How many potential customers call your pet business every week while your team are too busy looking after dogs to answer the phone?

How much could just ONE of those missed calls be worth if it was a boarding stay, a regular daycare client or a customer who stayed with you for the next ten years?

And how do you make sure every caller gets a brilliant, personal experience without employing somebody to sit beside the phone all day?

In this week’s episode of the Pet Boarding & Daycare Podcast, Dom is joined by Barbara Ireland from Focus Telecommunications to explore a problem that affects almost every busy pet business: missed phone calls. 

Barbara explains how a specialist answering service can become an extension of your existing team, learning your values, understanding how you want clients to be treated and even accessing your systems to take bookings, complete intake information and deal with enquiries. 

Later, Dom catches up with Pet Boarding & Daycare Magazine editor Rebecca Shipman for a preview of this year’s Pet Boarding & Daycare Expo in Hershey. Rebecca reveals why the growing event has added a fourth seminar room, the increased focus on business, marketing and CEO-level topics, and some of the new speakers and experiences attendees can expect. 

They also preview Dom’s brand-new four-hour Pet Care Mastermind Experience, Brian Remo’s interactive keynote, the huge trade show and the networking opportunities that make Hershey much more than simply four days of sitting in seminars.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• The True Cost of a Missed Call – Why one unanswered enquiry could represent hundreds or even thousands of dollars in lifetime client value.
• Why Great Dog People Aren’t Always Great Phone People – The importance of having caring, capable people handling one of the most important customer touchpoints in your business.
• How to Outsource Without Losing the Personal Touch – How an answering service can learn your philosophy, values and processes so callers still feel like they’re speaking directly to your business.
• What an Answering Service Can Actually Do – From taking messages to booking boarding stays, completing intake information and working inside your existing software.
• How to Get More From the Expo – Why the seminars are only part of the value and how networking, the trade show and Dom’s new mastermind session can turn four days at Hershey into months of business progress.

Huge thanks to our sponsor and this weeks special guest, Barbara Ireland Focus Answering Service. Remember, every missed call is a missed revenue opportunity; protect your reputation and scale your business with 24/7 live call support: focustele.com

Remember, registration is now open for the biggest Pet Boarding and Daycare Expo on the planet, which is happening at the famous Hershey Lodge. Click here to grab your ticket now!

Want to work with the World Leading Pet Business Coach?  Add your name to the waitlist for Dom’s Exclusive coaching program The Dog Daycare Success Academy now by clicking Episode Highlights

[01:28] – Dom previews the episode, including conversations with Barbara Ireland and Rebecca Shipman
[03:26] – Dom shares the sad news of losing Derek, his Dogue de Bordeaux, just a few weeks before his 11th birthday.
[08:00] – Barbara Ireland explains how Focus Telecommunications works as an extension of a pet business rather than simply taking messages.
[10:15] – Why hiring naturally caring people matters when someone is representing your business on the phone.
[13:43] – How Focus learns a business’s philosophy, customer service standards and personality before answering calls.
[15:16] – The new business pet resorts could be losing when prospective customers reach voicemail instead of a real person.
[19:00] – How outsourced call handling can reduce staffing costs while taking bookings, completing intake forms and managing customer enquiries.
[27:40] – Rebecca Shipman joins Dom for a preview of the 2026 Pet Boarding & Daycare Expo in Hershey.
[30:21] – Why this year’s Expo has more elevated business, marketing and CEO-level content than ever before.
[32:07] – Dom previews his first Pet Care Mastermind Experience at Hershey, plus the keynote, networking events and everything happening across Expo week.