An AI assistant for veterinary clinics

A vet clinic's phone rings while the nurse is holding a cat and the vet is in surgery. Most of those calls ask the same things. How much is a consult? Are you open Saturday? What does desexing cost? When should the puppy come in for its first needle? Your website already says. Botsmith reads it and answers at any hour, so the phone is free for the calls that need a person. It will not tell an owner what is wrong with their pet.

What pet owners ask before they book

Owners with a new puppy or a move to a new suburb often compare two or three clinics. They want a price, opening hours and a sense of how the first visit works. If nobody picks up, they try the next clinic on the list. A website assistant answers the routine part straight away and sends anything about a sick animal to your team.

Ask a sample clinic

This assistant belongs to Paperbark Vet Clinic, a clinic we invented for this page. Every fee, time, address and phone number is made up, and so is the emergency hospital it refers people to. Try asking what a consult costs, whether it is open on Sundays, how much it is to get a female cat fixed, or whether it sees rabbits. Then tell it your dog is vomiting late at night and see what it does.

Before we put it on this page we asked it six questions a pet owner would ask. It got five right and missed one: asked "do you see rabbits?", it said it was not sure. The list of animals the clinic treats was there, but tucked into the last line of the surgery entry, where a question about rabbits did not find it. We gave "which animals we see" its own short entry and it answered yes. That is the kind of fix you will make in your first week.

It answers about the clinic, not about the animal

The line a vet clinic has to hold is between information about the clinic and advice about a patient. "A standard consult is this much and we are open until this time" is information. "That sounds like a stomach bug, skip a meal and see how she goes" is a diagnosis of an animal nobody has examined. Botsmith answers only from your content and says it is not sure when the content does not cover a question. On top of that you write a standing instruction, and it applies to every reply as soon as you save it. The demo clinic's says never diagnose, never say whether symptoms are serious, and never suggest medication, doses, food or home treatment for a particular pet. Anyone describing a sick or injured animal is told the assistant cannot assess a pet in a chat and is given the phone number.

After hours matters most. A worried owner at 11pm does not need a paragraph. They need to know you are closed and where to go. Put your after-hours arrangement on its own page or its own knowledge entry, in the words owners use: after hours, at night, Sunday, public holiday. The demo clinic has one entry that does only this, and the assistant gives the emergency hospital's name and number from it. Our guide to handling after-hours enquiries covers the wider setup.

What it does not do

• It does not connect to your practice management software. It cannot see appointments, patient histories, vaccination due dates or invoices.
• It does not book, move or cancel appointments. It gives your booking link or phone number, the way your site does.
• It does not approve repeat prescriptions. It can explain your rule and how to ask.
• It does not triage. It cannot tell an owner whether something can wait until morning, and your instructions should stop it from trying.
• If an owner wants a call back, it can collect a name and phone number or email and send them to your inbox with the conversation attached. Read AI chatbot privacy for small businesses before you switch that on.

Getting it ready

1. Create a bot with your clinic's website address and let it read your pages.
2. Upload or paste what is not on the site: the desexing admission sheet, the puppy and kitten handout, your prescription and cancellation rules. Keep one topic per entry, and add the everyday words owners use, such as "fixed" next to "desexed" and "needles" next to "vaccinations". Our guide on what to put in a chatbot knowledge base explains why this matters.
3. Write your standing instructions: no diagnosis, no treatment or dosing advice, what to say about emergencies, and which questions go to reception.
4. In the dashboard preview, ask the questions your reception answered last week, in the owner's words. Include one about a sick pet at night and check where it sends them.
5. Put the chat on your site, or print the chat link's QR code on your reminder cards and vaccination certificates. See the WordPress, Wix or Google Sites guides.

What it costs

A single clinic fits Starter at US$19 a month: one bot and 2,000 messages a month. A group with several clinics and a website for each can use Pro at US$49 a month for five bots and 10,000 messages. The trial is 14 days with no card. For similar setups in human health, see the dental clinic and physiotherapy clinic versions of this page.