Angela Hampton owns Paws 48 Dog Wash & Gym in Arizona. It's a self-service dog wash and grooming salon she describes as "Arizona's smartest dog salon." She runs the operation solo. When the phone rings mid-groom, she's the only one there to pick it up.
Challenge
Running a one-person salon means doing everything. Angela was the groomer, the receptionist, and the owner, all at the same time.
"As a single salon owner, I was trying to handle it all," Angela says. "I was taking phone calls, and it would definitely stop the grooming process. I have to stop, put down my clippers, answer the phone, come back, start over again, get another phone call."
Each call meant stepping away from the dog on her table. Then restarting. Then getting interrupted again. The cycle repeated throughout the day, eating into the time she needed to do her actual work.
Solution
Angela went looking for help with the phones. She asked ChatGPT to find the best-priced AI answering service, and Upfirst came up as the top result.
"The system was fairly user-friendly, so I was able to just go in, play around with it," Angela says. "You get to use the test calls from that number that you sign up. So, I was able to call, test the system, go back, change, edit."
She configured Upfirst to book grooming appointments directly onto her Google Calendar. For anything urgent, she set up call routing.
"I like the feature that you're able to route the call in case it's something urgent," Angela says. "That way it just comes straight to my phone."
"With me running Arizona's smartest dog salon, it kind of just made sense to have AI as the booking platform," Angela says. "I think that's been the biggest help."
Results
Upfirst now handles ten to twenty calls a day for Paws 48. That's ten to twenty fewer interruptions while Angela is grooming.
"Upfirst is taking a good ten to twenty calls off of my hands per day," Angela says. "That frees up a lot of time for me. Not only is it just taking a message, but it's also dropping that appointment on my Google Calendar which is awesome."
The call quality surprises her customers. Most don't realize they're speaking with AI until they ask.
"Sometimes, people don't even realize that they're talking to AI, so they'll have full-fledged conversations, and by the end they'll say, 'Hey, is this AI?'" Angela says. "And the system will say, 'Yes, it is.' You can hear them say, 'Oh, well, I couldn't even tell. That's great.'"
