How to build a WhatsApp chatbot for your veterinary clinic

Start from what customers actually send. Pet owners ask about vaccination schedules, whether the vet is in today, grooming slots, and what to do when a pet stops eating.

Then look at what goes wrong today:

• Vaccination reminders are manual or absent. You know Milo is due for his rabies booster in March. The owner doesn't. Nobody reminded them.
• Annual check-ups don't happen without prompting. Pet owners mean to bring their pet annually. Life gets busy. A timely WhatsApp recall changes this.
• Appointment booking is phone-only and slow. Pet parent calls, waits on hold, describes the pet, books a slot. WhatsApp can do this in 60 seconds.

Each of these is a conversation with a predictable shape — a question, a lookup, a confirmation. That shape is what a chatbot handles well.

1. Which pet? Returning owners pick from their pets; new owners give name, species, breed and age.
2. What is it for? Vaccination, check-up, a problem, grooming, boarding.
3. Which vet? Or any available.
4. When? Slots of the right length.
5. Confirm with the pet's name, the vet, the time and what to bring — vaccination card, previous reports, a stool sample if the vet asked for one.

Notice what the business side does: it answers with the specific detail (time, reference, next step), it asks for one thing at a time, and it gives the customer a one-word way to reply. Those three habits matter more than how clever the bot is.

"My dog is vomiting", "cat not eating for two days", "he ate chocolate" — the bot does not advise. For anything suggesting an emergency — poisoning, injury, difficulty breathing, collapse, heavy bleeding, straining without passing urine — it tells the owner to come in immediately or call the emergency number, and alerts the vet. For other symptoms, it offers the earliest appointment and passes the message to a vet. The replies are written by your vets and used word for word.

Reputoo supports both, and most veterinary clinics end up using both:

• Keyword flows — a fixed menu or trigger word ("MENU", "BOOK", "STATUS") leads down a set path. Predictable, easy to audit, right for anything with a fixed answer.
• AI chatbot — reads the customer's own words and answers from your knowledge base (website, price list, policies). Right for the long tail of questions nobody wrote a menu item for.

A sensible start for a veterinary clinic: keyword flows for the top two or three tasks, AI for everything else, and a person behind both.

• Clinic hours, emergency hours, holidays.
• Consultation, vaccination and grooming fees.
• Which vaccinations a puppy or kitten needs and when — from the schedule your vets wrote.
• What to bring and how to transport a nervous pet.
• Directions and parking.

Grooming needs the pet's size, breed and coat, because a small short-haired dog and a large long-haired one take very different times. The bot asks, offers suitable slots, and records special notes — nervous around dryers, matted coat, sensitive skin. Owners can rebook the same groomer after each visit.

• Complaints, refunds and anything where the customer is upset.
• Anything involving money the bot cannot see — a disputed bill, a custom quote.
• Health, safety or legal questions — for veterinary clinics this is most of the clinical or advisory detail.
• Any customer who asks for a human. Do not make them ask twice.

For veterinary clinics specifically: anything that sounds like an emergency — poisoning, injury, breathing trouble — should get a phone number and a person immediately.

Handover on Reputoo moves the chat into the shared inbox with the conversation so far, so staff never ask the customer to repeat themselves.

1. Connect your WhatsApp number to Reputoo (official API; takes minutes).
2. Add your website and documents to the knowledge base so the AI answers in your veterinary clinic's own terms.
3. Build keyword flows for the top tasks above. What to connect: veterinary practice software holds each pet's history and due dates, which is exactly what reminders need.
4. Choose who gets handed-over chats, and during which hours.
5. Test from a personal phone, then share the number or a QR code with customers.

For boarding, the bot collects dates, the pet's food and feeding times, medication, and checks vaccination status against your requirements, flagging anything overdue before the stay. Confirmations list what to bring. Special medical needs go to a vet to approve.

Owners with several pets can book them together — back-to-back vaccinations, a shared grooming slot — and the bot confirms each pet by name. Combined reminders for pets due the same month keep messages few.

At night, the bot books routine appointments and answers practical questions. Any symptom message gets the vets' reply with the emergency instruction and number first. Owners must never receive only "we are closed" about a sick animal.

Owners write in the language they speak at home and mix: "kutte ko vaccine lagwana hai". Keyword flows need those phrases; the AI chatbot handles the rest in the owner's language. The emergency reply should exist in every language your clients use.

• Book for a new pet and for one of several existing pets.
• Type emergency and non-emergency symptom messages and check the replies and routing.
• Book grooming for a small and a large breed and check slot lengths.
• Book boarding with an overdue vaccination and check it is flagged.

A new puppy or kitten owner has many questions. The bot registers the pet, books the first check-up, and sends the vaccination schedule your vets wrote, with a note on what the first visit involves and what to bring. It is the moment an owner decides whether this will be their vet.

If an owner writes that their pet has died, or asks about euthanasia or cremation, the bot does not continue any flow. It sends a short, kind acknowledgement and hands the chat to a person at once, and the pet's record is marked so no reminder is ever sent again.

Clinical handovers go to the vet on duty with the pet's name, species, age, the owner's words and any photos or videos. Administrative handovers — billing, boarding exceptions, complaints — go to reception. The bot tells the owner who will reply and roughly when.

Watch appointments booked without reception, vaccinations kept on schedule, and calls to the front desk. Review handovers weekly, and every emergency message, to make sure routing held.

Owners often send a photo of a rash or a video of a limp. The bot attaches them to the booking or the handover so the vet sees them before the visit, and never comments on them. For anything that looks urgent in the owner's own words, the emergency instruction comes first.

The bot quotes fixed fees — consultation, vaccination, grooming by size, boarding per night — from the fee list. For surgery or treatment it explains that the vet gives a written estimate after examination, and books the consultation. Disputes about bills go to reception with the invoice attached.

Owners ask about microchipping and pet registration requirements in their city. The bot explains what the clinic offers, the fee, and what paperwork your vets have said is needed, and books the appointment. Legal specifics beyond that go to reception.

"My cat hates the carrier" or "my dog is aggressive with other dogs" are useful to know before arrival. The bot records these notes on the booking and shares your clinic's tips for the journey, and the team can arrange a quieter slot or a side entrance if you offer one.

Vaccination reminders carry [Book] [Already done elsewhere] [Remind me later]. "Already done elsewhere" asks for the date and updates the record so the next reminder is right. "Remind me later" waits a week. Free-text replies go to reception with the pet's record attached.

Before holidays, update the clinic's hours and emergency arrangements in one place so the bot gives the right emergency number on the day. An out-of-date emergency number is the worst mistake a vet chatbot can make.

The bot sends payment links for consultations, vaccinations, grooming and boarding deposits, confirms payment and sends receipts owners can use for pet-insurance claims. Disputes go to reception with the invoice attached.