Lehi company reminds patients to work on their smiles

In 2001, Jim Higgins and his team at Communitect were feeling optimistic.

Their company, which provided text and e-mail reminder services to financial institutions, was growing. The firm had started to overcome the skepticism of potential customers, who did not yet see the potential in communicating with clients via e-mail and text.

Then the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks occurred. The company's growth screeched to a halt.

But one day, Higgins' neighbor, a dentist, asked him if mobile technology could help reduce the number of "no-show" customers at his dental practice. At many practices, office staff spent hours making individual phone calls but still experienced a no-show rate of more than 20 percent.

Using the dentist's appointment database, the company's messaging technology automatically sent a text-message reminder an hour prior to each appointment. The service's impact was immediate: no-shows were cut in half, and practices saved tens of thousands of dollars.

As the company grew, Higgins changed its name to SmileReminder and added more automated services to become a full patient-engagement product. SmileReminder services not only get patients to appointments, but also help attract new business and retain existing patients. The company now serves thousands of doctors, interacting with more than 17 million patients each month.

SmileReminder's technology proved to be an excellent fit with the needs of medical and dental practices, and today the Lehi-based company is a leader in a billion-dollar industry it essentially created.

As one of the first firms to embrace Software as a Service (SaaS) technology, SmileReminder is a pioneer. But it stays ahead of its competition by continually offering upgrades and improvements based not on some vague concept of "coolness," but on usefulness to customers based on their suggestions and needs. The firm's customer retention exceeds 90 percent.

One consultant described the company as "the tip of the spear," explaining that SmileReminder's technology allows more patients to benefit from the growing variety of life-changing technologies at medical and dental offices, simply by getting them through the door.