Goal for the Month:

One agency reported great success with a “beat the summer heat” theme in conjunction with case conferences held between June and August.  Prizes awarded to attendees included free movie and water park passes, frozen yogurt gift certificates, squirt guns and sand toys.

Fresh homemade lemonade can be served on the days that the field staff are in the office and during all meetings and conferences.  Other variations on the “beat the heat” theme include:  watermelon themed meetings complete with seed spitting contests during the lunch hour, make your own ice cream sundae day and root beer float day.

Monthly Reminders:

Time to start making plans for Halloween, Thanksgiving and other Fall celebrations.  Make your recipient lists and order sufficient quantities of giveaways and other necessary materials to support all of your key accounts.

Other Important (and some not so important) Observations:

Black Business Month
Cataract Awareness Month
Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month
May Your Reading Be a Haven Month
National Immunization Awareness Month
National Inventors’ Month
National Win with Civility Month
Admit You’re Happy Month

Excerpted from 101 Home Care Promotional Strategies That Deliver Legendary Results Without Busting Your Budget by Michael Ferris.

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

“Ability is what you’re capable of doing.  Motivation determines what you do.  Attitude determines how well you do it.”

~ Lou Holtz - Former football coach, author, motivational speaker

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

In today’s competitive home care marketplace, increasingly the decision to use one provider over another is based solely on the agency’s ability to deliver noticeably superior customer service.  The only way to consistently deliver superior service is by creating and maintaining a culture that is dedicated to customer service.

How to create that culture is one of the top questions I am asked.  And unfortunately there is no magic answer.  It takes a total commitment to creating the culture from the top to the bottom of the organization and time.  The good news is that to outshine your competition may not take perfection right away.  Also, as I like to point out, it costs no more to deliver great service than to deliver bad service.  In fact, it can be shown that it is more cost effective to provide great service.

Home care is populated with incredible people; home care people are wonderful and caring individuals.  Home care as an industry, however, does not get the credit it is due because of its longstanding poor customer service practices.  Historically, agencies have not been compelled to invest in customer service.  As a result, now they have to devise a program to make customer service a priority in their agency culture.  If you were asked to name three companies that you admire most for their customer service experience, which would you name?  A bank, a restaurant, an airline or a department store may come to mind, but probably not a home care agency.

A truly great example is Southwest Airlines.  They have a very unique culture, one that has survived despite tremendous growth.  Many parallels may be drawn between their business and a home care agency.  Both have a workforce that is spread out geographically and don’t have the opportunity to all come together at one time.  They both provide services that are dependant upon being on time and delivering on the expectations of their customers.  And both must deliver extraordinary service while tightly controlling costs.  One need only look at Southwest’s success to realize the value in creating a business model and a culture that are based on a foundation of customer service.  An interesting statistic that belies this point is that the market capitalization of Southwest Airlines now exceeds the combined market value of all of the major airlines in this country combined.

You agency’s leadership must be steadfast in their belief that their unique advantage lies with the ability to provide great service.  You must encourage your staff to find ways to add those little unexpected personal touches to what you do.  Those small efforts will ultimately be repaid with enormous returns of goodwill in your community.  This behavior is cultural and must be encouraged and empowered.  After a time, these types of random acts of service will just happen naturally.  Until that time the Customer Service Champion in your organization will need to watch for acts to recognize; dig for opportunities; help staff realize them; and of course, be on the lookout for overkill or acts that don’t make sense (financially or otherwise) or are not consistent with the agency’s values.

To your customers, the true mark of your agency’s commitment to service excellence will not be what is seen in your marketing brochure, but rather the way that your agency responds when something goes wrong. 

By partnering closely with the other medical professionals involved with your patients’ care, you will make them look better as a result of your customer service focus.  Since there is no blame in a true and strong service culture, it allows the physicians and others to be viewed as allies and not adversaries.  This brings additional value to your relationship with these important health care professionals.  And, it ultimately will increase their loyalty, and the number of referrals and recommendations that you receive from them.

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

What your agency does when there is a problem will determine your long-term success.  You must empower your staff to rejoice whenever there is a problem!  Every problem is a golden opportunity to build a stronger relationship with your customers.  Studies have shown that customers whose complaints are handled satisfactorily and in an expeditious manner are more likely to purchase additional services than those who experienced no problems with your services.  Since most of your competition probably runs from problems, this ability becomes a tremendous strategic advantage.

The opportunity is to build strong relationships with your referral sources by being visible and proactive when there are problems.  This single strategy will grow your stream of referrals better than any other strategy you may implement.  By maintaining high values and resolving problems that arise, you are building a very strong foundation for being a preferred provider for many years to come.

Service recovery or conflict resolution is all about keeping your customers satisfied and loyal users of your services despite problems that have surfaced.  This means that even if there is a service disaster, your customer still views your agency as the best to provide the services required.  It is the special effort that your customers will come to expect from your agency when something has gone a little or a lot wrong for them.  Service recovery is all about restoring trust when your customer is most likely to doubt your agency’s abilities.

The other thing that conflict resolution provides as a benefit is the opportunity to “train” your patients and clients as well as your staff.  Every interaction surrounding a service problem will be valuable to the training process.  This means that you will want to document many of these service recoveries to use with future staff training.  It will also underscore the importance of clear communication.

The economics of service recovery are easy to quantify, if you do nothing you lose customers and undermine your entire program.  If you are able to satisfy your customer’s problems you will actually end up with more loyalty than if there were no problems.  And while we would not suggest you create problems just to solidify your relationships with your customers, you must see problems as great service opportunities.  Your staff will really shine once they are great at problem resolution. 

Nothing is gained by winning an argument and losing a customer.

Since we know that customers won’t always seek us out to report service problems, we must be adept at probing for information and detecting problems.  In your satisfaction surveys or customer service profiling, always be on the lookout for suggestions for improvement and complaints.  Respond and let your survey respondents know that you appreciate their input and will use their response to aid with service improvement and report back to them.  Invite them to establish an ongoing dialogue with your agency to keep them providing additional ideas and suggestions.

Remember the golden rule:  to treat others, as you would like to be treated.  Think of how you would like to have the problem resolved if the tables were turned.  Don’t spend your time thinking about how it should be resolved to best suit your agency.  In other words, always put yourself in the customer’s shoes when analyzing how to best fix a service breakdown.

When a customer lodges a complaint, it can either be resolved or not, and if resolved, it can be resolved quickly or not.  Quick resolution is the ideal situation, but not all situations can be resolved quickly.  All situations must be analyzed quickly and communication regarding the problem and potential resolutions shared with the customer.  Ignoring a problem is the worst thing that can happen.  Any amount of time that elapses between your being made aware of the complaint and your taking action is going to be perceived by the customer as you ignoring them.

Remember that any problem that was significant enough to warrant complaining by your customer cannot be ignored or put on a list of low priority items.  If your customer felt strongly enough to bring it to your agency’s attention, then you must treat it with equal priority.  On the first contact, you must tell them what to expect. 

Your competitors may try to copy many things that you do, but they’ll never be able to replicate your legendary service culture.

The bottom line is this:  Resolution of customer complaints, concerns or problems and the return of that customer to a state of satisfaction with your agency have a profound effect on your agency.  It has an enormous financial reward for the agency.  It enables continued growth and saves on marketing expenses.  It is critical to the long-term success of your customer relationship program.  And, it will create stronger teams within your agency with greater pride and loyalty.  Problems provide ongoing diagnostics of your service program.  And, you will be building a strong bond between the agency and your staff as well as your agency and its customers. 

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

Take a walk in your customer’s shoes.  What do they like?  What are their needs?  How do they view your agency and the services it provides?  These are things that you must know in order to accurately target your message to your intended market.  This is accomplished through several activities designed to keep in touch with your customer.

Research! Research! Research!  How many potential patients does your referral source serve?  What is the typical referral (e.g., illnesses, companionship needed, Alzheimer’s or dementia, chronic vs. acute)?  Which other agencies do they send referrals to and why?  What do we do great?  What needs work?

Have a system in place to trap the compliments as they are received and include them in your overall evaluation.  Look not only at who is complimenting the agency but also why.  What is important to this person and what made a big enough impact to motivate them to take the time to let your agency know what a great job it did?  These are important elements to consider as you are updating your customer profile.

Whatever you do, do research regularly and consistently and use the data to improve your marketing and customer service initiatives.  The best time to ask someone for a referral is when they are pleased with your services.  Ask for referrals in the course of your research.  Include a return form with your satisfaction surveys that asks for three referrals.  Make sure your investment in satisfaction surveying and quality improvement has a positive impact on your image, relationships with customers and marketing program.

Excerpted from 101 Home Care Promotional Strategies That Deliver Legendary Results Without Busting Your Budget by Michael Ferris.

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

Start with the Fourth of July and keep the theme going all month.  Since there will be many families traveling to visit relatives, it would be a good time to celebrate the lives of our seniors and their families.

Monthly Reminders:

Start planning for the fall holidays!  Make sure to finalize your orders for holiday cards, calendars, gifts, etc.

Holidays and Important Dates:
Fourth of July

Other Important (and some not so important) Observations:

Anti-Boredom Month
Cell Phone Courtesy Month
Eye Injury Prevention Month
Herbal/Prescription Awareness Month
National Baked Beans Month
National Culinary Arts Month
National Hot Dog Month
National July Belongs to Blueberries Month
National Purposeful Parenting Month
National Recreation and Parks Month
National Water Gardening Month
Social Wellness Month
Women’s Motorcycle Month

Excerpted from 101 Home Care Promotional Strategies That Deliver Legendary Results Without Busting Your Budget by Michael Ferris.

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

Frequently I am asked how marketing not-for-profit home care services differs from marketing for-profit home care services.  The simple answer is that the basics aren’t any different!  The need to market is the same within the community no matter what the type of agency.  But when you dig deeper, you will find that the need to market today at not-for-profit agencies is probably greater than at for profit agencies.  In fact, I have been getting more calls from not-for-profits lately than ever before.

This is because most of the not-for-profits are behind in the game.  For years they have not had to market and have been successful.  Now they find themselves being told by their boards of directors that they have to be more self sustaining—and the way to do so is generally by generating more business with less overhead.  The typical not-for-profit today is subject to more accountability for its financial success and at the same time they are the subject of greater competition.  The old saying, “You must first do well, before you are able to do good,” is certainly true in home care today.

Here are some tips for successfully marketing a not-for-profit home care agency:

- Enlist your board and foundation members in the marketing effort.  They know a lot of people in the community.  Ask for their help in making introductions to potential referral sources or influencers.  If you haven’t asked lately, you should do so.  You cannot count on them to take the initiative.

- Play to your strengths and highlight what makes your agency unique.  What are you known for in the community?  Use these strategic advantages in all of your marketing efforts.

- Package specialty programs around core competencies.  There are certain things that your agency does very well.  This usually means that you have staff that are trained in the specialty, like this type of care or that you get paid best to perform.  Many times every home care agency in town offers the same services.  But to really promote them, you should package a specialty program around these core competencies so that your agency will stand out as the best choice for these types of referrals.

- Make it easy to deal with your agency.  Customer service is very important and the first step to customer service excellence is to be easy to work with.  Intake should be easy to access, friendly and service oriented.  The referral process should be as easy to complete as possible to maximize the number of referrals.  Take a moment to analyze your processes and make sure that you are easy to work with.

- If you provide charity care to low or no income patients, use this to a marketing advantage.  This is a commendable and needed community service.  Make sure that the referral sources that send you these patients also know that you would like to have their Medicare patients as well.  Your competition probably doesn’t provide charity care, so make sure they don’t get all of the profitable cases.

- Enlist your entire staff in the marketing efforts and give them the tools to tell the world about the agency and its services.

- Hire an outside sales team.  There needs to be someone out calling on referral sources on a regular basis and in person.

- Have a clear and consistent message.

These are just some basic ideas to implement to effectively and efficiently market your agency.  Good luck and happy marketing!

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

Organizations can use important milestones to anchor marketing messages in their communities.  The fact that the agency has served the community for ten, twenty, or twenty-five years, adds credibility and provides a point of differentiation. 

Celebrating a milestone is important for marketing to the community, to the internal customers, and to your employees.  The agency staff will be proud to be part of this celebration, and even if they’ve only been on board for two years, they will be more likely to stay with the agency.  So two important benefits of celebrating milestones are greater retention of marketing messages, and increased staff retention.

Paint the picture of world class excellence.  Anytime you can add tangible proof to a message that reinforces stability and service to community, you should do so.  Pride will exude from your staff and referral sources.  Everyone wants to be associated with a winner.  Use these same tactics to celebrate awards and other achievements.

How to Promote Milestones

Have anniversary apparel and pins made for your staff to wear proudly.  Buttons, plaques, trophies, and other commemorative items are very effective to thank staff and referral sources.

Look at everything you plan through public relations lenses.  Be proactively seeking ways to turn business events into publicity.  As an example, Great Lakes Home Health and Hospice decided to purchase a fleet of company cars in response to the rising cost of mileage and hardship on the field staff.  From a business perspective it makes perfect sense, and is not necessarily a newsworthy event.  They selected the top mileage employees to qualify for a car. 

Here’s where it gets interesting. The cars were painted red with a white number 1 and “Nurse Car” on the sides and top.  The cars were painted much like NASCAR cars and act as rolling billboards.  Because they are so unique, Ford Motor Company had their PR department get involved, and national and local media covered the event.  The cars were delivered to the staff members at a special ceremony at the Michigan International Speedway.

Public relations, particularly press releases, should be utilized to get the word out to the community about the milestone, as well as those activities that are created to celebrate it.  Send press releases to local media, industry media, and online.  The reason to release online is to get the search engines to find your agency more frequently when someone “Googles” home care or hospice in your community.  There are services that will do this for you; some are even free.  Check out www.prweb.com to see how it works.

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

My job is fun.  I love what I do, getting to work with the fun part of home care and hospice—sales and marketing.  And we have never been busier!  Every agency is different and has different needs.  That means that there is never a dull day.  But there is one thing that doesn’t change; new clients come to my firm because they suffer from one of more of the following symptoms:

- Market share is eroding
- Referrals have either leveled off or are in a decline
- Case mix has shifted to one that is less profitable
- Board of Directors has told management to increase revenues and or profitability
- Hospice census and or average length of stay has decreased

Longevity can be a detriment.  Just because your agency has been serving your community for many years, you cannot assume that the referral sources know and appreciate this.  It is easy to get complacent and act as though you own the referral source because you have served their patients for many years.  Get credit for your greatness—including the many years you have served your community!

The fact is that competition is growing with each and every month—in every market.  This should provide sufficient impetus to act.  If you wait for the negative effects of competition to show up, it will take that much more to regain momentum and market share.  Evaluate your competitive environment on a regular basis and be proactive.

There are some things that we have control over and many others that are not controllable.  New agencies expanding into your service areas are not something you can control.  It’s important that you take all of the worry about increased competition from your public statements.  You can create a self fulfilling prophecy by having the increased competition provide negative motivation.  Strategically you must know your competition and how you will maintain your market growth but you will gain nothing by bemoaning the increased competition.

Declining market share is caused by either more agencies fighting for fewer referrals or market share refers to that portion of the total number of referrals in your service area that your agency enjoys.  Do you know your market share?  This is a key statistic to know so that you can monitor where you stand overall in your market.

Declining revenues can also result in a changing case mix.  If the competition is taking the better, higher paying HHRGs and leaving the others for you—you are getting outsold.  Don’t let this happen.  You must determine how they are doing this and then go after them in the marketplace full force.  The referral sources often think that by giving you the private insurance cases and the competition the Medicare cases, that they are doing you a favor.  Perhaps they don’t understand the current reimbursement scenario and just need to be educated and reminded.  Don’t get surprised by dramatic changes that are not caught and show up as problems in the next quarter.

No formal sales training is a very good example of how agencies are squandering budgeted dollars.  The cost of having an outside sales team is high, so agencies must make sure that the investment pays the highest dividends.  The same agencies that wouldn’t think of sending untrained clinical staff to see a patient, send untrained marketers (sales people) out to call on the lifeblood of the agency—their referral sources.  When compared to the aggregate salaries paid to the members of the sales team, the cost of providing adequate ongoing sales training is minimal.  This is a true loss of opportunity.

Lack of sales management is another common missed opportunity.  If you have to select between investing in training for the sales team or training and support for the sales management, always invest in the management.  Then they can coach, train, mentor and lead the sales team to greatness.  Agencies that have invested heavily in a sales team and have poor sales management support for the team, will never see the maximum results from the overall sales program.

Once the sales team and the sales management are hitting on all cylinders, then it is time to look for ways to improve the sales skills and practices of the intake (or admissions) department.  They must also be trained to ask the right questions and to maximize the productivity in their department.  The staff should embrace the idea that they are the inside sales team.

Long term clients know that to stand still is to fall behind.  They know that we have to work very hard to stay ahead of the competition.  Don’t get outsold—never rest on your laurels, work hard to maintain your growth rate and stay ahead of the competition.  Plan to outsell the competition at every opportunity and see your referrals grow.  Happy Sales and Marketing!

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

Goal for the Month of June: 

The theme for the month of June needs to be to maximize referrals before the summer begins in earnest.  It is too easy to blame dips in referrals on seasonality—don’t let it happen.  Be proactive and maintain promotional efforts all summer long to keep your numbers up.

Monthly Reminders:

Lots of weddings and even more anniversaries to celebrate.  Keep a list of all of your referral sources’ anniversaries so that you can send them a card or take them a small gift.  Make sure to keep your ear to the ground so that you know when their children plan to marry.

Holidays and Important Dates in June:

Adopt-a-shelter-car Month
Cancer from the Sun Month
Child Vision Awareness Month
Children’s Awareness Month
Effective Communication Month
Entrepreneurs “Do It Yourself” Marketing Month
Dairy Month
Fireworks Eye Safety Month
International People Skills Month
National Aphasia Awareness Month
National Candy Month
National Iced Tea Month
National Rivers Month
National Rose Month
National Safety Month
Potty Training Awareness Month
Professional Wellness Month
Sports America Kids Month
Student Safety Month
Turkey Lovers’ Month
Vision Research Month
Rebuild Your Life Month

Excerpted from 101 Promotional Strategies That Deliver Legendary Results without Busting Your Budget! by Michael Ferris

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

This week’s post is a follow-up to last week’s article on emerging trends in home care and hospice sales and marketing.  This week, we’ll address some current trends that will help your agency meet the competitive challenges in our industry.

Integration with physician practices through the creation of specialty programs continues to work well.  The deeper the integration of the home care agency with the referral source’s practice, the harder it is for the competition to siphon off any business.  Find out how the agency can best serve the referral source by enhancing their ability to provide excellent care and outcomes for their patients.

On the subject of outcomes, there is a continued focus on quality measures and they are being used aggressively to market an agency’s services.  Home Care Compare and other datasets are being used to generate graphical representations that show the benefits and advantages of working with a specific agency.  As the prospect of pay for performance becomes more visible across the entire Medicare continuum of care, there will be more interest in working with agencies that can improve the other provider’s outcomes.

Agencies are having good success using telehealth along with specialty programs as points of differentiation.  The key to these agencies success lies in their ability to communicate the benefits to the referral sources of these programs.  This is accomplished by training their sales people how to sell the benefits and creating collateral materials to support the sales effort.  Specific needs must be uncovered for the referral source and a telehealth solution presented.  Due to the barriers to entry in the home telehealth field, this continues to be an important differentiating factor.

Sales and customer service training for the intake department is paying big dividends.  Since the bulk of referrals are handled by these staff members, it only makes sense to train them to listen for needs, suggest solutions and arrange to have a representative of the agency come to the home to aid the transition to the home.  In any other industry the internal sales department would be provided with ongoing training to increase the number and quality of sales.  Home care agencies totally overlook this element and as a result they make it more difficult to refer patients to the agency.  Making it as easy to refer to the agency has been proven to increase referrals dramatically.

There is an evolving trend in Medicare home health and hospice of using referral representatives to facilitate the admission of patient referrals.  These referral representatives are trained to be good at customer service and selling to the patients and their families.  Agencies are finding that their conversion ratio is rising dramatically and it is removing much of the admission paperwork and time from the nurses.  These representatives can be trained to install telehealth systems and train the patient and or caregivers to use them properly.  This allows more telehealth units to be placed in more patients’ homes with less stress on the nursing staff.

Private Duty agencies are having success offering “Peace of Mind” packages that provide the client’s family members a feeling of security.  These packages include some standard services such as home makers and medication tray set-up.  By adding either daily phone calls or telehealth or both, the agency provides a higher level of security.  This is an emerging market for telehealth.  Private duty agencies can set up their own programs or in most cases will partner with a local agency that offers telehealth services.  Additionally, since so many family members live in another area of the country the agencies have set up e-mail and or phone updates to keep them apprised of their family member’s current status.  The secret to success is to package the services and then market the benefits not the features.

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

Home care and hospice marketing is constantly evolving, which is reflective of our industry.  Each year brings added levels of sophistication to sales and marketing programs.  Couple this with a substantial increase in the investment by home care and hospice in sales and marketing, and you’ll see that the major industry trend is towards increased competitive pressures.  This week’s column provides some insights from the current marketplace which are intended to collectively enable your agency to meet these challenges.

Agencies of all sizes and shapes are scrambling to protect their flow of referrals and increase them.  The level of competition in all parts of the country (with the exception of one or two CON states) is fierce.  An appropriate question, then, is “What should I be doing to market my services?”

Why Market?

From time to time, I encounter home care or hospice executives who pose the question, “Why should I market?” My response is a question put to them quite simply, “Do you want to ensure the financial success of your agency so that you can continue to provide your community with the best medical care?” The key way to ensure future success is to create a strong marketing program now that establishes and supports your agency’s “brand” in the community, and one that cements your agency in referral sources’ minds as their home care provider of choice.  Do you know what your brand is?  Do your customers?  What type of service or program do you provide that stands distinct and apart from your competitors?  What makes your operation unique?  The answers to these questions are ones that will shape the ultimate conceptualization of your marketing plan.

Marketing, after all, is simply just giving the consumer what he or she wants.  The art of marketing lies in crafting a message and providing a corresponding delivery mechanism to reach the target audience in the most efficient fashion.  The task at hand is to translate sales and marketing best practices to the home care arena, and refine it to fit your agency.  Then shape the message to highlight the differentiating factors for each segment of the market you serve.

One very important distinction that needs to be made is between marketing and sales.  Marketing is getting the message out to the marketplace, and sales is actually getting the referral.  Your agency staff should all be sales people.  That’s a statement that gets home care and hospice professionals worried.  It was tough enough for them to buy that they were all in marketing; now they are expected to be sales people?  A culture change in your agency will take time, so start now.

Next week:  What’s currently working in the industry?

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

Brand loyalty is not just for the conglomerates and big businesses.  Smart branding is the best way to maximize your results.  Your brand is simply defined as the positive or negative inclination to select your home health or hospice agency over another.  It is the aggregation of the sales presentations, stories and relationships with the community.  It is the difference between being viewed as a commodity and not.

Selling a service vs. selling product is a much more difficult brand to build.  There is no “widget” to use with varying degrees of customer satisfaction.  There is no packaging to use to brand the product in the customer’s minds.  At past NAHC Annual Meetings there have been incredible leaders from many industries as diverse as Ritz-Carlton and Harley Davidson.  They have shared the essence of what they have built as their brand, their promise to their customers.  In home care and hospice this is where we need to focus—our promise to the patients, their families and the community.

I believe that we should look at our companies as being in the hospitality industry.  There are many correlations to our industry with the exception that we are delivering the service as a guest in their home.  As a result, it removes the ability to charm the customer with decor and vista.  I am sure that we have all had a less than stellar customer service encounter in a hotel that made up for it with ambiance.  This is not to forgive bad service, only to point out that we have less control over environment in our hospitality model!

The brand is a major investment that must be nurtured and supported with a consistent image, message and customer relationship.  Make it more tangible with stories and testimonials.  Provide the people your agency touches an easy mechanism to spread the word in the community.

Branding is not solely logos and colors, and it is not an exact discipline. Every element of outreach, every “conversation” with the potential customer must be taken into consideration because branding happens at every point of contact.

Consistency of message and image are important to building a strong brand.  Every time you use anything different you are “muddying” the water and making it more difficult for the consumer to latch onto your brand.  For this reason, it is vitally important that all elements of your agency use the logo, message, color, look and feel on a consistent basis.  Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by using multiple looks in the market.  Another element that causes some problems is when there is a name change.  This is a process that requires a long-term approach.  You must use the old name with the new for a period of two to three years to make sure that you do not lose customers for the wrong reason.  Even then it is prudent to maintain the listing in the phone book, on the Internet, etc. for the old name—just to catch those that didn’t get the new one!

First impressions are part of the brand created in the customer’s mind but it is truly the collective impressions on the customer by the agency.  These could happen through advertising and other outreach activities.  There are certain times in each relationship where the branding occurs.

Hospice providers have the benefit and the challenge of serving the end of life patient and their families.  There are two key seminal moments in the customer relationship for hospice agencies.  The first occurs during the admission process and the latter when the patient is actively dying.

One example of smart branding would be the agencies that have licensed the 1800HOMECARE vanity phone number.  The same principle that fueled the tremendous growth of 1800FLOWERS can work in our industry as well.  According to the findings of a June 2002 study by Response Marketing Group of Burlington, Vermont, nearly 60% of participants recalled the vanity numbers they had heard after only one exposure to a radio advertisement. 

Now that as an industry we have gone “from good to great,” the quest is now to go from great to greater!  The consumer is becoming more educated about home care and hospice, the competition is pushing the envelope and the value of your brand has never been more important.  The sales team has the chore of expanding the brand in the community; what are you doing to support them in this effort?  Your brand is your promise; the sales team and the care delivery teams are building it everyday!

Want to know what your brand is in the community?  Ask your customers and potential customers.

Until next week, Have Fun, Be Proud and Happy Selling!

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

You should plan to celebrate staff appreciation week and nurse appreciation week this month.  One agency created a billboard advertisement with a photo of their nurses and the caption “Our Thanks to Our Nurses.  Nurse Appreciation Week May 7-13.” This not only shows your staff that you care, but it also promotes your image in the community.  When they were recruiting nurses, they were amazed by how many cited the billboard in their decision to apply when they saw the classified ad.

This is National Older Americans Month—there are many ways to tie in a promotion this observance.  For example, co-sponsor an event with an organization for the elderly (AARP, Alzheimer’s Association, National Alliance for Caregiving, to name a few) at a senior center, retirement community or assisted living facility.

Monthly Reminders:

It’s time to start preparing for summer.  Take out those notes you made since you started talking with referral sources about their vacation plans months ago.  Bring something appropriate for the vacation the week before your referral source leaves.  Tie the gift to the trip or give something that will be helpful to the planning or packing process.

Excerpted from 101 Home Care Promotional Strategies That Deliver Legendary Results without Busting Your Budget! by Michael Ferris

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks

How an agency uses technology is becoming more important each year to the success of its marketing initiatives.  There are many uses of technology in home care marketing, and this article will attempt to provide a short summary of those being used most successfully.  These techniques allow an agency to maximize the benefits from their investment in their marketing programs.  These ideas will enable a home care agency’s limited marketing budget go further.

Web sites have not been significant drivers of business for home care agencies, so far.  They have become more prevalent and are expected of more substantial and successful agencies.  Consumers of home care services will be more likely to research potential agencies online than any single place (with the exception of Yellow Pages).  In the future it is expected that a significant portion of home care referrals will be handled via the Internet.  So it is in important for an agency to include a Web site in their marketing plans.  Web sites should be of simple design with the ability to request information made as easy as possible for the site visitor.  Simple is better when designing your home care Web site—so don’t over engineer your site.

E-mail can be a very effective marketing tool for home care agencies.  When developing mailing lists, the agency should always request e-mail addresses and the permission to send information.  Permission based marketing is always more powerful than spam (which will generate a negative marketing return).  Once an e-mail list is developed the agency immediately has a quick and inexpensive method of communication that will provide a strategic advantage.  This list can be segmented by areas of interest so that highly targeted marketing communication is possible.  (Good book to read on the subject: Permission Marketing by Seth Godin)

Communication with existing referral sources by e-mail can provide a strong competitive advantage.  Never make assumptions; be sure that the referral source would prefer e-mail communication before making use of it.  For really busy case managers in facilities with high tech systems, e-mail may be the preferred method of communication.  Additionally, e-mail is important for communicating with and maintaining an active network within the industry. 

List-serves, such as the one sponsored by the NAHC, are the fastest and most convenient methods of keeping up-to-date with changes in the home care industry.  If you are not availing yourself of this important and valuable benefit of membership from the NAHC, you should sign up today.  The members of the list-serve community will benefit from the combined expertise of the association staff and the membership of the association.  A provider can pose a question to the list and receive many great responses.  When there are legislative or regulatory changes affecting the industry, the members of the NAHC list-serve will be among the first to know.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is one of the fastest-growing areas of investment for all types of businesses in America.  Billions of dollars have been invested in CRM systems that have enabled the efficient delivery of customer service to their customers.  Home care, however, does not have a large budget for CRM systems investment.  The primary use of CRM in home care is to automate the marketing system and enable effective management of relationships with referral sources.  These systems allow an agency to keep track of the specific information about each referral source to allow the agency to enjoy a competitive advantage.  They will also allow for the automation of the sales reporting and management processes.  (More information about CRM for home care is available at www.homecareCRM.com)

Electronic order exchange is another area that is finally starting to gain some traction in the marketplace.  Services such as e-clickMD (www.eclickMD.com) allow the agency to send orders electronically to the physicians to review, sign and return.  The only drawback currently is that the physician must have the software installed on their system and should have a high-speed Internet connection.  HIPPA compliance is insured by this type of system as well as speeding up the processing of orders to allow for timely billing.

Cell phones are ubiquitous in our society today and can serve an important role in home care marketing.  For the salesperson in the field it allows key referral sources to be able to reach them directly when they need assistance.  Service is the critical element used to differentiate between agencies by top accounts.  Referral sources should be encouraged to call orders and referrals directly to the intake coordinators at the agency, in most cases.  Whatever is perceived as the platinum level of service by the referral source should be employed.

Intranets provide secure Web sites that are only accessible with password protection.  They can be very important tools to communicate with staff and referral sources.  They allow the agency to keep sensitive non-public information in an easy to access location.  Anytime communication is enhanced; so too is service.

Web logs or “blogs” are basically public forums for the discussion of topics of interest to the community.  Agencies can use them to provide an important source of information about the agency and home care in general.  They have become prevalent in many different industries but so far are not common in home care.  One thing to remember is that people can post anything that they like, so make sure that your service is good!  Blogs are great tools to use to enable support groups for patients and families with similar health concerns.  The agency can sponsor the blog and enable the discussion.

Facsimiles are commonly used to communicate with referral sources for home care agencies.  The most common use is to send orders for signature that are late in being returned.  Be cautious how you use this tactic as it can alienate some referral sources when they feel that they are receiving multiple copies of the same order.  The biggest marketing opportunity that is most often overlooked by home care agencies is the cover sheet.  It is an ideal advertising opportunity and it should be well-designed with an advertising message that is changed frequently.  Cover sheets should always be clean, first generation copies.  Too many times agencies create a poor image by sending forty-fourth generation, slightly crooked cover sheets that look awful.  (By definition they are never going to look better on the receiving end.)

Point of service devices are becoming more common for the clinical field staff.  The impact of these devices should be considered to make sure that from a marketing perspective they are being used appropriately.  First, the way that the relationship with the patient is impacted is important to consider.  Second, the marketing team should make sure to communicate the fact that the agency has invested in this technology and the benefits to the patient.  Finally, equip your sales team in the field with PDAs to use with their CRM solutions.

You are invariably already using many of these electronic tools at your agency.  But, have you incorporated them into your marketing plan?  Use technology to create another competitive advantage.  Happy marketing!

Comment on this article >> | No Trackbacks