A client rings to say she is stuck, and you are looking at a calendar that tells you nothing about the screen she is on. Every screen she sees is already in your account, under Simulate on her pet's profile.
No password, a mobile number and a code
She types a mobile number, gets a four-digit code by text, and types it back. The same screen serves someone who has booked fifty times and someone who has never heard of you, which is what the green Existing & New Clients badge is telling her.
Trap
Confirm puts a client who already has a login back on the Mobile Number step while it hands her off to the login page. If that hand-off cannot land, she is looking at Mobile Number again and reports that the code did nothing. A booking form embedded in your own website is the usual cause, because the login page refuses to open inside a frame, and the form says Open the booking form to continue.
Then the profile. It is one required field at a time, and nothing skips.
- Open Customers & Pets and select Manage on her pet.
- Select Simulate, then Profile Completion.
- Select Next on each step and read what it says is outstanding.
Next stays pressable on an unfinished step and names what is outstanding rather than moving on, so a client with no suburb on file sits on Please complete your contact information and never reaches Continue to Book Appointments at the end. That is what "there are no services" usually means. She has not got as far as the service list.
The booking, the deposit and the card
Simulate, then Booking Experience, on her pet's profile gives you her booking form against your live settings, and it writes nothing.
- Open Customers & Pets and select Manage on her pet.
- Select Simulate, then Booking Experience.
- Choose a service and a time, then read the card section on Review & Terms.
Services come first, then times, then Review & Terms. The card section at the bottom of that last step is the one to read, because three different settings of yours produce three different screens.
| What you have set | What she sees at Review |
|---|---|
| No card requirement | PAYMENT METHOD with an Optional badge |
| Card on file required | Payment Method Required |
| A deposit on the service | Deposit due today, and the balance after the appointment |
Tip
A deposit is what makes the card compulsory. Turn one on and the Optional badge disappears for that service whether or not you changed the card setting.
Two more ways in. On Customers & Pets itself, the settings menu beside New has Simulate a Booking: Existing customer finds the pet and opens the same simulation, and New customer opens your booking page in a new tab as somebody who has never booked with you, from the phone code to the confirmation, with nothing saved or sent. That is the one to walk before you send your booking link to anyone new.
What she sees on the booking form, and in her own app
The booking form is written for someone booking for the first time, so it reads in plain words with one next step on each screen. Two things on it come back to you. A day with nothing left says the date is fully booked rather than showing empty, so she moves on to another date instead of ringing to ask. A new client is asked How did you hear about us on the last step, and the answer lands on her record without overwriting the source of the link she arrived on.
Once she has an account, her app opens on Home: Up next with her next visit, her receipts, and Latest photos from her visits. On a phone a bottom bar holds Home, Visits, Book, Pets, Wallet and Profile, and her visits list opens on Upcoming.
Each pet has five tabs, Overview, Visits, Photos & Notes, Documents and Wallet, so the forms, report cards and agreements she is looking for are all under Documents. All photos under Latest photos opens a Library of every photo from her visits, sorted into collections such as Favourites, with a Timeline beside it. A booking's own page gathers what she can do next under Quick actions, and on the day of a visit Today's visit shows only what you have recorded, such as the time you marked the pick-up, never your van or an arrival time.
Her app does more than book:
| In her app | What it does |
|---|---|
| Share Passport on the pet's profile | Builds a Pet Passport PDF on her phone with the parts she ticks, such as vaccinations, vet and emergency contact, for a new venue |
| Tools & Guides | Petboost's pet calculators, inside the app |
| The booking's own page | Lists what has actually been paid against the booking, deposits and payments on arrival included |
| The pet's Overview | Grooming notes shows only when a business she is linked to offers grooming, so a boarding-only client is not asked for grooming notes |
| Lost pet poster in the pet's menu | Opens Make a lost pet poster, and Make poster builds it, with Post for local groups to help her share it. Nothing is sent to anyone until she chooses |
| Save contact on the home screen, a booking, a membership and a sent form | Shown only when you text from your own number. It saves that number to her phone as a contact, so your texts arrive under your name. She can tap Done for now or Don't show again, and you see whether she saved it under Pet & Owner Details, Preferences |
A returning client is also asked for a review on her booking page once a new booking is confirmed, not only after a paid visit.
Vaccinations, changes, and the ones who never finished
She uploads the certificate on her pet's step and types the vaccine name and the dates herself, so the file is a claim rather than a record until somebody here opens it.
- Open the booking from Appointments.
- Select the amber Review Vax Certificate badge, then Review vaccination certificate.
- Correct Vaccine / label, Administered date and Expiry date to match the certificate, then select Approve vaccination.
Owner submitted is what she typed, kept unedited beside the fields you confirm. What you save in Vaccine / label, Administered date and Expiry date is what the booking rules read afterwards, and approving confirms any appointments that were held for it. A booking that also still owes its deposit stays Pending until the deposit is paid. Reject takes a reason from you, then asks her to upload a new one.
Reschedule Appointment and Cancel Appointment are in the appointment's own menu in her app, beside View Appointment, which is why some clients never find them. Both grey out once the service's change and cancellation window has closed, with the reason printed under the item and in its tooltip telling her to contact you for help, so a client who says she cannot cancel has often found the item and found it dead.
- Open Customers & Pets and select Manage on her pet.
- On the Action Required tab, read how far she got on the Abandoned Booking card.
- To finish the booking for her, select Create Appointment.
Where you have Booking X-Ray Booster, X-Ray this booking on that card plays the recording of the session, so you can watch where they gave up. Owners and admins turn it on from the same button.
The ones who never finished still leave a record, on Action Required on their profile and counted under Unfinished online bookings in Mission Control. The amber segment is as far as she got, and Create Appointment opens your own booking sheet already filled in with the pet, the service and the time she had chosen.
