Alanna Brewton has been a therapist for 25 years. She runs Breathe Wellness Center in Kannapolis, North Carolina, where she helps clients through counseling, addiction treatment, and wellness programs. Her days are full. Her sessions are back to back. And for a long time, the phone was one more thing demanding her attention.
Challenge
Most people calling Breathe Wellness Center want the same thing: to schedule an appointment. But for Alanna, picking up the phone or checking voicemail between sessions meant giving up the only downtime she had.
"I work all day, and dread checking my voicemail at the end of the day because that means I needed to work even more," she says.
The nature of therapy makes it worse. Each session requires full presence with someone working through real pain. When the hour ends, recovery matters.
"As far as handling the calls, it was hard between sessions to check those messages because you want to take a break between sessions," Alanna says.
She needed something that could handle the routine, direct callers to book online, and only surface what truly required her attention.
Solution
Alanna looked into answering services and found Upfirst easier to work with than the alternatives. "I think you were easier to navigate than other sites," she says.
One feature made the decision easy. "I love that you would text them a link to my online portal. That was a big deciding factor." Since most callers just want to book a session, Upfirst sends them straight to her scheduling page without Alanna lifting a finger.
For callers with other needs, the AI handles those too. "It does seem to flow pretty seamlessly as far as you all being able to capture information," she says. "If they have another concern, it's able to answer that question and give them the information of, 'okay, you need to email Alanna this.'"
Results
The biggest change isn't operational. It's emotional. The weight of unanswered calls is gone.
"To have that looming over your head of having to call somebody back right away, kind of taken away, has been amazing," Alanna says.
She takes real breaks between sessions now. Clients still get answers. Appointments still get booked. And Alanna can focus on the work she's done for 25 years.
She's already telling other therapists about it. "I've recommended you all to other therapists, because a lot of therapists struggle with that," she says. "You are working all day with people in pain for an hour, and then after that hour you want to take a break."
