One queue for three channels
Messaging, web form and email in a single list, each request classified by type and marked to process, drafted or sent.
Case study
Automated request handling for a dental practice
Replacing the by-hand sorting of patient enquiries across three channels, the look-up of past quotes, and the manual check of staff and stock before answering.
How it was handled before
Patient enquiries reached the practice on three channels: a messaging app, the website contact form and the email inbox. Each one was read and sorted by hand.
Answering a price question meant checking whether staff were free, whether the materials were in stock, and what the practice had charged for the same work before.
What the system does
The three channels now arrive in one queue.
For a quote request the price is taken from the practice's own quote history rather than a price list, the materials the work needs are checked against current stock, and the lead time comes from the first free window in the staff schedule.
Nothing is sent until a member of staff approves it. The draft can be edited before it goes, and the system's original proposal stays visible beside the change.
Every figure in the draft carries its source: the quotes it was taken from, the stock counts, the schedule window it was read from.
The screens
Reply approval
One quote request as a member of staff sees it: the patient's message, the type it was classified as, and the drafted reply with the price and lead time proposed beside it.
Nothing has been sent until someone approves it.
How the proposal was built
The basis for the price and the date: the three earlier quotes the figure came from, the materials the work needs against current stock, and the first free window for each role.
Every number traces back to a record the practice already holds.
Correction before sending
The same draft after a member of staff has shortened the lead time and added a line offering an alternative material.
The system's own proposal stays on screen next to the edit, and the draft can be put back to it.
Where the system stops
Processing stops at quote acceptance. Anything that becomes a clinical record is handled outside this system.
What changed in the process
The three channels no longer have to be read separately: requests arrive already classified in a single list.
The price is no longer looked up by hand among past quotes, and staff and material availability no longer has to be checked before a reply can go out: both sit beside the request.
The answer to the patient remains a decision made by a member of staff, who can see where every number came from before confirming.
Confidentiality
The images are a representative reconstruction: the original system is covered by a non-disclosure agreement, and every name, figure and date shown here is invented for demonstration.
Contact
Get in touch
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