# Eligibility answered in minutes, not days > How Teckro enabled a targeted communication strategy to build 87% site engagement on a difficult-to-recruit study - and resolved every site query raised. **Published:** Aug 4, 2026 --- # Eligibility Answered in Minutes, Not Days How a targeted communication strategy built 87% site engagement on a difficult-to-recruit study - and resolved every site query raised. --- **In studies with narrow eligibility, recruitment is lost in moments.** Eligible candidates are scarce, each carries a tight window for consent and randomization, and a missed opportunity is rarely replaceable. Between candidates, the study fades from site awareness: protocol familiarity declines, inclusion criteria blur, and the study drops down the priority list at busy sites. Then a candidate appears - and the site has a question. Under a conventional operating model, that question enters an email thread. Response timing depends on inbox queues, time zones, and out-of-office coverage. The site waits. In a narrow recruitment window, waiting is often the difference between enrollment and loss. The costs of that latency are rarely itemized. They surface later, as a screening curve that lags plan and a study team weighing rescue options - by which point the moments that decided it are months in the past. Data from a Phase IIa nephrology study running across 54 registered sites shows what changes when both problems — study fade and query latency — are managed deliberately. ## A standard, built from zero ![Image]([image]) *Site Engagement by Month - Percentage of registered sites that engaged trending month on month* Every study starts at zero engagement. This one did not stay there. From activation, the study team ran a sustained, targeted communication strategy: investigator newsletters, key eligibility criteria alerts, pharmacy and lab manuals, IMP handling guidance, and local study team updates for individual markets - with open rates between 52% and 82%. Alongside that cadence, dedicated Connect query groups gave sites a direct, monitored channel for eligibility and medical questions. Engagement built month by month to a peak of 81% of registered sites, and has held at or above roughly 70% for four consecutive months. On the trailing 90-day measure, 87% of registered sites - 47 of 54 - are engaged with the study. This was not a launch spike: monthly engagement climbed for six consecutive months before settling into a sustained band in the low-to-mid 70s. Because the status is measured consistently at site level and refreshed on a regular cadence, the study team could see the standard being built - and see where it was not. **What the data shows** - Site engagement stands at 87% of registered sites on the trailing 90-day measure (47 of 54). - 56 Connect conversations were raised across seven query groups - and every one was resolved. Zero open, zero unanswered. - More than 8 in 10 of those conversations (47 of 56) were eligibility or medical queries - the questions that sit directly on the recruitment path. - In the largest group, eligibility and medical queries, time to first response was 29 minutes. The fastest groups answered in 3-4 minutes. - Sites rated the service they received at 5.0 of 5, sustained through the full communication cadence. **Connect query resolution** ![Image]([image]) Talk to us about engagement on your studies. ## The query channel is the conversion point The pattern in the queries matters as much as the speed. When sites ask about eligibility, they are holding a candidate. A first response in minutes keeps the decision inside the recruitment window; a reply measured in days frequently does not. One eligibility question on this study, raised over a holiday weekend, was answered within minutes - and the participant was consented and randomized the same day. Nothing in that exchange required new behavior from the site. It required a channel that was already open, already monitored, and already tied to the study - so the question went to people positioned to answer it, rather than to an inbox that might. The sentiment data closes the loop. A service rating of 5.0 of 5 comes from the sites actually using the channel. Sites do not rate a communication model that adds burden; they rate one that removes it. > A study run this way produces evidence rather than anecdote: which sites are present, which questions recur, where the protocol creates friction. ## From communication to execution Engagement and response time are usually treated as soft measures. Measured continuously, they become control points. Sustained engagement keeps the study present at sites between candidates - the periods when conventional oversight sees nothing. Rapid query resolution converts the moment a candidate appears. Neither shows up on a recruitment dashboard until it is too late to act on. The impact compounds. A single resolved question may secure one participant. Across a study where nearly every eligible participant matters, those moments are the recruitment curve. Across a portfolio, they change how predictably studies deliver. There is a record-keeping argument, too. A study run this way produces evidence rather than anecdote: which sites are present, which questions recur, where the protocol creates friction. Every exchange is captured in a single, auditable environment - and that record compounds across studies in a way email threads never will. ## See how Teckro turns engagement into an execution signal Connect with our experts for a personalized introduction to our solution and the data that powers it. - Request a demo