How Scenthound recovered 40 hours a week by automating client follow-up.
Challenge
A franchise growing fast — with client follow-up that couldn't keep pace
Scenthound was scaling. New locations opening, membership numbers growing, a team that understood what the business could be. But the CRM behind the business wasn't moving at the same speed. Client follow-ups were manual, inconsistent, and distributed across whoever had time that day. Response times were slow. Re-engagement messages didn't go out on any predictable schedule. And when a client hadn't returned in 30 days, the team often didn't find out until it was too late to win them back.
The problem wasn't effort. Scenthound's team was engaged and capable. The problem was that every client touchpoint — the follow-up after a visit, the check-in when a lapse window opened, the win-back sequence after a membership cancellation — required a human to initiate it. Every touchpoint was a task. As the franchise grew, those tasks multiplied, and the team's capacity to manage them manually stopped keeping up with the volume.
The opportunity cost was real. Slow lead follow-up after a visit meant dog owners were booking their next appointment elsewhere before Scenthound reached out. Lapsed members who didn't hear from the brand within a week were gone by the time someone noticed. The business had the client relationships. It didn't have the system to maintain them without constant manual intervention — and that gap got wider with every new location added.
"Each project has saved us countless hours and made us considerably more efficient and effective"
Solution
Workflow automation that runs client engagement without anyone managing it
CRM restructured around client lifecycle states
Scenthound's CRM had data. What it didn't have was logic. Client records existed, but there were no automated triggers connecting them to action. We started by redesigning the workflow architecture — mapping every point in the client relationship and defining what should happen at each one. What triggers post-visit communication? What starts the lapsed-client re-engagement sequence? What escalates to a human when the automation has run its course and a client still hasn't returned?
Every client record now carries a lifecycle state. New visit, repeat visit, approaching the lapse window, lapsed, cancelled membership — each state is defined, and each state drives the next action automatically. The team stopped monitoring lists each morning to figure out who needed a follow-up. The CRM surfaces only the exceptions that actually require a human judgment call.
Automated lead follow-up and retention sequences
We built the follow-up sequences that the team had been running manually. Post-visit messages go out automatically within hours of an appointment — not the next day when someone remembers. When a client hits 25 days without a return booking, a re-engagement sequence starts based on their membership history and visit behavior. When a membership is cancelled, a win-back series runs without anyone on the team setting it in motion.
These aren't batch emails. Each touchpoint is triggered by specific client behavior, timed based on what the data shows about when lapsed members are most likely to respond, and written to reflect where the client is in their relationship with Scenthound. The sales automation handles the routine communication and surfaces only what genuinely needs a person — a conversation the team actually has to have, not another message they have to draft.
Tool integration and team training
The CRM was connected to Scenthound's other tools so appointment data, membership status, and client history synchronized automatically. The team stopped entering information between systems by hand — data flows without intervention, which means the triggers fire on accurate records rather than whatever was last updated manually.
We trained Scenthound's staff on how to work with the new system — not just the mechanics, but the logic behind it. When the workflow automation runs, they understand what it's doing and why. When something needs human attention, they know what to look for. Adoption was fast because the team understood the system, not just how to click through it.
"Catalytics has gone above and beyond on every project we have worked on together"
Mike Schoen, Scenthound
Results
40 hours a week back. 80% faster follow-ups. A system that scales with the franchise.
Before the new system was live, Scenthound's team spent meaningful time each week managing client follow-up by hand — pulling lapsed client lists, drafting individual outreach, tracking who hadn't responded, deciding when to push again and when to let a relationship go. At a single location, that was manageable, if inefficient. Across a growing franchise footprint, it was a structural problem. Each new location added more follow-up work without adding any system to handle it. The answer was always another person managing another list.
After implementation, that work disappeared from the team's plate. Post-visit communication happens automatically. Lapsed-member sequences run on schedule. Win-back messages go out without anyone building a list. The team's time shifted from executing routine communication to reviewing what the system surfaced — the situations that required a real judgment call rather than a standard touchpoint.
The business result was direct. Mike Schoen, COO, put it plainly: the workflow automation saves over 40 hours a week of manual work — a full-time equivalent. That's not a soft efficiency gain. It's headcount the franchise didn't have to add as it scaled. Every new location now inherits an automated client engagement system that runs from day one, rather than a set of manual follow-up tasks that need to be assigned to someone. The sales automation that runs Scenthound's retention is infrastructure — not a process that lives in someone's head.
- 40 hrs/wk recovered: all routine client follow-up now handled automatically without team intervention
- 80% faster lead follow-up: post-visit messages send within hours of an appointment instead of next-day
- 1 FTE equivalent: headcount savings at scale — the automation replaces a full administrative workload
- Consistent retention sequences: every lapsed member receives the same timed re-engagement flow regardless of location or staffing
"I would say that the automation has saved us over 40 hours a week of manual work — so a full time equivalent."
Mike Schoen, Scenthound
Let's get to work
Ready to build your Company Operating System?
Stop duct-taping tools together. Let's build the system your business runs on.
