About Waldo’s Friends
Waldo’s Friends is a not-for-profit organization that runs an online store and a collection of resources for creating awareness and raising funds for animal rescue. Their shop has dozens of ethically produced goods including bandanas, vests, T-shirts, pins, mugs, and more that add to the ever-growing selection.
A Clumsy Pet Adoption Experience
Waldo’s Friends approached rtCamp for a solution to improve pet listing and adoption on their website. The existing process required customers to fill out a custom form (made on Google Forms) to apply for pet adoption. Similarly, the shelter owners needed to fill out a separate form for listing the available pets. This process was inconvenient and involved manual work for both customers and shelter owners.
rtCamp developed a solution that streamlined the workflow for all stakeholders. The new solution allows customers to browse available pets and directly contact the shelter owners. Shelter owners can now list pets through the backend, providing descriptions with contact information. The improved workflows enhance the experience for customers, shelter owners, and site administrators.
Building Streamlined Workflows
rtCamp developed a pet finder solution that simplifies the pet listing and adoption process on Waldo’s Friends decoupled site. The features enable customers to easily adopt the listed pets and support shelter owners in listing the pets. A registration system for shelter owners streamlines the account creation process by collecting requisite information. It helps in implementing a review and approval process for account requests.
Once approved, the shelter owners can list the pets available for adoption and upload details through their custom dashboard.
Once a pet is listed, it can receive multiple applications. The Waldo’s Friends team reviews the applications and shortlists them. These applications become available on the shelter owners’ dashboard for approval. Approved applicants receive a congratulatory email, while other applicants receive an automated rejection email.
Keeping User Journey On-Site
rtCamp created a user-centric workflow for Waldo’s Friends, leveraging custom post types with taxonomies. With a custom dashboard, shelter owners can easily manage pets from the backend. It enables shelter owners to upload pet details, while customers can apply for adoption with ease.
Shelter Registration & Tailored Dashboard
rtCamp built a registration form for Waldo’s Friends with advanced validation features to ensure error-free form submission. Additionally, Waldo’s Friends required an automated address field that could fill in the customer’s address based on their location input. This feature was implemented by integrating Google’s API, which displays the exact location and prevents incorrect address submission.
A lightning-fast dashboard empowers shelter owners to efficiently manage their posts and applications.
Performant Pet Listing Page
To enhance the customer’s browsing experience, Waldo’s Friends wanted a pet listing page where all pets available are displayed. rtCamp developed a dynamic pet listing page that links with individual pet landing pages.
The pet listing and landing pages are rendered using the Next.js frontend, delivering a fast and seamless web experience to users. The overall design creates a sense of pet shopping for the customers.
Waldo’s Friends also wanted to avoid fake applications and spamming. rtCamp implemented a system that ensures only verified customers can make adoption applications.
Secured Application Process for Adoption
Once a customer logs in and verifies their account, they can proceed to submit a pet adoption application. The application takes them to a checkout page, where customers can provide all the necessary information. To ensure a seamless experience, customers can track their application status via the WooCommerce interface.
A submitted application goes through shortlisting. And it can be either approved or rejected from the Shelter Dashboard.
Location-Based Pet Search
Customers often look for pets in their vicinity. To cater to this need, rtCamp implemented a location-based search feature. It enables customers to look for pets in their locality using a zip code and a distance range. A native coordinate system using WordPress and Google Maps Coordinate API implements a proximity-based search feature.
Shelter owners can easily add the location of a pet using the zip code on the listing page. This zip code gets converted into location coordinates and saved in Pet CPT’s Meta Field, minimizing redundant API calls.
Waldo’s Friends customers could now complete their pet adoption entirely on the website, without any unnecessary back-and-forth steps. If you would like to discuss implementing better workflows on your website, get in touch with rtCamp’s team.
