An after-hours enquiry costs your clinic the average value of a visit every time that patient goes to another clinic instead, and you can estimate the total with four numbers from your own records. This article shows the arithmetic, compares the four ways to handle those enquiries, and gives the Conduit prices so you can compare cost against cost.
I will not promise a number of bookings. Nobody who has not seen your clinic can, and the pricing page says so too.
How do you work out what after-hours enquiries cost you?
Multiply four numbers: enquiries per month, the share that arrive outside opening hours, the share of those who go to another clinic instead, and your average visit value. The result is the monthly value you lose.
That is the formula behind the clinic check on our home page. It reads: enquiries a month x share outside hours x share who go elsewhere x average visit value. The check asks for the first, second and fourth numbers and fills in the third.
The third number is an assumption, and I want to be plain about that. The calculator starts at 40% of after-hours enquiries going to another clinic. We did not measure that at your clinic or anyone else's. It is a starting point that you can change, and the page labels it as an estimate, not a promise of results.
So the honest version of the work is to replace our assumption with your own evidence. Take one month of enquiries, mark the ones that arrived outside opening hours, and see how many of those eventually booked with you and how many went quiet. That count is worth more than any percentage in this article.
Where do you find the four numbers?
- Enquiries a month: your enquiry inbox, web form, chat and phone log, added together. A rough number is fine.
- Share outside opening hours: the timestamps on those same records. Count the ones that arrived when the clinic was closed.
- Share who go elsewhere: the hardest one. Use your own booked-versus-quiet count from the paragraph above.
- Average visit value: your booking system's report for the period, in Australian dollars.
If you do not track enquiries by time yet, start tonight. Even two weeks of timestamps tells you more than a guess.
What are your options for after-hours enquiries?
There are four, and each fixes a different part of the problem. None is right for every clinic.
- 1Reply the next morning. It costs nothing extra, and it is where most clinics start. What it does not fix is the hours in between, when a person who is ready to book looks at the next clinic.
- 2Extend the hours or roster someone. A person answering at night is the most human option. The cost is wages, and you know those better than I do. It also depends on one person being available and consistent every night.
- 3An automatic acknowledgement. A message that says 'we received your enquiry' reassures the patient but does not book anything. The patient still waits until morning for a real answer.
- 4A system that replies in seconds and carries the enquiry to a booked consultation. This is what the Grow plan does. It answers, asks the health questions first, collects photos and takes a deposit link, and hands over to your team.
Options can be combined. A clinic with a night receptionist for phone calls may still want written enquiries answered while that person is on another line.
What does a system that replies in seconds actually do?
It answers the first message in seconds, day or night, and moves the enquiry towards a booked consultation. In our product that means health questions and consent come first, photos arrive by private link rather than Instagram DMs, and the patient can book and pay a deposit through a link in your clinic's name.
What it does not do matters more. It does not give medical advice: clinical questions go to your team. It does not replace your patient coordinator. And it does not change your clinical rules. For cosmetic surgery, the order of steps (enquiry, GP referral noted, two consultations, a 7-day gap, deposit) is configured for your practice during setup, because those rules are yours and we do not set clinical or legal policy.
The replies are also advertising-adjacent text, so they are held to the same rules as your website. No offers or deadlines in the reply, no medicine names, no reviews, no promises about results. Every template is checked before it sends, and your clinic approves each one.
What does it cost in Conduit?
Reply-to-every-enquiry is the Grow plan at A$697 a month, plus a one-off setup of A$990. There is no minimum term and you can cancel any time.
- Start, A$297 a month: patient return reminders, texts checked against Ahpra and TGA rules, and a monthly report in dollars. It does not answer enquiries.
- Grow, A$697 a month: everything in Start, a reply to every enquiry in seconds, plus a health form, photos, booking and a deposit link.
- Pro, A$1,490 a month: everything in Grow, an AI agent on your clinic number set up with you, and a patient portal.
- Setup, A$990 once. We connect your booking system export or CSV, set review intervals with you, and put every template through the Ahpra and TGA check and your approval.
Prices are in Australian dollars, and the full list is on the pricing page.
How do you compare the cost against the loss?
Set your monthly loss from the formula next to the monthly price of the plan, and ask whether the difference is large enough to justify the risk that the estimate is wrong. If your own number is smaller than A$697, Grow does not pay for itself on enquiries alone, and I would tell you not to buy it.
Two more things belong in that comparison. First, the setup fee is a one-off, so the first month looks worse than the second. Second, the estimate counts only after-hours enquiries. A reply in seconds also helps daytime enquiries that arrive when your coordinator is busy, but I have no number for that and will not invent one.
The honest test is to run it, not to model it. Compare the weeks after you start with the same weeks the month before, and that will tell you more than a forecast. Because there is no minimum term, being wrong costs you the setup fee and a month of the plan, not a contract.
What does this not fix?
- A weak website. A fast reply does not help if the page that brings the patient in is unclear or carries wording you need to fix. Run the Ahpra check on it.
- A slow handover. If an enquiry is booked at midnight and nobody confirms it until Friday, the patient will notice. The system carries the enquiry as far as a booked consultation. Your team takes it from there.
- Your booking system. Conduit works alongside Timely, Zenoti, Fresha, Kitomba or Cliniko, from an export of your data. A direct Timely connection is in progress, not live.
- Any promise of results. We do not promise a number of patients, bookings or sales. We promise a clear process and every message checked before it sends.
How should you decide?
- 1Count a month of enquiries by time of day.
- 2Run the formula with your own share of people who go elsewhere, not ours.
- 3List which of the four options you already have in place.
- 4Compare the monthly loss with the monthly price, and be sceptical of both numbers.
- 5If it still looks worth testing, book a demo. We run a test enquiry through the system for your clinic so you can see each step, and you decide if it fits.
If it does not look worth it, that is a good result too. A clinic that answers every enquiry by hand the next morning and loses very few has no problem for me to solve.