When a patient calls and Heron answers (e.g. after-hours or when the phone is busy), the conversation is automatically turned into an inquiry card for your team to action.
Here’s how your front desk staff can review and respond within Heron:
☎️ 1. Call Comes In
Heron answers the phone on your clinic’s behalf. The patient’s phone number is captured and an inquiry card is created in the “New Inquiries” lane.
📝 2. Review the Inquiry
Click the card to open it. You’ll see:
A transcript of the call
The caller’s phone number
A recording (if enabled)
This gives your team full context before responding.
💬 3. Message or Call the Patient
From within the inquiry card, your team can type a direct reply to the patient and hit the send button — just like messaging them from a shared inbox. From this message thread you can resolve the inquiry.
If resolving by Phone currently you would manually call the patient and resolve the inquiry. Once finished you would update the inquiry card to the right inquiry category (Done or Scheduled).
🔗 4. Secure Link Sent to Patient
When you send a message via the Heron application, Heron automatically delivers it to the patients phone number via SMS with a secure link.
This link expires within 2hrs but if its expired a patient can refresh it by entering in their phone number.
The patient taps the link and is taken to a secure, mobile-friendly chat window.
💡 5. Ongoing Chat Thread
The patient can reply directly in that thread, and your team can continue the conversation to:
Answer follow-up questions.
Acknowledge tentative and confirmed bookings.
Resolve the inquiry entirely.
All without needing to call back or track separate messages.
✅ Once resolved, mark the inquiry as Completed or Scheduled.
This ensures your workflow stays clean and every patient feels looked after — even when they couldn’t reach you directly.