Our AI Appointment Strategy Is Simple:
1) Lead Generation: Your AI team generates patient leads.
2) Patient Interaction: Patients either respond to your AI New Patient Coordinator, Sarah, or select their preferred appointment time via a booking widget.
3) Front Desk Handoff: Qualified leads are live-transferred to your office for scheduling, or texted your booking link (if you have one integrated with your PMS).
💡If a lead calls your AI number, we’ll transfer them directly to your front desk phone, as they have high intent.
Why AI Outreach Works
Leads are potential patients who’ve shown interest, like filling out a form. But sorting through them and making calls eats up your time.
That’s where our AI steps in—it filters out uninterested or unqualified leads and contacts every new lead within minutes, which is crucial! Harvard Business Review found that responding within 60 seconds boosts scheduling by 21x:
Patient Lead Notifications
You’ll receive notifications via text and email when:
A patient lead chats with AI or selects a preferred time to book and is awaiting a call from your team to confirm scheduling.
A patient lead has been transferred to your front desk.
Examples:
Portal Basics
Our dashboard includes several tabs (described in other articles), but to keep things simple, the two you should focus on daily are Conversations and Track Patients.
Conversations Tab Overview
Track Patients Tab Overview
This tab shows where patient contacts are in their journey. They can be moved automatically by the AI, or you can move them manually based on your conversations with patients. Click the drop-down arrows below to see an explanation of each stage:
❄️ COLD Leads (AI Engaged)
❄️ COLD Leads (AI Engaged)
AI is actively engaging the lead to get them to respond
No manual contact required
🔥 HOT Leads (Requested Appt)
🔥 HOT Leads (Requested Appt)
Contact ASAP. Follow the Appointment Booking Workflow below.
The AI is disengaged.
When a patient requests an exact time through the booking widget, a blue time tag will appear on their card:
✨ AI Follow Up
✨ AI Follow Up
Drag people here if no response from your initial contact
Drag people here if you have sent an outbound text, and are waiting for a reply
Drag people here if you have sent a payment link, and want to remind the person to pay
No manual contact required
AI will follow up 3 times before moving the lead to the recycle list
♻️ Recycle List
♻️ Recycle List
Automatically moved here if no response in ✨ AI Follow Up
No manual contact required
Can reach out with future messages to re-engage
📆 Appt Booked
📆 Appt Booked
Drag people here manually once an appointment is booked
If a patient tells your AI that they’ve already booked, they’ll be moved here automatically
❌ Cancel/No-Show
❌ Cancel/No-Show
Drag people here manually if they cancel or no-show
✅ Showed
✅ Showed
Drag people here manually once the lead has shown up
💡 How to Move Leads to a Different Column?
💡 How to Move Leads to a Different Column?
Click and hold a contact card in the Track Patients tab, then drag it to the appropriate column, for example 🗓️ Appt Booked:
Appointment Booking Workflow
Follow this workflow in Dently AI whenever you get a Hot Lead. It works together with your AI to maximize appointments.
Step 1: Review the Patient Conversation
Click the Conversations tab in your software sidebar and find the hot patient lead:
Step 2: Dial the Hot Lead (Twice)
You can make the call from your office phone, or directly from our dashboard. Always dial twice if they don't pick up the first time. This increases pickup rates.
Step 3: If They Don't Pick Up: Send a Text
We recommend sending the “Initiate Booking” text template, saying:
"Hi [NAME], let’s get you scheduled! Our next available appointment is on [DATE]. Would that work?"
How to add a text template:
💡You can text the patient lead back and forth until you find a time that works for them. Patients are more likely to respond when the message comes from the same number they used to chat with the AI.
Step 4: Send Text After Successful Scheduling
Send a confirmation text to the patient letting them know they’re booked, for example using the “Appointment Booked” template.
Appointment Booking Troubleshooting
The most frequent marketing challenges we see in dental practices are:
• Patients are not answering
• Patients are not showing up
• Patients are hesitant to place a card or deposit to secure their appointment
If you’re experiencing any of these, we’ve created a resource that explains the best solutions for each. Click here to view the troubleshooting guide.