices usually lose money on is the middle: the lunch hour, the surgical block, evenings until the emergency hospital opens, Saturday afternoon, and the week your receptionist is away. Start there, measure what actually arrives in those windows, and extend to full coverage only if the call log justifies it rather than because a package includes it.
Can your agents tell an owner whether the pet needs to come in?
No, and be careful with any provider that says yes. Deciding whether an animal needs to be seen is a clinical judgment, and state veterinary practice acts reserve that to licensed veterinarians. What our agents do instead is classify the call against a written protocol your veterinarians authored — presenting sign, species, duration — and route it: to the on-call DVM, to the emergency hospital you have named, or to the first appointment tomorrow. The agent supplies a destination. Only your veterinarian supplies an assessment.
What happens on a call about something the animal ate?
The intake is scripted because the detail is what makes the next call useful. Agents capture the substance and, where the owner has the packaging, the concentration; how much is missing; the animal's species, breed and weight; how long ago it happened; and anything observed since. That package goes to your on-call veterinarian or straight to the animal poison control service you have nominated, whichever your protocol specifies. Agents do not estimate toxicity, do not suggest inducing vomiting, and do not tell an owner the amount is probably fine.
How do your agents handle a euthanasia or end-of-life call?
With a separate script and no scheduling pressure. These calls arrive after hours more than any other type, the caller is frequently deciding tonight and is not in a state to be processed efficiently, and the wrong tone is remembered for years. Agents acknowledge what is happening, capture the animal and the situation, and either connect the owner to the on-call veterinarian or arrange the callback your protocol specifies. They do not quote availability, discuss aftercare options, or offer any view on whether it is time.
Can you book directly into ezyVet, Pulse or Cornerstone?
Into the cloud systems, generally yes — ezyVet, Covetrus Pulse and IDEXX Neo can be reached with a login you control and scope, so agents can put an appointment into the live schedule. Server-based Cornerstone and AVImark installs depend entirely on how your practice hosts them; where there is no safe remote path, the honest arrangement is structured message delivery your team enters at open. What we will not do is keep a shadow schedule of our own, because two books that disagree turn one missed call into a client standing at your door with no appointment on file.
How do you decide when to wake the on-call veterinarian?
You decide, before launch, and we follow it. The protocol lists what warrants a call tonight and what waits, names the rotation and the backup, sets how long an unacknowledged page waits before the next name is tried, and specifies what the owner is told in the meantime — in your words, not the agent's. Anything the protocol does not cover escalates rather than waits, because an unclassified call left sitting until morning is the failure that actually hurts animals, and it is the one we would rather over-correct for.
What does a veterinary answering service cost?
There is no headline rate, because the variables move too much: how many hours you cover and which ones, call volume in those windows and how spiky it is, whether large animal and farm calls are in scope, how deep the urgency protocol goes, whether agents book into your practice software or deliver messages, and how many locations share the line. A clinic buying evenings and weekends is a different program from a mixed practice covering farm calls overnight. We scope against your actual call log and quote per practice.
TESTIMONIALS
Our trusted clients
Global Empire provides reliable 24/7 coverage with live support when it matters most. Their breadth of service, professionalism, and ability to answer calls quickly has made a major difference for our organization. We’re very happy with the partnership and would recommend them confidently.
Wait times no longer exist with the service Global Empire provides. We have cut labor costs dramatically, eliminated overhead from dispatch staffing, and our clients are getting picked up quicker. Spending less while improving service has become the backbone of our business.
We are not only meeting but exceeding our service level objectives. Global Empire resolves many calls without needing a live agent, and the calls that require support are answered quickly and handled faster than before. Their reporting gives us visibility anytime we need it.
We set very challenging service level objectives and insist on those standards being met. At first we were unsure if Global Empire could consistently deliver at that level, but they proved they could. Based on performance and reliability, we know we made the right decision.
Service matters greatly for customer loyalty and experience, and Global Empire provides exactly the professional support required. We’re confident we achieve more value in our contact center because of the strategic partnership and the consistency of their service.
During our recent flood disaster, Global Empire provided messaging services vital to our communications management. Their quick, efficient, and professional response stood out throughout the crisis. In situations like this, service quality is not taken for granted — it’s recognized.
Excellent service — we consistently receive comments about how professional and friendly their agents are. To our customers, it feels seamless and they assume the people answering are part of our in-office team. It has worked out far better than we thought possible.
Global Empire has provided essential call center services for over a decade, responding to medical and non-medical emergencies with accuracy and professionalism. Their commitment to quality and continuous learning is clearly reflected in the service they deliver.
I never realized how much overtime we were paying until we started using Global Empire. We were able to eliminate overtime completely while improving how calls are handled. Now our staff can focus on other important tasks that keep our customers happy.
I wasn’t using all the options Global Empire offered until one of their representatives noticed and reached out. Based on their recommendations, we made several changes that saved money and improved response time. Customers now comment on how efficiently our business runs.
We believe excellent customer service provides the sharpest competitive edge. Global Empire shares that same vision and works closely with us to deliver the best possible service quality. Their partnership supports our ongoing commitment to excellence.
The main reason we work with Global Empire is the ‘red carpet’ treatment. They have the best group of agents I’ve worked with in over 20 years, and they consistently maintain high standards for compliance and customer interactions. They lead by example.
Efficient, professional service with a personal touch. It’s rare to find a provider that consistently delivers both quality and responsiveness at this level.
Over the years I’ve been impressed with the professionally trained staff at Global Empire. Our customers are often anxious or angry, and their team consistently puts them at ease. In two decades, we have never had a customer complaint — which says everything.
As we expanded from Europe into North America, we knew customer service and technical support would be critical to success. We were impressed to learn Global Empire was handling support for a market leader. After working with them, it’s clear why — their service sets the standard.
One of our members struggled with registration and called our toll-free number. The Global Empire agent remained calm, extremely helpful, and professional throughout a long troubleshooting process. Because of that call, the customer remained loyal — and that is a huge asset.
Global Empire is over-delivering on SPH and sales targets. Their performance has helped us reduce acquisition costs significantly, and they have proven to be the missing link in our growth strategy.
I can’t believe we didn’t use Global Empire sooner. Since joining, our order accuracy improved, wait time is virtually gone, and customers receive their orders correctly and on time. This partnership has had a major impact on our national pizza business.
Because of their experience in the energy industry, Global Empire has become a valued marketing partner. Their call center solutions help us acquire customers, retain them, and provide quality service after the sale — 24 hours a day.
Our business relationship with Global Empire has been long and very satisfying. Their employees deserve full credit for the professionalism and consistency they bring to every interaction. I know firsthand how stressful frontline work can be, and their team delivers every time.
Global Empire has been an integral part of our business for years. Our customers expect to speak with someone who can assist immediately, and their team consistently delivers. They maintain professionalism, empathy, and flexibility, making it easy to work together.
With so much outsourcing in the answering services space, it was a relief to find a provider that is truly efficient. The pricing is excellent, onboarding was smooth, and our clients were far happier speaking to a live operator instead of voicemail.
We have partnered with Global Empire for over 15 years and they remain a crucial part of our 24/7 operations. They support multiple sites across states, and we couldn’t be happier with their service, reliability, and long-term consistency.