If you're still calling or texting clients individually to remind them of their upcoming booking, you're spending time you don't have on work that software should be doing for you. For a kennel running 15–25 active bookings a week, manual reminders can easily consume three to four hours of your working week — time that would be far better spent on the dogs in your care, on your business, or just on not being tethered to your phone.
Automated reminders aren't just a time-saving tool. They also directly reduce no-shows, prompt clients to get their vaccination records in order before arrival, and generate review requests at exactly the right moment after a stay. Done properly, a good reminder system is doing active work for your business around the clock without you lifting a finger.
The true cost of manual reminder calls
It's easy to underestimate how much time manual client communication actually takes. Consider a typical week: 15 bookings, each requiring a reminder call two days before arrival. That's 15 calls, but in reality it's often 15 attempts — because clients don't always answer on the first try. Then there are the callbacks to return, the voicemails to leave, the texts to follow up with, and the occasional lengthy conversation where the client has a question they didn't think to ask when they booked.
Realistically, each reminder interaction takes an average of 8–12 minutes once you account for missed calls and callbacks. Multiply that across 15 bookings and you're looking at two to three hours per week on reminders alone. Over the course of a year, that's well over 100 hours — time you've spent on a task that automation could handle in seconds.
There's also the question of when these calls happen. Clients tend to be available in the evenings or on weekends, which means your reminder admin either follows you out of working hours or doesn't get done at the right time. Neither is ideal. Automated messages go out at the optimal moment regardless of whether you're at the kennel, with the dogs, or sitting down for dinner.
What a good reminder sequence looks like
A well-designed automated reminder sequence has several distinct touchpoints, each with a specific purpose. Here's the structure that works best for most boarding kennels:
7 days before check-in: the information email
This is your opportunity to confirm the booking details, remind the client of everything they need to bring, and set expectations clearly before arrival day. A good 7-day email should include:
- The confirmed dates, check-in time and your address
- What to bring — food (if the client provides it), medication, a favourite toy or blanket
- Your vaccination requirements, with a clear note that proof will be checked on arrival
- Your cancellation policy, in case their plans have changed
- Your contact number for any questions
Email is the right channel for this message because the client may need to refer back to it — to check your address, print off the vet records you asked for, or remind their partner of the drop-off time. A text gets read and forgotten; an email sits in the inbox ready to be found.
48 hours before check-in: the SMS reminder
This is your most important reminder for preventing no-shows. Send it by SMS, not email, because text open rates are dramatically higher — typically over 90% compared to 20–30% for email. Keep it short and punchy:
"Hi [Name], just a reminder that [Dog's name] is booked in with us on [Day] at [Time]. Our address is [Address]. Please remember to bring vaccination records. See you soon! — [Your kennel name]"
That's it. No lengthy explanation, no marketing language. Just the essential information the client needs to show up at the right time with everything you asked for.
Morning of check-in: the day-of confirmation
Not every kennel uses this touchpoint, but for first-time boarders or clients whose check-in time is later in the day, a brief morning SMS ("Looking forward to welcoming [Dog's name] today!") can be a warm, professional touch that reinforces your reliability. It's also a final opportunity for a client to contact you if something has changed, giving you more time to potentially fill the spot from a waiting list.
Post-stay: the follow-up message
This touchpoint is the most underused and arguably the most valuable. A message sent 24–48 hours after the dog has gone home has two purposes: it closes the loop on the stay (showing clients you cared about how their dog got on, not just about the booking), and it's the perfect moment to ask for a review.
Timing matters enormously here. Clients are most likely to leave a positive review when the experience is still fresh, they've seen their happy dog at home, and the relief of a holiday without dog-worry has sunk in. That window is typically 12–48 hours after collection. Ask too late and the moment has passed.
The vaccination reminder workflow
Vaccination compliance is a constant administrative headache for kennel operators. Clients forget to bring records, show up with out-of-date boosters, or claim their dog has been vaccinated without documentation. Every one of these situations costs you time and creates an awkward conversation on arrival day.
Automated reminders can front-load this problem significantly. A targeted message sent 7 days before arrival — specifically asking the client to check their pet's vaccination records are current and to bring proof — shifts the responsibility to the client and gives them enough time to book an appointment with their vet if there's a gap.
In KennelBooker, you can also flag bookings where vaccination expiry data is stored and approaching expiry, and trigger a specific reminder to that client while leaving others unaffected. This kind of targeted automation means the right client gets the right message without you manually checking every booking's health records.
Post-stay follow-up and review requests
A post-stay message sequence should do more than ask for a review. The best approach is a two-step flow:
- 24 hours after collection: A brief, warm check-in message asking how the dog has settled back home and whether there's anything they'd like to share feedback on. This opens a conversation and invites any concerns to come to you directly rather than appearing on Google.
- 48 hours after collection (or after a positive response to step 1): A direct, friendly review request with a link to your Google Business Profile. Keep it simple: "If you'd be happy to leave us a review, it takes less than two minutes and really helps other dog owners find us."
The key to making this work is timing and personalisation, both of which automation handles perfectly. A generic review request sent three weeks later rarely converts. A warm, timely message sent while the client is still thinking about their dog's stay converts at a much higher rate.
How to personalise automated messages so they don't feel robotic
The most common concern kennel owners have about automated reminders is that they'll feel impersonal — that clients will notice they're receiving a template rather than a genuine message. In practice, this is a solvable problem, and the solution is personalisation at the field level combined with a warm, human tone in the message itself.
Every automated message should include the dog's name, not just the client's name. "Hi Sarah, just a reminder that Biscuit is booked in on Thursday" feels completely different from "Hi Sarah, just a reminder about your booking on Thursday." That small change — pulling the dog's name into the message — makes an automated reminder feel personal to a pet owner in a way that very few other variables can match.
Beyond personalisation, the tone matters. Write your templates in the same voice you'd use if you were texting a client directly. Contractions, first person, warm language. Avoid corporate-sounding boilerplate — "Please be advised that your appointment is scheduled" is not how you speak to someone you're trusted to care for their dog.
"Clients often reply to the automated reminders thinking I sent them personally. That tells me the tone is right. And the conversations that come back through the reply are often useful — questions I'd rather answer before arrival than on the day."
— Kennel owner, Co. Dublin
Setting it up in KennelBooker
KennelBooker's automated messaging system is designed specifically for pet care businesses. Once you've configured your reminder templates — which takes around 20–30 minutes the first time — the system fires the right message to the right client at the right time without any ongoing involvement from you.
You can set up separate reminder sequences for different service types (boarding reminders are different from grooming appointment reminders), control the timing of each message, choose email or SMS for each touchpoint, and preview exactly what the client will see before you publish a template. The dog's name, booking dates, your address and any other relevant booking details are pulled in automatically.
The vaccination reminder workflow can be configured to trigger only for clients whose vaccination expiry records in the system are approaching, giving you targeted compliance communication without spamming clients who are already up to date.
Three hours a week is a conservative estimate for what automation saves most kennel owners. For businesses running at full capacity through peak periods, the saving is higher — and the value of having it done reliably, at exactly the right time, without depending on you to remember, is genuinely hard to overstate.
Start a free 14-day trial of KennelBooker and set up your first automated reminder sequence today. No card required, and the setup takes less time than tomorrow morning's reminder calls would.