Three receptions, three bottlenecks
Running a single physiotherapy clinic is operationally demanding. Running three is three times the complexity — three reception desks, three appointment books, three sets of patient records, and three phone lines that all ring simultaneously during peak hours.
The group's biggest operational drain was the phone. Appointment bookings, rescheduling requests, insurance queries, exercise programme follow-ups, and general information calls consumed the majority of each receptionist's day. Calls during treatment slots went unanswered. Patients who couldn't get through booked with a competitor. Others left voicemails that were returned hours later — by which point they'd already moved on.
The chain also had 6,200 lapsed patients in their database — people who had completed a course of treatment and never returned. Standard practice is to re-engage at the 3, 6, and 12-month marks with a check-in. In practice, no one had the capacity to run those sequences manually across three sites. The data sat dormant; the revenue opportunity with it.
One AI layer across all three sites
STOAIX was deployed as a single unified system covering all three clinic locations — each with its own appointment calendar, treatment menu, and practitioner schedules. The AI handled inbound enquiries via WhatsApp and the group's shared website, routing patients to the correct location based on postcode or stated preference.
Appointment booking was fully automated: the AI checked availability across all three sites in real time, confirmed with patients over WhatsApp, and sent pre-appointment reminders with clinic-specific information (parking, what to wear, what to bring). Rescheduling requests were handled conversationally — no hold music, no callback queue.
The 6,200 lapsed patients were segmented by treatment type, last visit date, and practitioner. STOAIX ran a phased re-engagement sequence: a personalised check-in at 3 months post-discharge, a seasonal promotion at 6 months, and a yearly health-check invitation at 12 months. Each message referenced the patient's previous treatment to feel relevant, not generic.
"Our receptionists used to spend the first two hours of every day just clearing the previous afternoon's voicemails. That's completely gone. STOAIX handles everything overnight and they walk in to a clear queue. It's changed how the whole practice runs."
80% of admin time reclaimed. No new hires.
Within ten weeks, the group's receptionists had reclaimed over 80% of time previously spent on inbound administrative tasks. That time was redirected toward patient experience: greeting arrivals properly, managing clinical notes, and handling the complex queries that genuinely require a human.
Missed calls — previously a significant issue during treatment hours — dropped to near zero. The AI answered every enquiry in real time, 24/7, without a voicemail fallback. Patients booking out of hours (evenings, weekends) were accommodated without delay, expanding the group's effective booking window significantly.
The lapsed-patient re-engagement sequences produced a steady flow of returning appointments. 6,200 patients received outreach; a meaningful cohort re-booked. For treatments requiring periodic maintenance (sports rehab, back pain management, post-surgical recovery), the automated follow-up created a recurring revenue stream the group had previously been unable to tap.
The entire system runs across all three locations from a single dashboard. Adding a fourth site, when the time comes, will take hours — not months.