The phone rang while the nurse was holding a dog, so a quarter of calls went to voicemail and worried owners rang the practice down the road. Vaccination reminders went out when someone had time, and repeat prescription requests were scribbled on a pad. The practice wanted every call answered, every animal triaged properly and nothing routine forgotten.
Three things kept going wrong, and each cost the business time, money or a customer.
Three agents built around the practice management system and the vets' own triage rules, with anything that sounds like an emergency put straight through to a person and no clinical advice given by an agent.
The vets spent an afternoon writing down how they triage a phone call, by animal and symptom, and that document became the intake agent's rules. We connected the practice management system and the phone line. For the first ten days the agents handled calls with a receptionist listening in and able to take over; she stepped in eleven times in the first week, twice in the second, and the rules were adjusted each time. Nothing described as bleeding, breathing or collapse has ever waited for the agent.
Every call is answered, and an owner who is frightened reaches a nurse faster than before because the agent recognises the words and puts them through. Routine bookings go into the right slot with the right vet without a receptionist involved. Vaccination compliance is up because the reminder arrives and the booking is one reply away, and repeat prescriptions are authorised by the vet from a tidy list rather than a pad.
'The nurses were choosing between the animal on the table and the phone. Now the phone is answered, and the ones who really need us get through faster than they ever did.'
Practice owner and senior vet
The practice's two receptionists were also running the front desk, so a third of calls went to voicemail at lunch and after 5pm. They wanted every call answered and every cancellation refilled, without hiring.
Patients cancelled at short notice and the slot stayed empty; others finished three of the six sessions they were prescribed and drifted away. The receptionist spent her mornings on the phone trying to fill gaps and chase rebookings. The clinic wanted a full diary and patients who complete their course.
A free 45-minute call. Tell us where the time goes; we'll tell you honestly whether an agent would help and what it would save.
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