How to set up custom actions for boarding grooming bookin…

You’ll need:

• A Chatref account with at least one agent already answering from your practice information. (If you haven’t set that up yet, start with our Veterinary Clinics page.)
• A clear list of the services you want to take in-chat: boarding, grooming, both, or specific variations (e.g., long-stay boarding, cat-only grooming).
• The exact details you need from the patient for each service: pet name, species/breed, owner contact, preferred dates, special medical or behavioral notes, vaccination status, etc.
• A reliable way to receive the intake once it’s submitted. Common options are a front-desk email address, a practice management system that accepts webhooks, or a shared team inbox already connected in Chatref.

Custom actions live inside your agent and work by asking a set of defined questions, then taking a defined action when the patient completes them. The action can be as simple as sending an email summary to your front desk, or as deep as posting structured data to your booking system. The setup steps are the same either way.

1. Navigate to Custom Actions Log into your Chatref dashboard, open the agent you use for your public-facing website, and go to the Custom Actions tab. If you haven’t created one yet, click + New Custom Action and give it a name that matches the intake purpose – for example, “Boarding & Grooming Booking Intake.”

2. Define the information to collect This is the form patients fill out inside the chat. Add a field for every piece of data your front desk needs to act on a booking without calling the patient back. Typical fields for a veterinary clinic:

• Owner name (required)
• Pet name and species/breed (required)
• Service needed: boarding, grooming, or both (required, single-select)
• Preferred drop-off and pick-up dates (required)
• Any special medical or behavioral notes (optional, long text)
• Vaccination records up to date? (yes/no, required)
• Best phone number for confirmation (required)

Keep required fields to a minimum – you can always follow up later. Use clear, friendly labels (e.g., “What’s your pet’s name?” not “PetNameField1”) so patients understand exactly what’s being asked.

3. Choose what happens after the patient submits Under Then, pick the action that fires when the form is complete. Chatref will show you the available triggers. For intake workflows, the most common setup is:

• Send an email notification to your front desk. Enter the email address (or multiple) and give it a subject line that includes the pet name and service requested, so staff can scan quickly.
• Forward to a webhook if your practice management or booking platform accepts JSON payloads. This lets you push the intake straight into your system. (If you need help with the webhook format, see the integration guide within Chatref.)

If you’re not using a webhook, the email option alone often cuts phone tag enough to be worth the setup.

4. Customize the confirmation message After the patient submits, Chatref shows a confirmation message. Make it personal, set expectations, and reduce follow-up calls. A simple example:

“Thanks, {owner_name}! We’ve received {pet_name}’s {service} booking request. Our team will confirm availability with you within one business day. For anything urgent, call us directly at (555) 123-4567.”

You can include the pet’s name and the service dynamically with placeholder tags.

5. Save and activate Click Save, then make sure the custom action is toggled on for your live agent. The agent will now use this action when a patient describes a boarding, grooming, or booking request.

Test the flow before patients see it.

1. Open your website where the Chatref widget is embedded (or use the Playground inside Chatref’s dashboard).
2. Start a conversation as a patient. Type something realistic: “I need to board my cat for 4 days starting Friday.”
3. The agent should recognize the booking intent and trigger the custom action, asking for each field you set.
4. Fill in the fields and submit. You’ll see the confirmation message.
5. Check the front-desk email inbox or your connected system. The intake should arrive with all the collected fields.

If the agent doesn’t start the intake flow, the phrase the patient used might not match the intent. Review the custom action’s triggers – you can add more example phrases (“grooming appt”, “book boarding”, “drop off my pet”) to improve matching.

Agent doesn’t prompt for intake information The custom action likely isn’t attached to the right agent, or the trigger phrases are too narrow. Go to the agent’s Custom Actions list, confirm it’s toggled on, and add more real patient phrasing. Try variations: “book grooming”, “grooming for my dog”, “can I drop off my rabbit tomorrow.”

Some fields aren’t being collected If a field is optional and the patient skips it, that’s by design. If a required field isn’t showing, double-check that it’s marked required and that you’re not hitting a field limit on your plan (all accounts include unlimited fields, so plan limits won’t be the cause).

Notification email never arrives

• Verify the recipient email is correct and not caught in a spam filter. Use an internal address first.
• If you use a webhook, check the endpoint’s status and the payload format. A simple mis-match (like expecting pet_name and sending petName) will cause a silent failure.
• As a fallback, switch the trigger to a team inbox in Chatref. Your staff can monitor the Inbox tab for new intake threads while you debug.

Patients ask for services you didn’t list The custom action only knows what you teach it. If you later add nail trims or dental cleaning as bookable services, edit the custom action, add the new option to the service field, and update the trigger phrases accordingly.

Multiple intake forms conflict If you have more than one custom action that could match (e.g., separate ones for boarding and grooming), pick one general intake form instead. Collect the service type as a field option; it keeps the agent’s decision simple and avoids a confusing “which form should I show” situation.

What causes boarding grooming booking intake problems for Veterinary Clinics?

The biggest source of friction is manual intake over the phone with no structured capture. Staff juggle check-ins while writing down pet details on scratch paper, leading to lost requests, miscommunication about special needs, and double-entry into the practice system. After-hours calls go to voicemail and sit until morning, and patients who can’t reach you book elsewhere.

How do I improve boarding grooming booking intake for Veterinary Clinics?

Move intake to a guided, digital flow that collects everything upfront – before anyone picks up the phone. An AI-powered intake form (like a Chatref custom action) prompts the patient for all the required details, confirms the submission, and routes the request directly to your team or booking system. This eliminates re-typing, catches after-hours bookings automatically, and gives the front desk a queue they can triage instead of a full voicemail box.