Case study · Healthcare · Audiology

Bringing 1,400+ lapsed hearing patients back into the conversation

A multi-location hearing clinic had thousands of past patients, too few Google reviews, and a front desk working outside the CRM. I built a GoHighLevel system that reactivates old patients, turns happy patients into reviews and referrals, and keeps the front desk in sync automatically.

Client: Multi-location hearing clinic
Platform: GoHighLevel
My role: CRM & automation architect
Built: 20+ live workflows

1,443past patients re-engaged by SMS

401positive feedback replies collected

3,694phone numbers auto-verified before texting

320front-desk status updates synced back

The system

One engine between the clinic's lead sources and its front desk

Every lead source feeds the same GoHighLevel account. Workflows decide who gets texted, when, and by whom, then hand qualified patients to the front desk's own dashboard. When staff update a lead there, GHL hears about it and stops automations straight away.

Comes in

Old patient listsCSV imports, tagged for reactivation

Daily appointmentsPatients seen this week

Facebook lead adsInstant lead form

GoHighLevel

Reactivation engineSMS + AI

Review & referral funnelsentiment

Speed-to-lead< 1 min

Data hygieneline-type API

3 pipelinestracked

Goes out

Front-desk dashboardWebhooks out, status back in

Slack & internal alertsHot replies, negative feedback

Google reviewsPer-location review links

Workflow folder for patient reactivation, showing published workflows and enrollment counts — **Organized by system.** Each folder holds one system, with workflows numbered in the order they run.

GHL Maintenance folder with data hygiene workflows — **Maintenance folder.** Background workflows keep the database clean.

System 1 · Reactivation

Old-patient SMS reactivation

Hearing aids need regular check-ups and replacements, but nobody had time to call thousands of past patients.

Patients with a future appointment are skipped first, so booked patients never get a "we miss you" text.
Drip mode throttles sends to protect the clinic's number and keep replies at a pace the front desk can handle.
A reactivation text, then a 2-day follow-up, then a second follow-up, with reply/no-reply branching at every step.
On reply, a Conversation AI bot takes over the chat, the lead is tagged, the opportunity moves, and the team gets a Slack alert.
The patient is pushed to the front-desk dashboard and removed from every other workflow, so they never get mixed messages.

1,443 enrolled 239 replies 148 opt-outs handled automatically

Reactivation workflow trigger and future-appointment check — **Entry and safety check.** Tag trigger, then a future-appointment check before any message is sent.

Hand-off workflow sending reactivated patients to the front desk dashboard — **Hand-off.** Clean the tags, send to the front-desk dashboard, notify staff, and exit all other workflows.

Reply and timeout branches with AI agent and opportunity updates — **Reply or timeout.** Replies go to the AI agent. Silence triggers a timed follow-up.

Second and third touch follow-up branches ending in Slack notifications — **Multi-touch follow-up.** Each touch ends with a pipeline update and a Slack ping.

Drip mode workflow releasing 10 contacts per day — **Drip gate.** Releases 10 patients a day into the campaign.

System 2 · Reputation

Feedback-first review and referral funnel

Happy patients rarely left reviews, and unhappy ones had no private way to raise a problem first.

Patients are asked to rate their visit first, not to leave a review.
Positive replies are routed by clinic location to that location's own Google review link. A referral ask with a trackable link follows.
Negative replies alert the team and open a 10-minute window for staff to step in. The patient's feedback is then collected privately.
STOP replies switch on DND automatically. Unclear replies go to a person to sort.
Clicking the review link stops further follow-ups. Patients who never reply are tagged for a later reactivation round.

1,407 patients asked 370 review-link clicks 40 complaints handled privately

Full review workflow with sentiment branches and documentation notes — **The whole funnel.** The yellow notes on the canvas explain the logic to the clinic's team.

Review workflow entry with drip mode and feedback request — **Ask for feedback, then wait.** Drip-sent, tagged, and tracked in the pipeline.

Positive, negative, stop and none branches — **Sentiment routing.** Positive, negative, STOP and unclear replies each get their own branch.

Per-location review request and referral follow-up branches — **Per-location links.** Four clinic branches, each with its own review request and referral text.

Negative reply handling and no-reply follow-up branches — **Recovery path.** A manual check, a thank-you text, a feedback request and a staff alert.

Tracking

Every patient visible in a pipeline

Each system writes to its own pipeline, so the clinic can see where every contacted patient stands. These are live counts from the account.

Reactivation campaign

1,173 patients tracked

Replied23920%
SMS sent, waiting363%
No response yet75064%
Opted out (DND)14813%

Google review funnel

757 patients tracked

Positive reply40153%
Google reviewed91%
Review request sent304%
No response24833%
Negative, handled privately405%
Opted out (DND)294%

System 3 · Speed to lead

Facebook ad leads answered in seconds

Ad leads arrived at all hours and went cold before anyone called.

A lead form submission fires a Slack alert, creates an opportunity in the audiology pipeline, and texts the prospect straight away.
The lead is pushed to the front-desk dashboard and a call to the front desk connects them.
Follow-up texts go out at 15 minutes, 4 hours, 24 hours and 72 hours, ending with a gentle booking reminder.

Pipeline: New lead → Consult booked → No-show → Nurture → Fitted

Facebook lead form trigger followed by Slack notification, tag and opportunity — **Instant response.** Lead form trigger, then Slack, tag and pipeline in the same second.

Inbound webhook workflow branching on booked, not interested and unreachable — **Two-way sync.** When the front desk marks a lead Booked, Not Interested or Unreachable, GHL pauses the AI and tags the contact.

System 4 · Data hygiene

A clean database protects every campaign

The imported lists mixed landlines, VoIP numbers, fake numbers, swapped names and deceased patients.

Every new or changed number is checked against a phone line-type lookup API. Landline, VoIP and fake numbers get SMS DND. Mobiles are tagged as SMS-capable.
Replies saying a patient has passed away remove that contact from all marketing straight away.
First and last names imported in the wrong order are fixed, so texts greet patients properly.
An opt-out or a very negative reply removes the contact from every active campaign.

3,694 numbers classified 992 names fixed 202 opt-outs cleaned up

Contact created and phone changed triggers with empty-phone check — **Runs on every new or changed number.** Contacts with no phone are skipped.

Line type branches for fake number, landline, VoIP and mobile — **Line-type branching.** Each result sets the right tag and DND.

How it's built

Tools and design choices

GHL WorkflowsIf/else branchingWait for replyDrip modeTrigger linksConversation AIPipelinesInbound webhooksOutbound webhooksExternal APIsSlackFacebook Lead AdsGoogle reviewsDND compliance

No mixed messages

Appointment checks, "remove from other workflows" steps and status sync from the front desk mean each patient is only ever in one conversation.

People where it matters

Complaints, unclear replies and hot leads go to staff. Everything routine is automated.

Deliverability first

Throttling, line-type checks and automatic DND keep the clinic's texting number healthy.

Easy to hand over

Numbered workflows, one folder per system, and notes on the canvas let the clinic's team understand and maintain it.