Cut monthly admin spend by £2,400 for a dental group
We automated the patient callback and scheduling system, allowing the front desk to focus on in-person visitors.
Cambridge Dental Partners runs three local clinics. Their front-desk staff were spending over 4 hours a day handling basic scheduling calls. We built a text-based bot to take over these repetitive tasks so the team could focus on the patients standing in front of them.
The challenge
In early 2024, the group's Hills Road branch was missing 14.2% of incoming calls. The phone lines were constantly busy with people asking for opening hours or wanting to move an appointment. This created a bottleneck. To cope, the manager was hiring temp workers at £18 an hour just to answer the phones during peak morning times.
Patients in the waiting room felt ignored because the receptionists never looked up from their headsets. It wasn't just a cost issue; it was making the atmosphere in the clinic tense. By February, the group was spending roughly £2,410 every month on extra admin cover that wasn't actually improving the patient experience.
Our approach
Our team of three spent two mornings at the clinic to see how the calls actually went. We found that 47% of the calls were the same three requests: rescheduling, parking info, or price checks. We didn't want to replace the staff. We wanted to filter out the noise.
We worked with their IT lead, Mike, to get limited access to their existing booking database. We built a logic tree that follows the clinic's specific rules for rescheduling (like the 24-hour notice policy). We kept the tech simple. No voice AI that sounds fake—just clear, text-based options that people can use on their phones. (By the way, the staff actually nicknamed the bot 'Barnaby' within the first week.)
The solution
We set up a system where, if a call isn't answered in 3 rings, the caller gets an automatic text. That text asks if they want to manage their booking via chat. If they say yes, 'Barnaby' takes over. The bot checks their ID against the database and shows them available slots for their specific dentist.
It handles the booking and sends a calendar invite immediately. We also added a feature that answers common questions about the £65 check-up fee and local parking. The system runs on a simple SMS and WhatsApp gateway. It doesn't try to be clever; it just gets the job done and logs the result in the clinic's daily report.
Results
The clinic stopped using temp admin staff entirely within six weeks of the rollout. They now handle the same volume of patients with their core team, and the missed call rate has dropped significantly because the bot handles the overflow.
Timeline
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March 12, 2024On-site observation at Hills Road clinic
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April 4, 2024Database integration and logic flow testing
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April 21, 2024Small-scale trial with 40 regular patients
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May 15, 2024Full rollout across all three locations
"I was worried a bot would feel cold or annoy our older patients. In reality, most people preferred getting a quick text over waiting on hold for 6 minutes. It's much quieter in here now."