“They call us — and book with the clinic next door”
The medical center kept investing in equipment and ads. The interviews showed people don't choose on hardware — they choose on how they were treated on the phone.
Company. A private medical center in a large city. Strong equipment, market-level prices, but inquiries often “go off to think” — and book with the clinic next door.
Plenty of first calls, but only a handful turn into bookings. Ads pushed equipment and prices — didn't work. Why people left was a mystery.
“People choose us on price and equipment.” That's where the budget went.
The full question set (9)
- 01Where did it all start — why did you begin looking for a clinic right now?
- 02How did you feel when you realized it was time to see a doctor?
- 03How did you go about finding where to turn? Walk me through the steps.
- 04What did you look at first when comparing clinics?
- 05What put you off or made you wary somewhere?
- 06What was your first contact with us like — a call, the website? What stuck with you?
- 07What matters more to you — price, equipment, or something else? Why?
- 08What ended up being the deciding factor in where you went?
- 09If you went to another clinic — what was better there?
The AI doesn't read these off like a list. It moves through the questions and, after every answer, follows up naturally until it gets to the real point. Here's how it actually sounds.
Interview excerpt
Analysis of 20 interviews
sonarum pulls 20 conversations into a single report: which themes come up most, real quotes, and what it all means.
“I needed someone to say: this is normal, we'll figure it out.”
“They quickly quoted a price and asked for a day — and I was still scared to even go.”
“I paid a bit more, but it wasn't frightening to go there.”
- People choose a clinic from anxiety, not by rationally comparing equipment and prices.
- The first call matters more than the site or the hardware: tone decides it, not how fast you book them.
- Ads about equipment and price missed the mark — people needed calm and care.
Retrain the call center: first ease the anxiety and explain, then book. Switch the ads from “equipment and prices” to “we'll explain calmly, no rush.” Rewrite the first-call script around care.
They changed the tone of the first conversation and the ad message — not the equipment — and nearly doubled the rate of inquiries turning into bookings. With no price cuts and no new spend on hardware.