Healthcare buying journeys don't fit a static funnel

Long, multi-stakeholder journeys created friction

Healthcare buyers research extensively, involve multiple stakeholders, and often stay anonymous until late in the process. NextGen's traditional forms and nurture flows weren't built to keep pace, and every extra step added delay to an already long buying cycle.

Generic experiences ignored specialty needs

‍A behavioral health prospect and an orthopedic prospect have almost nothing in common in what they need to see next. Treating every visitor the same meant NextGen's website couldn't speak to either of them with real relevance.

In-session buying intent went uncaptured

Visitors were showing NextGen exactly what they cared about through the content they engaged with and the searches that brought them in. Without a way to act on that signal in real time, that intent went unused the moment the visitor left the page.

Delayed follow-up cost high-intent buyers

‍Under the legacy model, a visitor filled out a form, entered a nurture track, and waited for SDR follow-up. By the time a rep reached out, the moment of intent had often already passed.

From capturing leads to creating buying conversations

Piper the AI SDR Agent — known internally at NextGen as Eli — has been part of NextGen's engagement strategy for more than two years, expanding over time from conversational engagement into Smart Forms, real-time meeting booking, AI-driven email, and most recently Eli, NextGen's multimodal AI SDR agent with Voice and Video.

Specialty-based personalization at every visit 

Eli dynamically tailors the conversation based on specialty, account type, on-site behavior, and content consumed. A behavioral health visitor sees behavioral health-specific messaging and proof points; an orthopedic visitor sees MSK workflow and scheduling content instead.

Real-time meeting booking beyond static forms 

Instead of routing every visitor into a form and a wait, Eli qualifies conversationally and lets high-intent buyers book a meeting instantly. SDRs engage at the exact moment of peak intent rather than after it has passed.

Intent-based conversational routing across the journey 

Eli reads search behavior, keyword triggers, and repeat visits, then pivots the conversation toward the solution areas a buyer is actually circling — automatically, without a human needing to catch the signal first.

AI email recovery for high-intent buyers who leave 

When a visitor is offered a meeting through Eli but exits before booking, an AI-driven email from Eli re-engages them with personalized, bespoke messaging, encouraging them to reconnect with an SDR. Buyers who used to disappear into a generic nurture stream are now recovered with messaging tailored to the exact moment they left off.

NextGen's AI-orchestrated engagement is turning traffic into pipeline

• $18.9M in pipeline generated in FY26
• 29,457 AI conversations powered by Eli in the last 12 months
• 1,050 meetings booked directly through Eli, with another 566 AI chats routed to SDRs for additional engagement

AI email is recovering high-intent buyers who almost got away NextGen's AI-generated top-of-funnel emails are seeing a 35% open rate, compared to 11% on traditional email campaigns targeting similar audiences. On the recovery side, 435 high-intent prospects who left the site before booking a meeting were re-engaged this fiscal year, generating a 75% open rate, a 26% click-through rate, and 91 incremental meetings booked.

What's Next: An AI engagement layer across the full customer lifecycle

NextGen sees Eli extending well beyond the website, into event concierge experiences, AI-powered outreach, webinar engagement, executive thought leadership, and AI-guided onboarding. With Salesforce Marketing Cloud Next, the team is working toward one connected buyer journey with unified behavioral intelligence and AI-generated personalization across every channel.