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How to leverage client surveys and feedback to market your agency and grow your home care business

Blog-01-Sep-01-2021-01-13-29-67-AM

We all know that the first step to solving a problem is acknowledging that there is a problem – but what if you don’t know about it in the first place? Use client surveys to get your answers. 

Did you know that  77% of people who are 50+  want to age in their community for as long as possible? Older adults want to age in place. The rise of hospital at-home  initiatives are making this wish a reality for many. Surveys can position your agency as the provider of choice using your clients’ voices.   

When you’re on an inquiry call with a prospective client, you may have heard them ask for client reviews or references on how you’re doing. You can address the benefits and features of your agency versus competitors, but you can only develop trust and rapport through social proof: the voices of your clients.  

In an article published in the  2021 Home Care Benchmarking Study, Vicki Hoak, the Executive Director of the Home Care Association of America said, “Consumer satisfaction surveys push agencies to provide better care and determine where they stand in relation to competitors and ultimately, become a better employer.” Use surveys as an opportunity to compare your agency with others–and to improve.   

Here are some tips on how you can use surveys and feedback to market and grow your business.  

Use surveys to get honest, unbiased feedback.   

The beauty of surveys lies in the depth of the information you didn’t know before. Your clients may not be 100% honest with you about their experience, even if you have a regular check-in cadence.  

This doesn’t mean that they don’t trust you or that they necessarily dislike your services.  

When you call clients about how your business is doing, they may find it awkward to say anything negative – since it’s about you and your services.   

Surveys should allow clients to remain anonymous if they choose to, and they provide agencies with honest and raw feedback to improve services.  

This is an opportunity for you to use client feedback as a mouthpiece for your marketing efforts. For example, if clients highlight features of your care that they appreciate like “quick response time to start care” or “use of  technology”  you can use their words and voices in your marketing.  

Using the voice of consumer marketing  will resonate better with prospective clients and their family members. Marketing takes more than saying that your services are great; consumers need to hear it from people like them.  

Create a plan to address actionable feedback.   

COVID-19 has presented home care with a unique opportunity to work from home for some. Whether you’re working in the office, in a hybrid format, or completely from home, your office team operates wherever the caregivers aren’t working.  

The distance between you and your clients is only physical. By giving your clients surveys, you can bridge the gaps between your office staff, clients, and caregivers.  

Surveys are a unique offering that you can market to clients. They aren’t required to open a home care agency – but it shows that you care. You’re taking the extra step to listen to your clients, sift through feedback, and take action to improve.   

When you get survey responses from clients and caregivers, the feedback is an opportunity for your agency to go over each type of feedback. Have a roundtable meeting with everyone in your office and go over what your results look like. All the good, with all the bad.   

Assign tasks to the appropriate personnel to address any negative feedback by fixing or optimizing operational processes. This will show each survey participant that you listened and that you genuinely care about their concerns. It will also show other clients that you planned to address feedback.  

 

Lead with what’s going well; fix what’s not going well.   

Surveys also highlight patterns and trends in the quality of care that you provide. The results may surprise you.   

Have you noticed positive feedback from a specific client grouping such as those that are needing post-stroke care? You can translate positive survey feedback as a springboard for condition-specific marketing campaigns.  

Conversely, you can do the opposite with negative feedback. If you’ve gotten negative survey feedback on something that you market heavily on, this might be an opportunity to sunset those efforts (while you’re fixing it) to highlight a different aspect of care that you excel at.  

To market, you must be human first.  

Nick Graham, the Global Head of Insights and Analytics of PepsiCo, said, “Empathy helps marketers break out of their blind spots, open their eyes to the human side of the consumer and flips the conversation from brand-led to people-led.” We are all humans first.  

Let your clients lead your marketing efforts. Surveys are a good way to gain traction as a people-led brand to anyone that checks out your website.  

Convey how your care will benefit clients in their life context – right now. Not everyone is looking for meal preparation and light housekeeping. Where are your clients seeing value?  

Use client surveys to learn what the best possible experience looks like and recreate this for every client that comes into your care. Plaster those experiences onto your website and marketing collateral.  

Home Care Pulse is a leading provider of detailed, unbiased client feedback—and the only survey system built specifically for home care. Surveys can help your clients become more loyal customers, and you can check us out  here. You’ll soon be on your way to reducing turnover rates and increasing client satisfaction rates like  Synergy  did!   


 This blog was written by Jennifer Lagemann of Home Care Pulse

Jennifer comes from a senior care background, beginning as a family caregiver, and working her way up into various home care administrative roles, ranging from scheduling coordination, to care management, and intake management. She has worked with over 5 agencies, including major franchises. She has a passion for writing and wanting to keep others informed – especially when it comes to searching for senior care options. 

 

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