Northfield Vets

Every appointment was booked by phone. Across three branches that meant two receptionists spending most of the day on hold-and-transfer, and clients who worked office hours simply couldn't get through. Around one in eight appointments was missed, and each one was a slot that could have gone to an animal that needed it.

The practice management software they used had an online booking add-on. It was expensive, ugly, and only worked for one branch at a time. Switching systems entirely was out of the question: ten years of clinical records lived in the current one.

A booking site that sits in front of their existing system and talks to it through its (undocumented, as it turned out) API. Clients pick a branch, a vet if they have a preference, and a slot; the appointment lands in the diary the receptionists already use.

• Real-time availability across all three branches, respecting each vet's rota and appointment types.
• Automatic SMS and email reminders 48 hours and 2 hours before, with one-tap confirm or reschedule.
• A simple admin view for blocking slots, adding emergency appointments and seeing the day at a glance.
• A waiting list: when a slot is cancelled, the next person who wanted it is texted first.

The hardest part was the integration. We spent the first week working out how the practice system actually behaved, and wrote a small compatibility layer so that if they ever do change systems, the booking site won't need to be rebuilt.

Phone bookings down 60%. Missed appointments down by a third.

Within two months, most routine appointments were being booked online, often in the evening. Reminders and the waiting list between them cut no-shows from roughly 12% to under 8%. The receptionists are still there; they now spend their time on the calls that need a person.