EXACT can automatically send template SMS messages to patients following their appointments, request an answer by keyword, and then respond a second time based on the keyword answer. A particularly useful application of this is a patient appointment survey, where for example patients answer with a keyword score of 1, 2, 3, 4,5 or 6, and the practice follows up that answer with an appropriate further message (version 11.3 SP6. See Automatic Appointment Follow-ups)
EXACT can automatically process SMSreplies for appointments, promotions or other queries.
EXACT can automatically send receipt confirmation messages to patients. For example, "Thank you for your SMS reply, your booking is now cancelled."
EXACT can recognise multiple codes as a valid client reply. For example, configure EXACT to recognise all of these options as valid for a Confirmation SMS: YES, YIP, Y, YEAH, YAH, OK.
EXACT lists ambiguous replies (or replies that have been caught by the SMS Replies settings) for manual interpretation and processing. For example, EXACT may classify as ambiguous a patient SMS reply of NO WORRIES MATE, and would require a human to interpret and validate such a reply.
The SMS Replies icon on the workbar includes an alert counter to show how many incoming SMS Replies are unmatched / uncompleted, and therefore require manual attention (image below). The number increments from 1 through 9+. To draw the user's attention,
Just the first counter alert includes the Windows default audio alert sound .
The alert periodically wiggles from side-to-side.
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Because some unmatchable SMS Replies received also cause an alert (such as messages from staff sent to the Practice), the SMS Replies table clearly identifies which SMS Replies are for the Short Notice List:
Receptionists need not leave the Appointment Book to monitor ambiguous SMS Replies - an optionally-displayed SMS Replies Tab in the work area displays a list of ambiguous SMS Replies, and provides Match, Confirm, Cancel functions to deal with them.
Receptionists can monitor the progress of SMS communications by means of SMS status icons in the appointments, and can see when appointments are confirmed by means of a Confirmation icon in the appointment.
Receptionists can monitor appointment cancellations by means of an optionally-displayed Cancels Tab in the Appointment Book work area.
Use Merge Fields to create SMS templates.
Customise for your phone-answering capacity. To avoid the practice being overloaded with simultaneous bulk replies, stagger the sending times for bulk messaging, or specify that a message should only be sent every [n] minutes.
Configure EXACT warning prompts if it will take longer than [n] days to deliver any SMS message.
Email and SMS are configured independently, so you can use them to complement each other. For example, send a reminder email two weeks before the appointment, then follow it up with an SMS message a few days prior to the appointment time, and a second SMS message a few hours before.
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