Claire Compared Every Alternative. She Chose YouCanBookMe.

I am very familiar with YouCanBookMe. I really like it. I looked elsewhere and I still came back to it. This is what I know, this is what I really like, this is how I like to work."

- Claire Kilburn, Founder of Alliance Service Dogs

There are two ways someone with a disability can get a service dog. The first is through a nonprofit, where trained dogs are placed with recipients, often at no cost. The second is for the person to train their own, and that's where Alliance Service Dogs comes in.

Claire Kilburn's Toronto-based coaching program guides people through the entire process: finding the right puppy, raising it, and training it over roughly two years to perform the specific disability-mitigating tasks their handler needs. Scent-based alerts for oncoming migraines, blood sugar changes, or blood pressure episodes. Psychiatric support. Tasks for adults and children with autism. It's detailed, deeply personal work—and the clients who come to Claire are, as she puts it, putting extraordinary dedication into every step.

Claire started volunteering in dog training at 15 and never really stopped. When COVID hit and gave her some breathing room to explore new directions, she combined her dog training background, degree in psychology, and her own lived experience in the disability community to find her niche. She launched Alliance in 2022 and hasn't looked back since.

As a sole trader turned small team, finding the right small business scheduling software wasn't an afterthought, it was one of the first decisions she made.

Why YouCanBookMe: Claire's story

The challenge

When Claire left her previous employer to launch Alliance, she had a clear picture of what she needed to support her new business: a tool that was flexible, accessible, affordable, and simple enough to manage without draining limited energy on complex admin.

And, importantly, it had to be easy for clients to use. People coming to Alliance might have difficulty communicating over email, struggle with information-heavy interfaces, or need multiple reminders about upcoming sessions. The booking experience couldn't be an obstacle course.

I can't have my personal phone number on my website, we don't have a business phone, and I don't like to have calls with prospective students that are not scheduled."

She also needed to protect sensitive information. Many of the details relevant to a client's case— the nature of their disability, the tasks they need their dog to perform—are deeply personal. The tool needed to open the door to a conversation, not ask people to put their medical history in a text box.

And practically speaking, she was starting from scratch. A hefty upfront investment in overengineered software wasn't an option.

The solution

Claire already knew YouCanBookMe well, she'd used it extensively in her previous job. When she set up Alliance, she looked at alternatives, made a shortlist, but found herself back at YouCanBookMe because it worked perfectly for her needs.

The Google Calendar integration was central to how she runs her day. Claire lives in her calendar, it's where her entire life is scheduled, and YouCanBookMe slots directly into that rather than asking her to manage a separate system.

I can set it and forget it, and I can just work through one single app, which is my Google Calendar. It makes it much less overwhelming."

For reminders, the automated emails go out without Claire having to think about them, and for her client base, that repetition of information is genuinely valuable, not just a convenience.

For a lot of my students, having multiple exposures to that information is really, really important."

And the cost model worked for where she was in the business.

Especially at the beginning, being able to manage the subscription as needed—instead of paying a huge amount of money up front for a fancy program with all the bells and whistles—that was really, really big."

The outcome

Alliance Service Dogs had logged 391 bookings through YouCanBookMe. That's 391 discovery calls, puppy consultations, and connections made; each one the start of a journey that typically spans two years and changes someone's daily life.

The team has grown to four: two trainers and an admin assistant who handles emails and invoicing, and YouCanBookMe has scaled with them without adding complexity. For Claire, the fact that she compared different scheduling tools when starting out and still came back to YouCanBookMe says everything.

I am very familiar with YouCanBookMe, and I really like it. I looked at other options, but I still came back to it. This is what I know, this is what I really like, this is how I prefer to work."

Deep dive into Claire's booking page

Claire's booking page is immediately recognizable as Alliance. The Alliance Service Dogs logo sits prominently at the top, and a footer link directs visitors back to the website, a small but considered touch that keeps the experience joined up rather than feeling like a detour.

The real thoughtfulness shows in how Claire has used appointment types to separate her two offerings. A free 15-minute discovery call sits alongside a paid hour-long pre-prospect consultation, each with its own clear description explaining exactly what to expect and how long to allow. There's no ambiguity about what you're booking or why, and for a client base that values clarity, that matters.

The booking form itself is deliberately minimal. Because the most important information Claire needs—the nature of a client's disability and what they're hoping their dog can help with—is sensitive enough to discuss in person, so the form stays light. What it does include is a cancellation policy checkbox and a payment policy checkbox: clear, upfront, and protecting both sides of the relationship before the conversation even begins.

✨ Bonus ✨ Learn from the pros—Claire's top business advice

Claire has been working with dogs since she was 15. She launched Alliance four years ago, and has grown from a one-woman operation to a team of four. Her key business takeaway:

Write your policies down before you need them. Claire's biggest advice to her earlier self is deceptively simple.

The biggest thing I would go back and tell myself would be to make sure I have a really strong set of policies laid out; things I can go refer back to if any issues with clients come up."

It's the kind of thing that feels less urgent when everything is going well, and essential the moment it isn't. Getting it down in writing from the start means you're not making decisions under pressure.

Scheduling built around her life

Claire didn't start Alliance Service Dogs by accident, she built her business deliberately, around the way she works best. Every tool she chose had to honor that same principle: flexible, simple, and genuinely responsive to how she actually operates on any given day.

YouCanBookMe fit that brief from the start. Availability managed from a phone. Reminders sent automatically. A booking page that’s easy to use. A monthly subscription that made sense for a business that was just finding its feet. Nothing overcomplicated. Nothing that asks more of you than it gives back.

Four years on, 356 bookings later, and with a team of three behind her, Claire is proof that the right setup doesn't need to be elaborate, it just needs to work for you.

Create your free YouCanBookMe booking page today.