Primary Health Care
Affordable, accessible and comprehensive medical support - that’s what’s at the core for Primary Health Care Limited - one of Australia’s premier healthcare providers. Operating throughout metropolitan and rural Australian, servicing 8 million consults a year nationally. Primary Health Care Limited provides expert quality medical support and advice to those who need it most.
Beginning their journey in 1985, Primary Health Care Limited has evolved from their humble beginnings in Warringah Mall, Brookville. They now proudly boast an incredible 71 medical centres spanning across all states of Australia (with the exception of Tasmania and the Northern Territory) offering a diverse range of medical services.
Problem:
Primary’s success has led to them having a continuously fast growing, large list of patients. However, their ability to timely and effectively reach each patient was becoming increasingly difficult and inconsistent.
Their traditional methodology of communication was a direct mail service however they were not seeing the results that were needed - high open rates, response rates and engagement levels. Moreover, given that this channel was not working to the desired level, there were concerns as to how they were to deal with projections of millions of customers in the future. As a result, a new platform was needed.
Solution:
After switching from a competitor SMS brand, Primary - in conjunction with SMSGlobal - were able to develop an appropriate communication strategy that would utilise SMSGlobal’s Web Messaging Platform (MXT) to accommodate for varying campaign performance requirements.
One such form of communication they wished to simplify and improve was that of medical alerts and reminders. This would entail providing timely information surrounding vaccines or special offers to patients in their area, which would require instant communication delivery and accessibility.
This was achievable through the use of a shared pool number, which allowed 2-way SMS functionality between Primary and their patients. Primary also took advantage of our send merge functionality – a process of uploading a pre-populated spreadsheet mapping personalised details to each number. This way, unique information to that number (such as name or appointment time) can then be pushed into a message template. Overall, this allowed Primary to send large volumes of personalised messages to hundreds of thousands of patients, accurately and timely – all done with the simple click of a button.
Following the launch of the SMS campaigns, all sending information is then collated and reported within the MXT platform, allowing Primary’s operations team to analyse and evaluate message sending data, open rates and engagement levels.
Results:
The overall introduction of SMS has had a positive effect on Primary’s ability to contact and engage with patients. Since the implementation of SMS as a communication tool, Primary has noticed significant improvements in campaign performance and efficiency.
More than 500k dental patients have the ability to receive promotional deal and make appointments purely based on receiving an SMS.
2015 campaign results demonstrated a significant improvement since the introduction of SMS. One example of a recent Flu Shot Campaign successfully engaged 1.5 million patients.
Conclusion:
Primary Health Care Limited is the perfect example of how the implementation of SMS can have a successful impact on an organisation as they continue to strive for success.
Personally, we are always excited to see the success of our customers and look forward to watching Primary Health Care Limited continue to deliver quality medical advice and support to millions of Australians.
If you’d like to learn more about Primary Health Care Limited you can find their contact information here. Furthermore, if you’d like to find out how our SMS solutions can help to shape and improve your business, get in contact with our team of professionals today to set up a free product demonstration.