Overview
Text messaging is a critical tool in a dental practice's toolkit to drive better practice outcomes. RW Messenger is a real-time chat tool for dental practices. It allows for quick, simple and effective communications between front office staff and their patients.
Project Goals
- — Increase speed of response
- — Build for enterprise and SMB
- — Increase resolution rate
- — Simplify user experience
Awards
- It’s Nice That
- AIGA
- Fonts In Use
- The Dieline
Contact
- email@domain.com
Role
- Lead Designer
Team
- Kevin Bhagat – Designer
- Bhargov Kode – Senior PM
Date
- March 2021-Present
Contact
- email@domain.com
01.
Don't Keep Patients Waiting
Speed of Response
No one loves waiting. Especially if it’s waiting for a dentist. It is estimated that nearly 75% of people in the United States experience some amount of fear regarding visiting a dentist. So, that makes it difficult for a dental organization to fulfill its two primary goals of keeping its schedules full and growing its patient base. The ability to quickly respond to patients and understand, meet their needs, ease their concerns and schedule an appointment is crucial to business success.
When determining opportunities in RW Messenger, we wanted to focus on the ability to simplify, prioritize, and respond anywhere.
Location & Line Filtering
Version 1 of RW Messenger made enterprise users log in and out of multiple accounts to see or respond to patients' messages. In some cases, one person is responsible for responding on behalf of multiple locations. We consolidated all locations and created simple in-app filtering that lets users immediately see the one location or multiple locations they may be responsible for.
We also consolidated all phone lines into one conversation thread. This created a simplified experience and single source of truth for text message conversations with patients. So, whether the patient messaged the front desk line or the billing line, all of the conversation histories appear in one place. We allowed users to switch their outbound number when sending a message.
Due to technical limitations, patient conversions are tied to a specific location and can not be consolidated. Meaning, if a patient has messaged two locations within a multi-location practice, then two conversation threads appear for that patient. We added a banner in the header that clarifies which location the conversion is in.
Introducing an “Urgent” State
Our inbox holds all read and unread conversations. We used our primary blue color to allow our users to quickly identity unread messages. We used our standard text color for read messages.
In an attempt to increase the speed of response, we made all messages that are unread for 5 min switch to an “urgent” state. The goal is to prompt users to more quickly notice and respond to their patients.
Mobile App & Responsive
Real-time communication with patients has proven to be an invaluable tool for our customers, as approximately 76% of our current customer base use our Messenger product to send and receive text messages between dental offices and their patients. The problem is that dental teams don't spend every second in front of their computers. That makes it difficult to quickly respond to all patient messages.
We designed Messenger for our mobile app. This will allow users to respond to their patients when they're away from their desks, on their lunch break, or even when the practice is closed.
02.
Quickly Resolve Patient Issues
Speed of Resolution
When a patient messages a practice, they are usually looking to get something done. This can schedule an appointment, complete their registration, or make a payment. For a dental organization to run smoothly, it should have the tools on hand to quickly find a resolution. It should not take ten steps to do something when it can be done in two.
Send More Than Texts
- We gave practices the ability to receive MMS files (images, short videos) and save that information in their computer. This will come in handy when receiving insurance information, and allowing users to upload those files into their primary PMS system. This will help speed up the patient registration process.
Quick Actions
Currently. if a user is messaging a patient in real-time, there is no quick and easy way to include a link to a form, a link to make a payment, etc. Users have to click around a few places to find those links and then copy and paste those links inside Messenger. Occasionally users also have these links handy in a word doc, and then they copy and paste it from there. This process is cumbersome and leads to user frustration because of all the extra time spent on this repetitive task
We gave users in Messenger a quick and easy way to quickly see a menu of available RW links and common responses that they can include in their text message with a few simple clicks.
Cross Platform Connectivity
Sometimes a text message won’t solve the problem. Sometimes you need to call the patient or set up a video call. We included the ability to quickly transition from a message conversation to a phone call with one simple click.
Profile
One of the most important things to have when talking to a patient is having proper context. It is vital to see key pieces of information like appointment history, billing information, and tasks that need attention. This allows users to have better, more insightful conversations with their patients. We designed the patient profile to open in a “slide-out”. This allows users to open it up when they need it and close it when they don’t. We decided that it was also essential to see both the conversation history and the profile information simultaneously. The content in one will affect how you use the other.
