Reduce Labor and Improve the Customer Experience
If you own or manage a dog boarding or dog daycare facility, you already know that your profits are directly tied to two key performance metrics. Labor as a percentage of Revenue & Average Revenue Per Pet Night/Day. To optimize both of those KPIs, pet business owners need to automate tasks that can improve those metrics and improve the customer experience.
Online Booking
Every pet business should have a strategy for creating a simple and streamlined self-service customer experience that still provides the staff appropriate control over capacity and playgroups. When configured properly, and hopefully supported by your kennel software, your online booking experience can be a tool that improves your average revenue per pet day, reduces the number of phone calls, and enables business owners to have all the necessary information to provide the highest quality of service for their customers. If possible, it’s ideal to set rules for online booking that require pet parents who book boarding appointments for 3+ days to choose a departure bath or grooming service.
VOIP Integration
Voice-over internet protocol (VOIP) lets you turn your business phone number into an integrated two-way text system that attaches all customers’ conversations and interactions directly to their customer profile within your kennel software. Each text message received can be marked as “Needs Review” or “Handled” to ensure every client gets the appropriate response to questions, requests, or other necessary communication.
Automated Reminders
Every business should have a clear automated communication strategy for a variety of necessary communications. Below are the key messages that your business should automate with kennel software.
Appointment confirmation
This message should automatically confirm the appointment details for your customers with relevant information on services, date/time, and any additional information that is helpful to the pet parent.
Appointment reminders
This message should automatically remind pet parents of their upcoming appointment with a requested response to confirm, change, or cancel their upcoming appointment. If a customer needs to cancel their appointment your kennel software should automatically cancel the services and send a confirmation message to the customer confirming their request.
After Hours Auto-Response
When a customer texts your business after hours, you should configure your kennel software to text the customer back providing them a link to your online booking link and/or letting them know that you will respond to their message first thing in the morning when your business opens.
Check-out Review Request
Building your online reputation is critical for every pet business to improve SEO, build social validation that other pet parents love and trust your business, and reinforce the quality of service your staff provides. When pet parents pick up their animals, your kennel software should send an automated text message thanking them for their loyalty and letting them know the best compliment they can give to a small business is by writing a 5-star review on your platform of choice.
Grooming Dog Ready for Pick-up
Groomers typically are not super tech savvy and they prefer to spend most of their time with scissors in their hand. Configuring an automated system, within your kennel software, to send out a text to pet parents when their pup’s grooming service is completed can save time and keep your groomer to their scheduled appointments.
Boarding Appointments without Departure Baths
A key automation to drive your average revenue per pet night is ensuring that 90% of your boarding appointments are opting-in to add a departure bath. This process will protect your brand (it’s always best to send a dog home smelling fresh), allow you to identify any potential health issues for the pet, and grow revenue. Not all kennel software has this option, but when you find one that does, it can be a game changer for profitability within your pet business.
Vaccination Reminders
The health and safety of each dog in your care is the number one priority, and ensuring your kennel software notifies customers of upcoming vaccinations that are due is critical to both health and customer experience. Without these notifications, you could potentially turn away a customer who scheduled an appointment.
Business Reporting
Reporting is a critical element to managing every business and having the proper reporting mix within your kennel software can simplify pet care operations, highlight revenue opportunities, and influence changes that improve the customer experience.
Operational Reporting
For a pet care business, you will want several key reports that have all the necessary information for your staff to deliver the highest quality of care.
- Feeding Reports
- Medication Reports
- Enrichment/Scheduled Services Reports
- Arrival Report
- Departure Report
- Grooming Report
- Training Report
- Pick-up & Delivery Report
- Vaccination Report
Business Reports
Business reports are critical for your business growth to understand trends that might not be immediately apparent. Below are key business reports that you should find within your kennel software.
- Clients without recent appointments (At-Risk Customer report)
- Clients with expired Daycare packages
- Clients who participated in a Daycare Evaluation that didn’t book an appointment or purchase a package
- Customers who traveled on a previous holiday to send targeted messages reminding them to book early for the upcoming holiday again.
Financial Reports
It’s critical to know at any point in time, how your various service centers are performing (daycare, boarding, grooming, training, and enrichment). Through financial analysis, you can understand if your attendance trends might trigger a marketing campaign or introduction of new services to generate excitement and grow attendance.
- Daily Revenue Report (list of every transaction for the day)
- Close-out Report (provides high-level revenue by service category for date range)
- Forecasted Revenue Report (provides a glance into unearned revenue for a future date range)
- Payroll + Commission Reports (allows you to determine your labor as a percentage of revenue)
Payment Automation
If you want to drastically improve your check-out experience, leveraging automated tools like text-to-pay within your kennel software can reduce check-out times and have the conversation focus on the happy update from the dog’s stay at your facility. The beauty of text to pay is that this automation will still prompt customers to tip your amazing staff, and provides convenience for customers to breeze through a faster check-out process when they arrive.
It’s critical as a business owner that you are always evaluating new technologies and how they can achieve your business goals. Focusing on delivering amazing customer experiences with the highest quality of service and care will allow you to thrive when less thoughtful competitors are failing to work on their business. Investment in automations for your pet business will make a difference in customer satisfaction, customer retention, and profitability and reduce mistakes made by staff.
