Prins Petfoods Makes Expert Animal Advice Available Around the Clock

About Prins Petfoods

Prins Petfoods is a Dutch family-owned brand specializing in premium dog and cat nutrition. With a strong focus on education and wellbeing, the company has been producing dog and cat food for over 60 years. Their products are sold through pet specialty stores, garden centers, and online. A team of ten specialists provides daily guidance on nutrition, behavior, and health, sometimes following individual animals over months-long programs.

Story snapshot

Customer expectations changed. Fewer people called or emailed, more expected immediate answers via chat and messaging. At the same time, Prins’ customer service is not built around simple FAQs. Many conversations involve detailed follow-up questions and structured advice, similar to a triage process.

Prins wanted to remain accessible beyond business hours without compromising on expertise. They also wanted to ensure customers received advice rooted in their own knowledge, not generic responses from external AI tools. Together with CM.com, Prins is using HALO to embed that expertise into specialized AI agents, so guidance remains rooted in Prins's own knowledge, even beyond business hours.

The Challenge

Prins operates a specialist advice line that handles everything from simple feeding questions to half-year guidance programs for animals with chronic conditions. That depth of service is central to the brand.

The shift to asynchronous channels changed the dynamic. Customers on WhatsApp and chat do not want to wait until morning for an answer. When they do not get one, they look elsewhere, including generic AI tools with no connection to Prins's data or standards.

We can’t control what customers read online. But we can make sure that when they come to us, they receive advice rooted in our own knowledge and philosophy.”

Marlou Mulders, Managing Director, Prins Petfoods & Edupet

The Solution

Prins is building a network of around ten specialized agents, each trained on Prins's own knowledge base. Rather than one general assistant, each agent covers a specific domain: nutrition, behavior, and veterinary health. They communicate with each other and route conversations based on what the customer needs.

The key difference from a standard chatbot is the conversational model. Agents do not answer in one shot. They ask follow-up questions, the way a specialist would. For a dog that needs to lose weight, the agent asks about breed, age, current diet, and activity level before giving advice. Prins calls this triage.

• Native integration within CM.com's platform, embedding Prins Petfoods expertise directly into conversational workflows

• Seamless escalation to human advisors with full conversation context preserved

• Phased rollout model, allowing controlled deployment, continuous training, and internal adoption

A Considered Approach to Implementation

Adopting AI required careful introduction. Rather than launching at full scale, Prins Petfoods chose a phased rollout, starting small, monitoring performance, and gradually expanding availability.

Because the agents can be configured, trained, and refined internally, the team is building trust in the system step by step. The goal is for HALO to become a reliable extension of their advisory expertise, without replacing the human knowledge at its core.

I thought it would be much more complicated than it was. But you do need someone internally who owns it. And your data needs to be solid."

Marlou Mulders, Managing Director, Prins Petfoods & Edupet

What’s Next?

As the rollout expands, Prins Petfoods is already thinking about where HALO can add value next. Areas currently being explored include:

• Retail advisor agents to support pet specialty stores on the shop floor

• QR-enabled access to AI guidance directly in-store

• Further specialization of advisory agents across nutrition and wellbeing

• Continuous refinement of knowledge models to enhance guidance quality

“AI is not about replacing our expertise, it’s about making it more accessible. The more we work with it, the more we see how it can strengthen the guidance we provide.”

Marlou Mulders, Managing Director, Prins Petfoods & Edupet