Hi Rodinhooders,
Namaskar. I would like to thank every Rodinhooder at TheRodinhoods especially Asha Chaudhry and Alok Kejriwal for being very supportive. We had triggered the refining of our concept here on TheRodinhoods.
Icliniq.com is an online doctor consultation platform.
We had worked on an extensive platform that attempts to solve health issues for large number of people around the world. We have been successful so far with over 100000+ registered users and over 800+ doctors from around the world connecting in the common spirit of a better health on our platform.
We started ideating something on the lines of making everyone’s whatsapp, present in every mobile phone a means of facilitating a healthy, effective, doctor-patient communication model that could further Icliniq’s reach and at the same time, attempt to bring a medical query model to everyone’s handheld device.
The way WhatsApp a Doctor works is very simple. It lets you send a WhatsApp message to Icliniq’s helpline number and submit your health queries along with attachments, just in the way you’d whatsapp a friend of yours 🙂
We are trying to find our feet with this service, and we are offering everyone’s first query free. This means you can get to try this service right now by whiffing out your mobile phone and blasting out a message that says “Hi” to +91-99-432-70000 and see the magic happen.
We have a landing page that goes into great detail at explaining how simple it is to ask for and receive medical advice right out of your handheld device. The service has a dedicated page here and at any point in time, if you need any assistance, feel free to drop in a line to our support executives on the site via Chat.
iCliniq has it’s social media presence that aims to disseminate health relevant content that promotes wellness on Facebook and Twitter .
Please get in touch with us on twitter with @icliniq or drop in a line at icliniq(at)icliniq.com if you’re as excited as we are on this ! Please give your feedback and we will keep improving the service with your help. 🙂
asha chaudhry
many congrats dhruv!!
nothing makes us happier than seeing a rodinhooder launch a venture after getting some constructive feedback from trhs 🙂
all the best!
ps: i checked out the query for tips on infants flying – the dr’s advice is perfect. i can vouch for it :)))
asha chaudhry
quick reaction – you need to get some branding done dhruv. can’t see the logo of WhatsApp a Doctor.
it could be a brand & product brought to you by Icliniq.
But WhatsApp a Doctor will soon need to have its own identity. it’s easier to remember etc
Dhruv kumar
Hi Asha,
Thanks a lot. :). It was all because of this community. I look forward for more feedback to improve this. 🙂
Yes. Our doctors are top-notch. Hence the answers are good too. 🙂
Dhruv kumar
Hi Asha,
Yes. We contemplated to promote the logo but we were worried about the legal issues. Do you think that this thought of ours is valid?
We want to roll it out on all IM’s 🙂
Arjun Sarin
Congratulations… this is awesome….. I tried using the service it just incredible.
I have just one question when you say you have 100000+ registered users are all of them connected to you through whatsapp, if Yes how do you manage handling so many users on Whatsapp ?
Dhruv kumar
Hi Arjun,
Thanks a lot. We are totally happy that you love the service. 🙂
Well. The 100000+ users are already users of icliniq’s web version icliniq.com. 🙂 This helped us gain confidence to add IM’s like whatsapp as a mode of asking questions. Yes. The initial acceptance of whatsapp as an option among our users show a huge surge for this mode. Also icliniq’s intelligent doctor recommendation system is so powerful that it will choose the best doctor for a particular query. Its because of the data intelligence from our web stint. We do not need much manpower to allocate the query to a doctor because of this.
Btw we are bootstrapped 😉 So when you have less money to work with, obviously you are forced to innovate. We want to remain this way atleast for some more time so that our brains will work hard to make nice things possible.
Dhruv kumar
Hi guys,
Whatsapp has banned our number which means they have banned our service. Anyways we will move to telegram soon. Guess whatsapp has not realised the potential (or value) of their platform yet.
Greg Acuna
Hey Dhruv,
Sorry to hear about the problem with Whatsapp. It might be helpful if you can share details about the ban. Perhaps with more information people on the group might have ideas on how to overcome the problem and of course your experience may serve as a warning on how to avoid the same. Curious what terms of service violation they are using to shut down your service.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
Can you share the Whatsapp ban message on this main blog page?
Dhruv kumar
Hi Alok,
This is possible one of the causes of ban :”WhatsApp is likely to ban your accounts if you: – Send messages to people who doesn’t have your number in their phone book – Start many chats to people who has never written to you before.”
We had whatsapped messages to people who had typed their numbers expressing interest for whatsapp a doctor with icliniq on our “Get in touch with us” area on icliniq.com/whatsapp/index. We did that because we thought its easy for them to save the number.
Yes. Right after the ban (day before yesterday), we were quickly building the same kind of model on telegram app. Sorry for the late reply. I am just logging to Rodinhoods as we completely shut ourselves to get back to work and come up with a solution. We wanted to talk with a solution than only coming here to reply to talk about things that did not work out. 🙂 I am sure this is what you will like in us too. 🙂
And Telegram has wonderful API’s and our work is much more easier on it. Whatsapp does not have API’s. We are now doing testing with our Telegram access and it provides much better experience for a customer and also its easier for us as we can give an even more seamless experience.
We will soon launch it first with my fellow Rodinhooders with a much better experience. 🙂
Dhruv kumar
Hi Greg,
Thank you for your support. Maybe Whatsapp banned us because of an issue like this on their rulebooks—> “WhatsApp is likely to ban your accounts if you: – Send messages to people who doesn’t have your number in their phone book – Start many chats to people who has never written to you before”. We did not get a clear reply from them.
We had thought that only when people complain, they would ban us. We were not spamming anyone but sending WhatsApp messages to people who asked. It was to help them save our number easily. We seriously feel WhatsApp is missing on a tremendous opportunity to help people use their platform to provide incredible services.
Imagine what people can create if they allow Whatsapp channels and provide API’s. It looks like Facebook bought WhatsApp just to understood the product and for user base and MORE IMPORTANTLY improve their messenger app. It can be easy for anyone to develop on WhatsApp too. One need not focus on UI as people are already used to WhatsApp UI.
WhatsApp channels can change lot of things and influence a paradigm shift. There won’t be a need for most of the apps on our phone. Just WhatsApp with various channels. Imagine having a Times Of India WhatsApp channel that can send you news. Or imagine having a blood donation channel to link everyone. The list goes on.
Its time for Mark Zuckerberg to notice this.
Omkar Nisal
That is pretty awesome use of AI !!!
AIML rocks for sure! What are you using for this setup?
Could you kindly share the details : Whatsapp api, ALICE / Personality finder bot / jabberwhacky /other / own custom bot , what server specs?
I am assuming docs are also connected to the system via their whatsapp !
Cheers and well done!
I had created couple of bots just for fun and for doing repetitive stuff (this was pre IFTTT) …. and wanted to use these bots for sharing specific top knowledge easily.
Chat Bots are pretty interesting in deed.
Omkar Nisal
Just get a new set of numbers and re start the whatsapp thing.
This time let users send message to you first. Maybe you can send even transactional sms (if budget permits) to each new number once. Bulk Sms senders allow sender number to be your number.
Dont give upon whatsapp! 🙂
By the way since twitter has also opened up DM text limit, have you considered auto follow to your special twitter handle ? that way DM is auto enabled for every person who follows you.
I am sure you already are doing same for emails. right? I mean every smartphone has email app in it!
Good Luck!