Praga Medica Recovers 70% More Global Leads with WhatsApp + respond.io

Praga Medica is a Prague‑based medical tourism facilitator that organizes vision‑correction, plastic‑surgery, dentistry and other procedures for international patients. Its team of consultants advise potential patients on treatments and arrange to meet them on arrival. WhatsApp has proven to be a crucial channel for smooth global communication.

The problem

In the past, Praga Medica primarily did business over email. Leads would express interest via a contact form on the website and consultants would send all brochures and documents in an email. The consultants preferred this method as contacts who went to the trouble to communicate via email tended to be genuine leads. However, this also meant missed opportunities as the manual process made it difficult for potential customers to get a timely response.

David Fiala, the co-founder and managing director, saw webchat as an option to streamline engagement and adopted this as a channel using another solution, Chatra, in 2018. However, the consultants considered webchat a waste of time as they received high volumes of spam and low quality leads. As consultants deprioritized this channel, genuine leads dropped off when they did not receive a timely response, and there was no way to track or reengage them.

Fiala then observed that other businesses were using WhatsApp to chat with leads and customers. When leads contact them through WhatsApp, their phone numbers are instantly captured, so it’s easy to get back in touch with them. At first, Praga Medica implemented the WhatsApp Business App, but with consultants using individual WhatsApp accounts, it was a challenge to delegate leads and track response times. WhatsApp was also incompatible with Chatra, so it could not be integrated into webchat.

Manual entry of lead data in their CRM was another challenge. With email and Chatra, consultants spent valuable time consolidating information from email and webchat to update the CRM.

The respond.io solution

Fiala understood that WhatsApp API would help solve the problem of uniting WhatsApp conversations in a single inbox for management and tracking. He looked for a WhatsApp API solution that would integrate with their CRM and chose respond.io because it met all the business’s requirements.

Capture lead contact data with every chat

With webchat, there was no way to capture a lead’s contact data other than asking for a phone number or email. If a consultant didn’t engage with the lead immediately, the lead would drop off and the business couldn’t contact them again. Praga Medica connected respond.io to WhatsApp API and began using WhatsApp as the primary contact channel, installing a WhatsApp webchat widget.

Praga Medica uses an industry-specific CRM, so not every platform can easily integrate with it. With respond.io, the business was able to use webhooks and HTTP requests to sync data seamlessly.

When a lead comes in through WhatsApp, their phone number is saved in respond.io and sent to the CRM, so consultants can follow up easily. The business also connected webchat to respond.io, and while it’s still necessary to ask for contact details, automation workflows now do this if a consultant is unavailable.

“With Chatra, live chat was a side channel nobody loved. With respond.io, everything is centralized around WhatsApp, and consultants finally care about it.” - David Fiala, Co-founder of Praga Medica

Reduce spam by using AI to collect information and qualify leads

Consultants were reluctant to use webchat as a channel because of the high volume of spam that came in. Rather than providing advice to genuine patients, they were wasting valuable time answering inquiries that went nowhere.

Praga Medica set up an AI Agent in respond.io to collect information from all contacts and filter out spam. Only qualified leads will be routed to a human agent. Now, consultants understand the value of chat as conversations coming in from WhatsApp are turning into paying customers.

Convert more leads by responding faster

The AI Agent workflows have also helped convert potential patients faster by delivering instant replies to incoming inquiries, even outside of working hours as their global customers are in different time zones. This ensures that leads are engaged the moment they reach out, increasing the likelihood they stay in the funnel.

“With Respond AI handling routine questions, and WhatsApp giving us direct access to phone numbers, everything clicked—our consultants could focus on high-quality leads that were far more likely to convert into paying customers.” - David Fiala

The results

By switching from webchat to WhatsApp and unifying all conversations on respond.io, Praga Medica captured 70% more lead contact data, making it easier to follow up and convert prospects. Respond.io’s AI-powered workflows also helped them filter out 97% of spam, allowing consultants to spend their time with real customers instead of irrelevant messages.

Most impressively, the business achieved a 50% reduction in first response times, resulting in faster lead engagement and improved chances of conversion. With consultants now fully onboarded and trained to use respond.io, Praga Medica has a streamlined communication process that supports long-term growth.

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