Marisol · Tamales La Dona
Puebla, Mexico
“Before, night caught me with masa on my hands and the phone at my ear. Now when I finish the last tamal, the day ends too.”
Story · Couple · Houston, USA
Carolina and Esteban
PeluPaws · Mobile dog grooming
Bookings
Multi-user
Knowledge base
“Before, the phone controlled us. Now I decide when I pick it up.”
- Carolina Vargas
PeluPaws is a mobile dog grooming service in Houston, covering Spring Branch, Sharpstown, and Memorial. Carolina and Esteban work Tuesday through Saturday and groom up to eight pets a day between them. Their customer base is bilingual, and WhatsApp messages arrive in a mix of English, Spanish, and Spanglish.
In Maracaibo, Esteban was a veterinary technician and Carolina cut hair at a neighborhood dog groomer. They moved to Houston at the end of 2023 with two suitcases and a rough idea of building something of their own. Their first client was their apartment owner. Six months later, they had a WhatsApp waitlist.
“I answered messages from the passenger seat while Esteban drove. Sixty, eighty a day. We got home at nine at night and I still had twenty left to answer. Sometimes I replied one thing to a client and half an hour later he replied the opposite without knowing. My sister came on Saturdays to help us and we were still losing people.”
- Carolina
“A new client wrote to me on a Friday at three in the afternoon. I replied at ten at night. She had already hired someone else. She said, "I already solved it, thanks." I sat in the kitchen and cried. Esteban sat next to me, picked up the phone, and started searching. That night we found a Blapers ad.”
- Carolina
What changed
They connected their WhatsApp Business number and built an agent from the salon template. They named her Lulu. They added prices by size and breed, mapped the areas they cover, and uploaded the questions they get all the time: vaccines, what happens if it rains, cancellation policy. They turned on bookings so Lulu could schedule directly into the calendar Esteban checks between appointments. Conversations that need human judgment are transferred and notify whoever has free hands.
Lulu answers most messages without either of them touching the phone. Saturdays fill up by themselves during the week. Esteban got dinners back: now they eat without the phone on the table. Carolina's sister stopped coming on weekends; she was burned out too, and felt relieved. They have not lost a single appointment that month because of a late reply.
“I was terrified Lulu would sound cold with clients who have been with us for years. The first week I could not sleep without checking every conversation from bed. I read what the bot had answered, one by one, waiting to find something wrong.”
- Carolina
“What scared me was the schedule. That it would accept two appointments at the same time. That it would send me all the way to Katy at six on a Tuesday without warning me. We set the zone limits and the gaps between appointments, and after that we stopped being afraid.”
- Esteban
Some older clients send three-minute voice notes about the dog and ask for the appointment at the end. Lulu processes them well, but Carolina prefers to answer those herself.
“Those ladies are family. I want to answer them myself.”
- Carolina
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