How SMS contributes to Doctolib's success
80 million
PATIENTS IN EUROPE
500 million
APPOINTMENTS PER YEAR
25 million
TEXT MESSAGES SENT PER MONTH
À PROPOS
SECTOR OF ACTIVITY
Healthcare
COMPANY SIZE
2,800 employees
CREATION DATE
2013
LOCATION
France
Germany
Italy
Netherlands
smsmode© keeps its product up to date and is proactive to legal disruptions or changes. We’re constantly talking to each other about monitoring and developments.
This is an important point. Because, over and above the criteria for choosing a provider, it’s important to make a long-term commitment, and that’s the case with smsmode©.
Routing performance
97,5%
OF SMS DELIVERED
2,4 s.
AVERAGE TIME TO RECEIVE A TEXT MESSAGE
98%
OF SMS RECEIVED IN LESS THAN 5 SECONDS
Download the Doctolib success story
innovation and service excellence come first
Secure the application and accessibility of information via SMS
Doctolib undeniably disrupted the healthcare sector. What could be more normal today than to make a medical appointment online, 24/7, and to receive a reminder of the appointment a few hours beforehand?
Since its inception, Doctolib made SMS one of the axes for achieving its objectives to improve access to healthcare professionals. Activated at the friction points of one-to-one interactions, it makes the service more efficient, and adds that extra something to the Doctolib workflow that sets it apart: immediacy and accessibility.
First of all, there’s an appointment reminder, which is Doctolib’s most important use. Doctolib sends up to 4 reminders per appointment, either by email or push notification. Some of these reminders can be replaced by SMS for users who do not have a Doctolib account, do not use the mobile application or do not have push notifications activated (which is the case for almost 1 in 2 appointments). These SMS messages make it easier to read the information and, ultimately, help to reduce the number of appointments booked on Doctolib but not kept by up to 60%.
The second contribution of SMS is authentication. An OTP is systematically sent by SMS each time an account is created on the platform. It concerns not only patient account creation, but also on the professional side — even if other verification processes complete this first stage.
This authentication process is well tried and tested, as it has not been modified since its inception a few years ago. It also provides KYC — Know Your Customer — for new users, which is essential for any contact platform.
Voice messaging (with TTS) is the ‘accessibility‘ link in the Doctolib service. It deals with the issues of deliverability of the messages to landlines and accessibility for the visually impaired. What is the aim? To make their product accessible to as many people as possible.
We still need SMS appointment reminders for people who don’t have the application and SMS OTP for new users...
data protection, security and performance, the shock trio
The figurehead of e-health
Another major challenge (and mission) facing Doctolib is to provide a high-performance and secure service that respects personal data. The SMS use must not only comply with the high standards of the healthcare sector, but also help the client to achieve them!
Data security and confidentiality are central to the Doctolib’s strategy. The importance of data protection and processing is a core of our integrity duty (and of the trust relationship we built up with our users). In addition to internal measures (encryption, HDS, audits, ISO/IEC 27001 certification, etc.), Doctolib’s partners are involved in meeting e-health requirements as subcontractors. They must offer a high level of security guarantees and certifications : data hosting exclusively on servers in Europe, RGDP Compliant, etc. And smsmode© meets all these requirements.
For years, we’ve been working with the Doctolib team on a daily basis to ensure that we’re always ahead of the game when it comes to the legal security obligations.
The data requirement would be nothing without the monitoring of mobile message routing and performance. The Doctolib product team monitors deliverability rates, sending speeds and the availability of the routing service in real time. These KPIs are key to ensuring reliable routing and optimal management of the volumes of mobile messages sent, country by country, at all times. It’s a performance indicator that’s all the more decisive for SMS OTP because the service is based on immediacy. Close collaboration with the smsmode© technical team meant that the API calls for routes, channels and related prioritisation could be managed internally.
make way for the future...
Supporting Doctolib’s deployment and innovations
Doctolib has certainly grown with smsmode© and smsmode© has grown with Doctolib.
Beyond these figures, the SMS channel is accompanying Doctolib in its expansion, and its international expansion first and foremost. Even if the approach to healthcare is different in each country, the SMS channel plays the same key role in Germany, Italy and France, offering simplicity and convenience to patients who booked an appointment. It is also an important communication channel, to tell patients about the app’s new features...
... or to innovate and foreshadow the healthcare of tomorrow at the launch of the new markets. SMS is now available to healthcare professionals as a means of direct communication with their patients via the Doctolib interface. This new service for sending SMS and emails is available to practitioners in Germany, Italy and soon France, giving them the opportunity to send group communication to all their patients about the updates in their practice (office closures, holidays, etc.) or to send out prevention and vaccination messages to target patient groups (depending on their age, pathology, etc.).
Much more than just creating a close, privileged doctor/patient relationship, these new communication functions are the future face of the Doctolib brand: that of becoming a “health partner”.
The goal is to monitor our health throughout our lives, to become a cornerstone of prevention and... to have our health always at our fingertips (on our smartphone)!