MainCasesHow Digital Smile Design Accelerated Patient Support 3x with Athena AI
case study · healthcare
How Digital Smile Design Accelerated Patient Support 3x with Athena AI
Company:
Digital Smile Design
Industry:
Healthcare & Dental Tech
Location:
Belgium
AI Agent:
Customer Support

At Digital Smile Design we have used Athena AI to integrate a chatbot that answers questions from our clients. The Athena team has given us very good technical support and always responded quickly and efficiently. Athena is easy to integrate with your knowledge base.

Antonio Sanchez Barrena
Antonio Sanchez Barrena
Digital Smile Design · Belgium

About Digital Smile Design

Digital Smile Design (DSD) is a global leader in dental technology and premium patient care, operating at the intersection of advanced clinical protocols and cutting-edge digital workflows. Their platform connects dental clinics, specialists, and patients across Europe, providing a premium experience at every touchpoint.

As their clinic network expanded, so did the volume of technical and procedural inquiries from partner clinics and patients — creating a growing pressure on their support team to maintain the high service standards their brand demands.

The Challenge

DSD's support team was spending hours manually answering repetitive questions about treatment plans, software integrations, and appointment scheduling. With partner clinics operating across multiple time zones, the team struggled to provide the immediate, accurate responses their clients expected.

Two critical problems required immediate attention:

1
Response Time Bottleneck
Patients and partner clinics were waiting hours for answers to questions that could be resolved instantly with the right information at hand.
2
Knowledge Base Fragmentation
DSD's extensive documentation — clinical protocols, software guides, FAQs — was spread across multiple systems, making it impossible for support agents to retrieve information quickly.

The Solution

DSD partnered with Athena AI to deploy an intelligent support agent integrated directly into their knowledge base and communication channels.

1
Instant Knowledge Retrieval
Athena AI ingested DSD's entire documentation library — clinical protocols, FAQs, and software guides — enabling the agent to answer complex technical questions instantly and accurately.
2
Seamless Human Handoff
For highly specific medical inquiries, the AI agent gathered all necessary context before routing the conversation to the appropriate specialist — ensuring no information was lost in the transfer.
3
24/7 Multi-Timezone Support
The agent provided round-the-clock support across all channels, ensuring that partner clinics in different time zones received immediate assistance regardless of the hour.

The Results

The implementation of Athena AI transformed DSD's support operations, delivering measurable improvements across every key metric.

3x
faster response to patient inquiries
24/7
support across all time zones
100%
of routine queries handled automatically

With routine questions automated, the technical support team could focus entirely on complex case planning and high-value clinic onboarding — the work that truly required human expertise.

Looking Ahead

DSD continues to expand its use of Athena AI, exploring deeper integrations with their proprietary dental software to provide even more personalized, context-aware support to their global network of clinics. The next phase involves deploying the AI agent across their patient-facing mobile app, bringing the same instant, accurate support experience directly to end patients.

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