“The first thing I’ve loved is the ongoing support that you get”
Catherine Jeans has been The Family Nutrition Expert for 8 years now, and after using a traditional system of pen and paper and trying different organizational programs she has found in NutriAdmin the nutrition software for professionals she needed, from an easy but complete work assistant to a simple way to contact and organize her growing base of clients.
Could you tell me a little bit about your background, how did you become a nutritional therapist and for how long have you been working in this field?
I have been a nutritional therapist since 2010. I qualified at the Institute for Optimum Nutrition in London. Prior to that, my background is that I used to work as a TV producer and journalist so I have a lot of experience of marketing and I know what I need to get my message out there for my clients. I’ve been practicing since 2010 and I’ve seen nearly 1300-1400 clients now. Most of that time I had my own multi-disciplinary complementary health clinic but now I have decided to go back to being a solo practitioner. I have a PA who works with me and we have a very busy clinic and quite a waiting list. I’m a mom of two so I very much try to achieve that life-work balance and NutriAdmin has been a really good tool for me to help me with the workload that I have.
What areas of nutrition do you specialize in – what kinds of services do you provide?
I do lots of one-to-one work. The clients that I usually work with are women who are stressed and tired and have hormonal issues, and I also work a lot with weight loss, children’s issues, and digestive health. My real passion is helping moms – probably my age group too – that are tired and feel too stressed to change their diet. I also teach quite a lot of workshops with local charities, particularly Norfolk’s cancer charity, and I also support The Spire Hospital’s Bariatric Unit as well.
Do you work with any teammates? How does NutriAdmin facilitate teamwork and reduces hassle for you and your team?
I have a PA -that means that I haven’t got to be totally responsible for booking my clients myself, I have someone who can book in my clients for me, and help me manage my diary, which is really helpful for me. That’s what brought me to NutriAdmin in the first place. When I let them know that’s what I needed they very quickly made that option available -because initially they didn’t have that function. I let them know that my PA and I might be working with the same clients and now they’ve created a team package which gets over that problem. I can be writing notes for clients while my PA sorts out the booking for the next appointment, for example, which is really useful.
Do you find NutriAdmin suitable for the UK market?
Yes, I do. I probably don’t use all of its features but I definitely find it suitable for the UK market. I sometimes find that the recipes are not as British but I have a lot of my own recipes anyway so I create a lot of my own templates which is really good.
How does the calendar and reminders functionality in NutriAdmin help you keep organized and save time?
I like using reminders, I think it’s great. If a client gets a reminder they haven’t got an excuse for not turning up. For me, it has saved me time and money so I just set them up automatically and I know that my clients are going to get a reminder. And now you can set up multiple locations, so for a lot of us who work in different clinic locations it’s really good -it sends out a reminder and you can choose the clinic. For me, it’s either at my clinic or online so I can choose what type of appointment they have and then they get a reminder with a specific email that says you have an appointment here or online.
What kinds of questionnaires and private notes forms do you use with clients? Do you feel the system is flexible enough to accommodate your requirements for consultations?
I love it because I find it really easy to use. I just write my notes with my clients and at the end of the appointment, I send them their notes. I set up questionnaires -which are similar to what I’ve always used, and they’re quite easy to set up yourself, but I also got NutriAdmin’s team to set them up for me and they were really helpful.
Do you think NutriAdmin scales well as your client base increases?
Yeah, I don’t really notice the difference. It’s so easy to find a client, definitely, I can just search a client on the search box and I have everything in front of me in 30 seconds, so it’s really quick. I’ve never had a problem with speed or anything, it definitely scales up.
Do you use NutriAdmin on an iPad or mobile device sometimes? If so, what do you use it for?
Yes. I use an iPad Pro when I’m at work all the time, that’s where I do my notes on. I’ve found a couple of minor functionality issues but nothing major. And the couple of issues that I have had, the team sorted them out for me. All my work is on an iPad Pro, not on a laptop. I don’t think it’s great on my mobile phone but you wouldn’t be taking notes on your mobile phone anyway -I can still book in the calendar on my mobile. I think it would be nice to have an app but I know that would be really expensive to develop.
How would you describe the technical support received in the past any time you’ve had an issue with the software?
The first thing I’ve loved is the ongoing support that you get and if you have a problem the NutriAdmin team answers me within one hour if anything is not working or goes in a strange way. Obviously, as a nutritional therapist that is my worry… when you go from paper to online and it’s not a system that’s yours. I went from paper to using OneDrive and from OneDrive to using NutriAdmin, and at first NutriAdmin felt very out of my control, I was worried about if it goes down and I can’t access my clients’ notes and things like that, but it’s really great because I know if I have a problem the NutriAdmin team can assist me really quickly. I don’t have many problems and if I do it’s usually because I can’t work out something, not because there’s something wrong.
How do you use NutriAdmin and the Stripe integration to process payments from your clients? Is the process easy to use?
Oh, it’s brilliant, it’s great. The clients make the payment through NutriAdmin, it goes into my Stripe account and I get a notification that I’ve been paid. Then you have like an online log in NutriAdmin with all your online payments and it syncs with my whole Stripe account so for me it’s a good way of all my accounts being in one place.
Where does NutriAdmin save you the most time in your daily work?
I think the best thing is the calendar, the diary, a client log and a way of creating reports and notes –all in one place. I had found diary software and notes software but I hadn’t found one that combines everything together that I’d like for nutrition. In this system, everything is in one place and that’s the most important thing. When you see a nutritionist obviously you need some basic advice that’s so similar from client to client, so for me being able to set up templates is also really important because I can quickly put out the information, then edit it for each client so I can have all the templates set up. I am a busy working mom and I think a lot of nutritional therapists here are either working part-time as nutritional therapists or like me they have a busy household. I don’t think many people have a PA, but when I want to book a client in, I’ve got literally everything I need to send out done in 2 minutes –questionnaires, online invoice, booking in the diary- it’s all done in there so I don’t have to worry about anything. It’s really quick and easy for me and then obviously I have got all their notes in one place so I can quickly flick between what I need too.
Do you feel investing time upfront in customizing all the different aspects of NutriAdmin has paid off over time in increased productivity?
It took me a while to set it up but once it’s set up it’s brilliant. When you use any new system when you’ve always worked in a certain way it takes a little while to get used to it.
What other features do you use the most?
The meal planning is great. I don’t use it for all my clients but I have used it. It’s a really specific program for clients, but some people really struggle to stay on track so if I want to put them more on a detox program or more like a fasting program or maybe sometimes a ketogenic program I tend to use the meal plan and the recipes that are already in NutriAdmin. I think it’s really useful because meal planning takes a long time for a nutritionist, so this aspect is really handy for those clients that just need something really specific and focused.
Please don’t forget to visit Catherine’s nutrition clinic and online consultation & courses on thefamilynutritionexpert.com.
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