When they get a few glitches corrected, it will be amazing! They're almost there!
May 19, 2021
When they get a few glitches corrected, it will be amazing! They're almost there!
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with EZ Texting
We use EZ Texting to offer patient appointment scheduling via text. We originally planned on all of our employees taking turns being on call to answer texts, so that we can communicate with patients in order to book their appointments during most/all hours. Because of some glitches with EZ Texting, we are not using it as much as intended. So we have just one employee using it now (our receptionist) to schedule appointments via text. Patients do enjoy being able to text. It works great when used by just one person on one device, so we use it at our reception desk. We wish we could use the app/our phones and other computers to "tag team" the patient texting but, unfortunately, this does not work with EZ Texting (because the replies do not show up on all devices...the texts do not sync across multiple devices, even though they're all logged in to the same account).
- Allowing patients to text our landline number keeps it simple (only one phone number to save for either voice or texting).
- Patients get quicker replies when texting us than if we miss their call and have to check for voicemail.
- We have clear text to show a patient if they miss their appointment and claim we told them a different time. We can show them the texting transcript.
- Texts should sync between multiple devices. We cannot all reply to patient texts to share the work load because we don't know if another employee has already responded. It just doesn't show up. If we answer on our phone via the app, the desktop doesn't update with the reply. So we have to look back and forth between any of the devices used to reply to determine which patients have already received a reply, etc.
- We could really use an "out of office" automatic reply. We had a company retreat to Cancun and hated having to text all weekend with patients, when it would have been much more relaxing to know that they could get an automatic reply that we would be back in the office on Monday.
- Patients accidentally unsubscribe from us often because they text things that sound like "remove from list" etc. For example, when patients ask us to cancel their appointment.
- We switched our clinic from walk-ins only to by appointment only. It was a scary transition because our patients had loved being able to just walk in. They were nervous about having a hard time getting appointments when they needed. They didn't want the hassle of calling all the time. We introduced texting, and patients have loved it. Many tell us it's so convenient to just text "Can I come in later today?" and get a quick reply with some appointment time choices.
- Texting (vs phone calls) allows us to look up a patient before replying, in case we need to know something more before booking their appointment. This is much easier than having to stall a patient on the phone to discretely look up whether or not, for example, they are very talkative and require a longer appointment for being chatty.
- I'm having to pay more overtime to the one employee that does the texting. If the texts would sync across all devices like they should, I could split up the work and not have everything on one person's shoulders.
It was quick and easy to get it started. We advertised it in-house to patients at first. After that was well-received, we advertised the option to text us on our website, etc. Patients that learned about texting have been doing so ever since.
It is just as simple as using an email account. As soon as it syncs across all devices like emails do, it will be excellent. There was no learning curve needed. Simple and easy!
We do not send picture messages. We do notice that emojis don't show up (some patients try to send a smiley face, etc.). We can see that they tried to send something, but it's just a blank symbol.
We've only used keywords to get patients re-subscribed after they accidentally unsubscribed.