How Doctolib simplifies healthcare for millions with SMS

Back in 2013, Doctolib aimed to transform healthcare, one of the largest but least digitized sectors in France. Ten years later, they have a whopping 80 million users across France, Germany and Italy, and is the fastest growing e-health service in Europe. But that didn’t happen overnight, and achieving it meant making the whole process smooth and convenient for everyone.  

Challenge: Connecting doctors and patients effortlessly 

In France, health professionals are often burdened by administrative tasks like managing appointments, documentation, and paperwork, taking away valuable time that could be spent on patient care. 

Understanding the opportunity to make a drastic impact on the healthcare industry, Doctolib offered a vision to digitize the process to seamlessly connect medical professionals and patients. For doctors, this meant less time spent on administration. For patients, this translated into better access to quality healthcare. 

During the pandemic, Doctolib experienced a huge spike in messaging, to the tune of 40 million messages. They knew their platform could make a huge impact and their messaging partner must ensure seamless connectivity between doctors and their patients, absorbing messaging spikes without compromising on delivery. Additionally, they needed a partner that would be able to provide a high level of data protection to help safeguard sensitive health information.   

Solution: Compliant SMS for relevant, timely updates 

The Doctolib team searched for a service provider that would provide timely updates through SMS while maintaining strict compliance with data privacy and GDPR regulations, ensuring the security and confidentiality of patient information during all communication. 

“Our main concern was data privacy, and our obligation was to have a GDPR-compliant provider that had all its servers located in Europe,” said Thomas Grobost, Product Manager at Doctolib. “This provider needed to be able to handle large messaging volumes, especially absorbing our spike of SMS. Sinch answered 100% of our must-have requirements.” 

Now, the healthcare company uses Sinch SMS as vital part of their communication strategy and sends appointment reminders and two-factor authentication messages to over 25 million customers per month. By harnessing the power of SMS, Doctolib ensures patients are less likely to miss their appointments, ultimately reducing no-shows and increasing access to care for thousands of people.

“It is important that our users show up once they have booked an appointment, else it just turns into losing out on some precious healthcare time,” explains Thomas. 

With SMS, subscribers also have the option to easily reschedule their appointments if needed. This system has proved to be efficient even for appointments scheduled months in advance, as a simple SMS empowers users to plan accordingly and make the most out of their healthcare experience. 

Results: Greater reach and an enhanced patient experience 

When it comes to excellent patient care, Doctolib knows that keeping patients and doctors connected is vital. And now, they’re sending SMS messages that have a 97% delivery rate, and 95% of messages have a latency of less than one second. This has helped Doctolib create healthcare experiences that are not only efficient but highly secure and user-friendly. 

“Sinch is a reliable partner when it comes to delivering a large volume of messages without an incident. The uptime and international presence helped us reach out to our customers no matter where they are,” says Thomas.  

And that's not all. Doctolib has increased customer engagement while simultaneously lowering their overall communication costs. 

So, what do Doctolib users think about the platform? Well, with 80 million users across Europe, and over 340,000 healthcare personnel on board, Doctolib strikes the right chord with users making healthcare fast, frictionless, and accessible to all.  

Learn more about Sinch SMS here