The phone rings while you have a dog on the table. You can't answer it, and by the time you call back they have booked somewhere else.
That was the first thing we fixed this spring. Most of what came after it is about the bit of the day nobody sees from the booking page: breakfast at 7:30 for every dog in house, the medication sheet, the note about the limp that the next shift needs to read.
A quick word on bias before the list. This is our own product and we sell it, so read it knowing that. Everything below is live in Petboost now.
1. Call Catcher
Calls to your Petboost number ring your own phone. Before you're put through you hear who it is, a client's name with their first pet and its breed, or "a new caller" for anyone else, so you know whether to put the clippers down.
With the answering menu on, a call nobody picks up, or one that comes in after hours, hears your greeting. Press 1 and they get a text with your booking link. Press 2 and they leave a voicemail. With the answering menu off you can still send a missed-call text back instead.
So the 9:40 pm caller who wanted a Saturday groom books one, and you see it in the morning.
Everything else lives under Calls in Messages & Calls: the call log, a keypad to ring clients back from your business number, and your opening hours, which set when the phone rings. Call Catcher is a power-up on top of the Communications Booster. How Call Catcher works, and the setup guide in Petboost Academy.
The same number now sends photos. Switch on Photo messages under SMS in Settings, and the paperclip in a conversation sends up to 10 photos or PDFs in one text. The finished groom, say, or the vaccination certificate a client asked for. Each photo or PDF uses SMS credits, and the switch shows how many. Photos your clients text you land in the same thread.
Photo messages need your dedicated number to be active. Photo messages on SMS Messaging.
2. Rounds & Tasks
This one replaces the paper pen sheet on the wall.
A round is a time of day your team goes round every pet. Breakfast, Midday, Dinner, whatever you call them. Rounds & Tasks, under Mission Control, lists every pet in house at each round with the form to fill for it. Tasks sit in the same list: the nature walk someone bought as an extra, the bath before going home, bin day.
Each team member gets My day, which is the same list with only their work on it. It's what opens on a phone.
Extras on a stay can be scheduled to a day and a round, so the hydro session on Tuesday afternoon shows up on Tuesday afternoon. And when the stay is checked out, the client gets one stay summary on their booking with the answers you chose to share, day by day, with the photos. No prices on it.
A task never takes a slot, and nothing on the list texts the client. Rounds & Tasks on Mission Control, and the Academy guide.
3. Team forms
An intake form is filled in by the client. A team form is filled in by you, on the appointment, about the pet in front of you. A daily stay log, a medication log, an incident report, a SOAP note for a rehab session, a walk report.
They're built in the same form builder as your intake forms, with a few field types made for the job: a scale, a checklist, photos. Start from a template if you'd rather not build one.
A team form is never sent to the client and has no link. You decide which answers they see, if any, down to the question, and your team can email the client that day's report from the answers you share. A form can be due every day, at each round, or only when needed. Team forms on Fields & Forms, and the Academy guide.
4. Vaccination protocols
Owners upload certificates without an expiry date on them all the time. Until now that left you working out when the next dose was due.
Add a protocol for each vaccine you track, or start from the Australian starter set and edit it to your vet's advice. Petboost then works out each certificate's Next due date from the interval, reminds the client on that vaccine's own days, and lets each service name the vaccinations it requires. A typed expiry on a certificate still wins.
Review and approval work as they did.
Vaccination rules on Smart Booking Rules, and the Academy guide.
5. Themed report cards
A report card for a dog's birthday shouldn't look like the one for a Tuesday.
Turn on Card Themes in Settings and Petboost picks a look for each card from the visit date, the service and the pet: a birthday, a first sleepover, a 50th visit, Christmas, the season. It goes by the date of the visit, so a card you send on 3 January for a Christmas Eve stay is still a Christmas card. You can pick a house style, pin a theme to a date range for a campaign, or leave it off.
The theme changes how the card looks. What's on it stays the same.
Report card themes, and the Academy guide.
6. Memberships that end on a date
Some programmes have a length. Ten weeks of puppy school. An eight-week rehab block.
On the plan builder, under Length, choose Fixed term, then it ends and set the number of payments. The membership bills that many times and stops by itself, with your early-cancellation rule if someone leaves part way through. Nobody has to remember to cancel it.
The membership plan builder, and the Academy guide.
7. Pay on Arrival
Take a set percentage of each booking when the pet is checked in, and the rest at check-out. The visit stays open in between.
It sits under Deposits & Pay on Arrival in Settings, beside your deposit rules, and you can change it per service or for one customer. A deposit and Pay on Arrival can both apply, and the arrival amount never takes more than is still owed. The client sees what's due at check-in on the booking form before they confirm. It runs on Stripe, which is what Petboost payments are built on, so there is the same bias as above.
When a card declines at check-in, the booking lands in Outstanding Payments on Mission Control with the amount to take. Pay on Arrival on Payments, and the Academy guide.
8. Simulate a new client
You've set up your services, your rules, your deposit. What does a stranger actually see when they try to book?
Simulate a new client opens your booking page and form in a new tab as someone with no account, all the way through sign-in to the confirmation. The text code appears on screen instead of going to a phone. Nothing is saved and nothing is sent. From Customers & Pets you can also simulate a booking as one of your existing clients.
Simulation mode, and the Academy guide.
Where to start
If you run stays, start with Rounds & Tasks. Set your rounds once in Settings and the next morning's breakfast list is already there.
Every month's smaller changes are in the release notes. Start your free trial, or book a demo and we'll walk you through it.
