Case study · Mental Health & Counselling
The calls that come in at half past nine on a Saturday
Shelly Qualtieri runs a counselling practice in Calgary and still sees her own clients. The phones there are answered by people during the working week, and the people who need them most often call outside it. This is her account of what changed, in her own words.
The clinic
- Clinic
- Shelly Qualtieri & Associates
- Discipline
- Mental Health & Counselling
- City
- Calgary
A Calgary counselling practice with a team of eleven practitioners — registered psychologists, provisional psychologists, registered social workers and certified counsellors — working from one location in the city and virtually across Alberta and Ontario. Appointments are booked and charted in Jane App™.
The problem in their own words
The calls that mattered were not arriving during office hours. “people are like, can somebody please call me back? I need a call back right now. And it’s like 9.30 on a Saturday night” — and a counselling practice cannot answer that with a voicemail greeting and a Monday morning.
The rest of it was volume. A practice this size generates more first contacts than one owner can personally hold, and she is a practitioner as well as the person who runs it. Asked about the conversations Emma was having, she was direct about the alternative: “I know I couldn’t be having all of those conversations.”
What was turned on
A caller who doesn’t reach a person gets a text back within seconds, and the conversation carries on there — questions answered, the Jane App™ booking link sent when they’re ready. The same assistant answers the practice’s website chat, so somebody reading at midnight gets a reply rather than a contact form.
Shelly still picks up herself whenever she can, and that is the right way round: the practice’s people answer first, and Emma catches what they miss. Emma replies to what comes in, and never places a call.
Emma doesn’t see the practice’s schedule. She sends the patient its Jane App™ booking link, and the patient picks a time from live availability. Jane stays the source of truth, and there is no second calendar for anyone to keep in step.
- Missed-Call Text-Back
Instantly texts back missed calls so the caller can continue by SMS and book — no call is ever truly lost.
- Website Live Chat
Engages website visitors instantly and keeps the conversation going.
What happened
I’m actually loving all of Emma’s help. It’s just been game changing for me, just with knowing that the calls are being picked up and just checking in to make sure. It’s been really, really good. I still try and pick up when I can. But yeah, it’s just a relief to know that there’s someone picking up, and it’s amazing how many people just chat away with her.
This is one clinic's experience, in their own words — not a measurement we made, and not a prediction of what another clinic would see.
Questions
Shelly Qualtieri & Associates, answered
Does Emma give advice to someone in distress?
No, and this is the boundary that matters most in counselling. Emma does not give clinical advice, does not triage, and does not attempt to assess anyone. When a conversation needs a person, she stops and hands it to one rather than continuing — and when she doesn’t know something, she says so. Shelly described exactly that: “Emma’s like, I’m not sure about that. We’ll get someone to call you.” She’s there so a caller is answered rather than met with silence, not so a caller is handled without a human.
What does Emma actually know about our patients?
What the practice’s Jane App™ record holds about appointments — who is booked, who has been in, what service. Not clinical records, not chart notes, not session content. The practice remains the custodian of its patient information, and what Emma can see is bounded by what the booking record contains. Our Privacy Policy, Terms and Trust pages set out the handling in full.
Would my practice see what this one saw?
We can’t tell you that, and we won’t try. This is one practice — one discipline, one team, one catchment, one way of working — and what happened there is a record of what happened there. The honest way to find out what it would do for yours is a demo against your own hours and your own intake.
See it answer for your practice
Book a short demo and we’ll walk through what Emma would answer for your services, your hours, and the callers who reach you outside them.
A demo is a live call with a founder — not a sales rep.