FetchDesk AI

02/05/2026

One things that is overlooked and under-researched is "how" to select the best voice for your AI receptionist. Most companies that we chat with (human to human) initially think of the best employee on the phone and want a voice similar, but that is not always the 'right' answer.

Because pet care AI receptionist are going to be using the same phrases hundreds of times per week, you want to make sure that a voice that sounds charming once, doesn't fatigue the customers the 30th time they call in.

RECOMMENDATION:
You want to choose a voice with the following characteristics.
- Medium pitch range
- Measured speaking rate (less than 120 words/minute)
- Minimal melodic swings
- Soft consonant edges
- Emotion conveyed via timing and phrasing

TECHNICAL DETAILS:
Below are the technical factors you should consider when choosing your voice (and if you aren't technical, we are happy to find the right voice for your business).

Prosody stability
- low variance in pitch (F0) across identical utterances
- smooth intonation curves without sharp infleections
- consistent sentence-ending cadence

Spectral consistency
- stable format structures across phonemes
- no breath artifacts
- clean midrange (1-4 kHz), where phone systems compress hardest
**since pet care phone calls are often on mobile phones voices that rely on airy highs or sub-bass warmth will fall apart

Emotional controllability (not emotional intensity)
- ability to inject warmth via timing and emphasis, not pitch spikes
- Subtle 'smile thru voice' not exaggerated enthusiasm
- predictable emotional response when driven by SSML or prompt tags
**we want reliable warmth, not improv theater

Long session fatigue testing
- does the voice still sound human after 10 minutes of questions with a new customer who wants to know everything?
- does the voice stay calm when customers repeat themselves or are corrected by the caller

Use Case Reality
- pet care facilities typically have younger human staff
- teh conversations are typically happy and anticipatory
- customers are emotionally attached
- transactional moments (scheduling and policies) require clarity and charm

11/19/2025

What percentage of phone calls are missed at your business?

What is 'acceptable', is it 10%, 20%, 50% and what is the actual impact to your business in terms of revenue and growth?

We've worked with thousands of pet care business owners over the past 16 years and recently completed a case study using their data to show the impact of just 30 days of missed phone calls.

Large Scale Pet Resort

10/31/2025

The rate of innovation right now is crazy. If you have tried talking to our AI receptionist previously in a space with background noise our AI receptionis had a hard time not listening to everything. Over the weekend our engineering team put in 40 hours and solved the biggedt issue! We now are able to focus on the primary speaker and ignore the chaos in the background. The result is that it makes you feel like the AI receptionist is actually listening to you.

Here is the updated number if you want to test it out. (512) 729-9924

10/14/2025

5 POLICY CHANGES THAT CAN IMPROVE PROFIT BY 25%

Running a profitable pet care business isn't about working harder—it's about working smarter. After analyzing thousands of successful facilities, we've identified five policies that consistently separate thriving businesses from struggling ones.

These aren't theoretical. They're battle-tested by owners just like you who've transformed their operations and their bottom lines.

1. The 10am Checkout Rule (That Fills Your Daycare)
The Policy: All boarding guests must check out by 10am or automatically roll into daycare for the day.

Why It Works: That awkward 2pm pickup was costing you money. Your staff was already there, the dog was already settled, but you weren't getting paid for those extra hours. This simple policy converts dead time into revenue while giving clients flexibility. Most choose to pay the daycare fee rather than rearrange their schedule. It also helps smaller facilities that reach capacity by allowing more dogs to arrive each day and maximize revenue and client satisfaction because they were able to get an appointment.

Bottom Line Impact: Average facility adds $2,400-$3,800/month in daycare revenue from boarding rollovers alone.

2. Reservation-Only Policy (No More Drop-Ins)
The Policy: Require all bookings to be made in advance. No same-day drop-ins accepted.

Why It Works: Drop-ins are the silent profit killer. They make labor scheduling impossible, forcing you to overstaff "just in case." Reservation-only operations consistently hit the magic 35% labor-to-revenue ratio because you can schedule precisely. You know exactly how many dogs are coming and can staff accordingly.

Bottom Line Impact: Reduces labor costs by 8-12% while eliminating the chaos of unpredictable daily volume while also giving you an opportunity to build the safest playgroups the night before.

3. Mandatory Departure Bath After 3+ Nights
The Policy: Any dog boarding three or more nights receives a departure bath before going home (built into boarding pricing or charged separately).

Why It Works: Your brand walks out the door every single day—literally. A dog that goes home smelling like kennels is a walking advertisement for "maybe try somewhere else next time." This policy protects your reputation, generates positive reviews, creates upsell opportunities, and ensures every guest leaves looking and smelling great. Plus, it's genuinely better for the dog's skin and coat health.

Bottom Line Impact: Reduces negative reviews by 40%+ and increases repeat bookings. Can generate $1,500-$4,000/month in bath revenue depending on your pricing model.

4. Mandatory Continuing Education for All Staff
The Policy: Require minimum quarterly training hours for every team member, from kennel techs to management.

Why It Works: Investing in your people pays dividends everywhere. Trained staff are confident staff. They handle dogs better, manage clients more professionally, and conduct thorough intake assessments that identify "green dogs" - the easy, well-behaved dogs that are pure profit. With highly qualified teams doing excellent intake, you can safely increase your dog-to-staff ratios beyond the standard 1:15 when working exclusively with green dogs.

Bottom Line Impact: Staff retention improves by 35-60%, reducing costly turnover and training time. Better intakes mean higher-margin dogs and the ability to safely operate with optimized staffing ratios. Bonus is that it is also a great way to market your business as different from competitors down the road.

5. Rigorous Health, Safety & Cleaning Protocols
The Policy: Implement and enforce comprehensive daily protocols for facility sanitization, health monitoring, and outbreak prevention.

Why It Works: One canine influenza outbreak can close your facility for weeks and destroy years of reputation building. Having documented, non-negotiable protocols keeps dogs healthy, clients confident, and your doors open. This isn't about being afraid—it's about being professional. Clients notice the difference between a facility that "cleans pretty well" and one with visible, consistent protocols.

Bottom Line Impact: Prevents catastrophic closures that can cost $30,000-$100,000+ in lost revenue. Reduces incident-related vet bills and liability. Premium facilities with visible protocols command 15-20% higher pricing.

Do you notice the pattern? Every one of these policies does three things:

Protects your revenue (or creates new revenue)
Reduces your costs (especially labor and liability)
Improves client experience (which drives retention and referrals)
The facilities implementing all five policies report an average profit increase of 23% within 12 months—without adding a single new client.

You don't need more dogs. You need better systems.

Which policy will you implement first?

Send a message to learn more

10/10/2025

Running a pet business is a labor of love, but let's be honest—between grooming appointments, boarding check-ins, and answering the same questions for the tenth time today, you're probably wondering when you'll actually get time to focus on what you love most: the animals.

What if I told you that the most successful pet business owners aren't working harder—they're working smarter through automation?

Here are 5 key areas where automation will improve the customer experience, reduce labor and let you focus more on care and less on busy tasks that can be automated.

1. Marketing Drip Campaigns

One of the most important automations you can implement is the new potential customer journey. We both know that your process today has some holes in it, with new customers many times getting a voicemail when they call and very little communication once they do convert.

Implementing a text/email automated sequence will ensure that your communication with new customers is timely, relevant to where they are in your current customer journey and will result in a more loyal customer who uses all of your services.

I like to do a sequence where we send out one email every 4 to 6 days and make sure that it follows the pattern of value, value, value, call to action. The value emails are focused on educating customer. This could be highlighting how your business is different (staff certifications/training, dog to staff ratios, services offering, packages/memberships, pet health, etc). The call to action should be simple, straight forward, be something they can't say "no" to and easy for them to take advantage of. A new customer call to action would be prompting them to buy an "intro to daycare" package for a discounted rate. This is with the hope that it can change their behavior and have them come in 1-2 times per week for daycare during their first month as a new customer.

2. Recurring Membership Billing

If you offer memberships, subscription grooming packages, or monthly daycare plans, automated billing is a game-changer. No more chasing down payments or manually processing credit cards each month. Set it once, and let the system handle recurring charges, send payment receipts, and even notify customers of upcoming renewals. Your cash flow becomes predictable, and your customers enjoy hassle-free service and this takes the burden off of your front desk in having to "sell" packages on an on-going basis. For memberships I always advise to NOT DISCOUNT, but instead provide more value. That means I charging the same daily rate as daycare, even with a committed membership, but adding free near zero labor enrichment services to help expand what services they might add-on when boarding or grooming.

3. AI Receptionist for Phone Calls

The average pet business misses more than 20% of their calls on a monthly basis. This translates to THOUSANDS of lost revenue EVERY MONTH. Imagine never missing another call, even during your busiest session or when you're closed for the evening. An AI receptionist can answer common questions, book appointments, provide pricing information, and capture leads 24/7. Your customers get instant answers, you get more bookings without hiring additional staff and they have more success at up-selling enrichment packages and departure baths which drives up your average revenue per pet. FetchDesk AI is the only AI Receptionist that can answer calls and book directly into your pet care software platform with better than human results.

4. Reputation Management

Reviews can make or break a pet business, but asking for them shouldn't be a full-time job. Automated reputation management systems send review requests at the perfect moment—right after a successful appointment when customers are happiest. The system can even monitor reviews across platforms and alert you to respond quickly, helping you build a five-star reputation without the constant manual effort. Now days, most pet care specific platforms like Gingr, MoeGo and Kennel Connection already offer this as a built-in function with text packages. Mid sized pet care facilities report that they see an average of 15+ 5 star reviews after implementing an automated reputation management process. It's easy to do and well worth the cost to build your online presence.

5. Weekly Reporting & Analysis

What gets measured gets improved. Automated weekly reports deliver critical insights straight to your inbox: booking trends, revenue by service, customer retention rates, and peak demand times, labor as a percentage of revenue. Instead of spending hours in spreadsheets, you'll have actionable data at your fingertips every Monday morning, allowing you to make informed decisions that grow your business. The key to growing your business is to review your numbers EVERY SINGLE WEEK and make improvements and adjustments based upon the story that the data is telling.

The Bottom Line

Automation isn't about replacing the personal touch that makes your pet business special—it's about eliminating the repetitive tasks that drain your time and energy. When you automate these five areas, you free yourself up to do what matters most: providing exceptional care and building genuine relationships with your clients and their furry family members.

P.S. Most pet business owners who implement these automations report saving 10-15 hours per week. What would you do with an extra 15 hours?

Send a message to learn more

07/02/2025

PET BOARDING & DAYCARE PODCAST:
Why Your Next Dog Daycare Hire Might Be a Robot: Inside the AI Revolution in Pet Care with Garret Tadlock

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5oBqAAULtgfagLzcUHWBQs

How Pet Care AI Agents provide BETTER than human results.

And why are the smartest pet care facilities ditching all-inclusive chaos for themed enrichment bundles that sell themselves?

In this tech-centric episode, Dom sits down with Garret Tadlock – CEO of FetchDesk Ai – for a no-fluff conversation about how technology is reshaping the pet care landscape. Garret shares hard-won insights from 16 years in the industry, including why your software should serve as the nerve center of your business, how to know if you’re really ready to sell, and what boarding facilities can learn from gyms, hospitals, and HVAC techs.
Garret also breaks down how the right tools can turn data into dollars—and what your next five years might look like if you embrace innovation now. Plus, you’ll hear a powerful testimonial from Enrich U member Kim Buchanan, who reports a 42% increase in daycare sales after switching to enrichment-based care, talk about the future of the industry!
In this episode, you’ll discover:

l Build It to Sell – Why the best-run pet businesses are structured like they’re always for sale (even if they’re not).

Tech That Pays for Itself – How the right software and AI can make your front desk smarter, faster, and more profitable.

Enrichment as the New Standard – Why Garret says enrichment isn’t a nice-to-have anymore – it’s essential.

Theme It and They Will Come – What’s next after Enrichment 2.0? Experience-driven themes and bundles that boost average revenue per dog

Know Your Numbers – Why most owners don’t track the right metrics – and how AI is closing the gap.
check it out wherever you get your podcasts!

06/19/2025

MARKETING AUTOMATION FOR PET CARE FACILITIES

In the pet care industry we have limited touch points with customers, which is why having a true strategy for driving customer engagement is important. The engagement should be a mix of education and promotional. Below are the marketing automations that I would implement to drive growth, profitability and brand loyalty.

Grooming
- 7 day text to grooming clients who didn't rebook
- 14 day text to grooming clients who didn't rebook
- 16 Day automated outbound call from AI Agent to rebook
- Monthly text to all doodle owners to get them to opt-in to the Doodle Groom Membership (2 tier program that includes weekly or every other week brush-out + full groom every 4 to 5 weeks)
- Monthly text around education (video + content) and would also turn into blog content
- How to brush dogs teeth
- How to clean dogs ears
- Paw & Pad protection
- Summer cuts and coat myths
- Nail Care: why length matters
- Senior Grooming
- Puppy Grooming
- Matted Fur prevention - how to brush your long-hair/doodle

Daycare
- 14 day text to daycare customers I haven't seen (would try to find a way to personalize with the dogs photo in enrichment activity at scale)
- 16 day automated outbound call from AI Agent
- Daycare customers come in 5 days in the month, I would automate an outbound call to those customers to let them know they would save money if they would have purchased a package and try to get them to commit to a membership plan.
- Monthly text to all customers sharing the enrichment theme for daycare for the month
- Monthly video on types of Enrichment and the benefits (also turn into blog content)
- Breed specific playday 2x per month (highlight most common breeds that come to daycare). Great for social media and can get some people in on those days to join in the breed highlighted for the day (who doesn't want to see 50 labs or frenchies, or doodles all playing)

Boarding
- 7 days before boarding check-in, I would send automated text to any customers who have an appointment, but don't have enrichment and/or departure bath to prompt them to add it
- 3 days before boarding check-in, I would have AI do a appointment confirmation call to verify information (feeding, meds, dropoff/pick-up times) and make personalized recommendations
- Automated AI agent to call and email vets for dogs who have upcoming appointments with missing or expired vaccines that are required
- 90 days before holiday period, I would automatically text all customers who came the previous holiday to give them priority booking
- 75 days before the holiday, I would automate a AI outbound call to all customers who came the previous holiday to give them priority booking
- Fun facility video that shows a day in the life of a boarding dog who gets the premium package. I'd build a video library for each holiday that I would send as part of the text for holiday bookings

Cross-Selling Promo
- Automated text to customers who have only used grooming to give them promo to use daycare and boarding services (1x per month)
- Automated text to customers who have only used daycare to give them a promo to use grooming services (1x every 6 weeks)
- Text to all owners who have dogs under 2 years of age /educational (monthly)
- Text to all owners who have senior dogs /educational (monthly)

Training
- Monthly text to all customers for a group training (1-2 classes per month)
- One puppy basics (which I would provide for a minimal cost like $25 as it drives long-term revenue and fuels growth)
- One basic obedience (focused on building stronger bond in their natural environment and improve their relationship with the owners)
- Monthly text to all customers with a "Trick of the Month" to have them work on at home

Grow Reviews
- Automated text (with rules) when customers check-out of services to write a review for the business (rotating between google, yelp). I would limit the text to go out to customers no more than 2x per month. I would also love a way to mark in their profile that they wrote a review so the request stops once they took the time to write the review.

06/13/2025

Labor as a Percentage of Revenue.

As one of the key metrics for every pet business, I think most operators are not watching this close enough.

Below are a few levers to align your labor costs.
- Pricing - This is the #1 impact to your labor %

- Enrichment Add-on - Depending on if you are running enrichment programs, boarding bundles or if you are trying to create a la carte personalized experiences; the goal is hit 90% of boarding customers into enrichment + 50% of daycare + 50% of grooming customers.

- Departure Baths. This is key to driving revenue and if you are charging and paying right, baths should be a real profit center in your business. You should aim to have 90% of boarding dogs go home with departure baths. It protects your brand so clients don't say "i love xyz, but the dog smells terrible when they come home".

- Check-in & Check-out windows. For many facilities this is both a lever and a tool. No daycare attendant wants to have a hyped up dog coming into daycare in the late afternoon so having specific windows allow you to control the energy of playgroups, but also allows you to re-allocate front desk labor to other tasks that drive revenue or cleaning.

- Check-out time. When you have a check-out time past 10:00am, then the boarding dogs are getting a half day for free.

- Dog to Staff Ratio. Depending on where you live, this does or does not have flexibility. Always make sure you are running safe playgroups that are rotated often. But the key to this is making sure you send people home when the ratio is off.

So what is the ideal labor as a percentage of revenue? I think the goal is 35% (including owner/manager salary), but if you can get close then you are doing things right.

Leveraging FetchDesk AI helps reduce labor costs, improves average revenue per pet and ensures every phone call is answered 24/7 helping your business convert calls into loyal customers.

06/13/2025

MENTORS/ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNERS

I think that one of the most important things business owners can do is to find someone who can mentor and help hold them accountable (no money exchanged, just value exchanged).

When I first started in the industry I chatted with several large scale pet resort owners who were part of a group that met regularly, shared best practices, reviewed financials to look for trends, challenged each other, lifted each other up. Looking back today (16 years later), several of those owners have successfully grown their business to $1M+/year, opened multiple locations and some have sold for 10x EBITDA.

The ideal accountability partner for a pet business owner is someone who is:

1. Similar in size

2. Similar in service offerings

3. Someone who is working 'on' their business, not just 'in' their business

4. Has specialty skills that complement your 'specialty skills' (marketing/sales, operations, financial analysis, technology, etc)

5. A business that has been open for several years (as time provides the best challenges that have to be overcome).

6. Can make the time to meet for 90 minutes every month to review numbers, but also someone who could take your call and give advice if something unexpected happened and you want feedback from someone you have a relationship with and trust.

Comment if you have or would like to find your ideal "accountability partner/mentor".

06/13/2025

WHY All-inclusive is NOT the best model.

Every pet business owner loves animals and wants to provide exceptional care. When we talk about all-inclusive, I'm not saying that if customers don't pay extra, their dog won't get some treats or staff play or belly rubs or socialization. EVERY facility should include those as part of their general service.

However, when you offer all-inclusive, you are catering to a much smaller market. Every pet business has a range of customers and the top spenders always have disposable income. That doesn't mean that you don't want to work with customers who have less money, but when you raise prices so everyone gets the same service, it's a dis-service to your brand and customers with lower income.

Pet parents want to create unique and personalized experiences for their pets. Some customers will be ok spending $140/night to have 1:1 playtimes, sniff walks, K9 IQ Puzzles, pup cups and small group bacon bubbles. But not everyone can afford that.

So by creating boarding bundles, you are giving customers the opportunity to choose what experience fits within their budget. Every boarding bundle should include at least 1 enrichment activity and the top tier bundle should include 3-4 enrichment activities.

By offering boarding bundles you are able to increase profitability, improve staff engagement, differentiate your business and expand the potential pet parents that can use your services.

Don't agree, would love to hear WHY in the comments.

06/13/2025

SOFTWARE / TECHNOLOGY

The majority of pet business owners are fairly low tech, but so much of our operational efficiencies require optimized systems and processes to ensure our success.

When you look at the pet care industry, there are over 42 different software platforms who offer specialized business management software for pet care businesses with only a handful of leaders.

No one likes to 'switch' software platforms. It can be hard on staff, it can be hard on customers when you change process for online booking, phone numbers they get communications from, etc...

And while no software is perfect and you can find fans and haters for each platform. Below are some of the leading platforms available today.

1. Gingr
2. MoeGo
3. Goose
4. PawPartner
5. PetExec (now owned by Gingr and not accepting new customers)
6. Kennel Connection
7. DaySmart Pet
8. RunLoyal

Outside of your core platform to help operations run smoothly, there are several other tech tools that business owners should evaluate that can help streamline the business and empower staff.

1. When I Work / Homebase (employee scheduling)
2. Slack (internal communication)
3. PackPro/Dog Handler Academy (staff training)
4. www.FetchDeskAI.com (AI Agent to answer phones 24/7)
5. Notion (Standard Operating Procedures + New Staff On-boarding)
6. Canva (marketing flyers, images for social media)
7. SEMRush (key to help you improve your SEO)
8. iDogCam
9. QR-Code-Generator.com (free and easy way to create QR Codes)
10. Gusto/ADP/Paychex
11. Broadly (reputation management)
12. ChatGPT (responding to reviews, blog content for SEO, etc)

Comment to share any tools that you commonly use that we didn't list.

FetchDesk AI is first Pet Care AI Agents with BETTER than human results. They answer calls 24/7 to convert calls into customers, Increase Revenue, improve customer experiences & keep pet profiles up-to-date in real-time without touching a computer.

05/28/2025

C.A.S.T.
Can AI Solve This.

Every pet business should be looking to create efficiencies using AI on a daily basis.

Here is a list of the best AI tools you should be using.
ChatGPT http://chat.openai.com/
Claude for financial analysis https://claude.ai/
FetchDesk AI for phone calls https://www.fetchdeskai.com/
Midjourney for image creation https://www.midjourney.com/

So where should you be using AI in your business?
1. Job Descriptions + Hiring

2. Responding to Reviews (positive and negative)

3. SEO optimization on each of the pages of your website

4. Marketing (newsletters, announcements, flyers, blog posts, facebook/instagram posts)

5. Financial Analysis (upload your P&L excel file into ChatGPT) and get feedback on cash flow, sales themes, cost savings, labor as % of revenue, etc).

6. Phone calls. Every missed call is missed revenue. AI Agents and Answering services can answer your phone and book appointments 24/7 (or only when a human doesn't answer after the 3rd ring).