Enquiries arrive by web form, social ads, email and phone, often when the front desk is busiest. Coherent brings them into one place, answers in your clinic's voice with a coordinator approving each reply, and keeps following up until the patient books or says no.
From solo practices to large groups, the clinics we support
care for 563,000+ patients globally.
Patient enquiry management is how a clinic captures, answers and follows up new patient enquiries until each one is booked, declined or closed. It covers every route a prospective patient uses to get in touch, from website forms and social media lead ads to email and phone calls, and it ends when the first consultation or appointment is booked. What happens after that visit is patient follow-up.
A new enquiry is the most expensive contact a clinic receives, because it usually followed advertising, search or a referral. Yet enquiries are often handled in whichever inbox they land in, answered when someone is free and dropped after one unanswered call. A prospective patient who does not hear back usually keeps looking, and the clinic never learns why the booking did not happen. Managing enquiries as one list, with a clear owner and agreed follow-up, protects the money and effort that produced them.
Both are follow-up in the broad sense, but they serve different people at different points, so Coherent runs them as separate programmes.
| Compared on | Enquiry management | Patient follow-up |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | Prospective patients who have not booked yet | Patients after a consultation, appointment, cancellation or treatment |
| Starts when | A form, lead ad, email or call arrives | Something happens in the patient's care |
| Ends when | The first consultation or appointment is booked, or the enquiry is closed | The patient takes their next step in care |
| Main risk | The enquiry goes cold before anyone replies | The patient drifts after a visit or a cancellation |
| Coherent programmes | New Enquiry Response, Lead Revival | Cancellation Rebooking, Outstanding Treatment Plans, Patient Recall |
The first reply sets the tone, but most enquiries need more than one contact. A prospective patient may want to know the price, check a date with their partner or think about it overnight. Clinics lose most enquiries in that gap: one call, no answer, no further contact. Good enquiry management agrees how many attempts are made, over which channels and over what period, so an enquiry is closed only when the patient has booked or clearly declined.
Website forms, Meta lead ads, emails and phone calls often land in different places and are worked by different people. Without a single list, nobody can say how many enquiries are waiting or how many turned into bookings. Bringing them together, with the whole conversation attached, shows which sources produce booked consultations rather than form fills, and stops two people chasing the same patient while a third enquiry goes unanswered.
Every clinic has a backlog of earlier enquiries that never booked. Some chose another clinic; many simply ran out of time. A short, personal check-in weeks or months later, asking whether they would still like help, often restarts the conversation. Treat these older enquiries as their own programme, separate from new ones, so each gets a message that fits the time that has passed rather than a copy of the first reply.
New enquiries from connected sources, such as website forms and Meta lead ads, are picked up with their source recorded, and replies arrive in the same shared inbox as email, SMS, WhatsApp and phone conversations. Nobody has to copy a lead from one system to another.
A form, lead ad, email or call is captured with its source and the patient's question.
The patient gets a helpful answer and an offer of times in your clinic's voice, approved by a coordinator.
If they go quiet, agreed follow-up continues over the channel they use.
The consultation is booked, or the enquiry is closed when the patient declines or asks to stop.
After the consultation, follow-up programmes take over. Each patient hears from one programme at a time.
Lead management tools built for sales teams often miss what clinics need. Check these points before you choose.
Forms, lead ads, email and phone should feed one list, with the source recorded for each enquiry.
Replies should use your services and booking rules, in your clinic's voice, not generic scripts.
Agree the number of attempts, channels and timing, and stop as soon as the patient books or declines.
Clinical or sensitive questions must reach a person, not an automated reply.
Ask how a booked consultation reaches your practice management system, so the diary stays the single source of truth.
Judge the tool on consultations booked per enquiry source, not messages sent.
See it for yourself
Most clinics are surprised by their leakage figure. Coherent surfaces it on day one.
