Sometimes Big Companies Make Big Mistakes

Everyone remembers the fiasco with “new” Coke. Coca-Cola, normally a very smart marketing organization, forgot who their customers were. In their haste to compete with the Pepsi generation, they had not taken the time to consider whether or not their core group of customers would drink this new version. When changes are made to a successful product or service, if you lose the established customers you have lost ground. In hindsight I would guess that Coca-Cola would have been better off creating “Old Coke” - a version that would cause their established customers to get nostalgic, warm and fuzzy. In home care marketing we must learn from the mistakes of others, both inside and outside the industry.

First, know your customer
How often do you see a letter or an advertisement that totally misses the mark. One that leaves you scratching your head and saying something like, “What were they thinking?” If you know each of the different type of customer you serve (and don’t forget why they chose to do business with you) you will keep from making these mistakes. This would include knowing both the recipients of care and the referral sources.  The better you know your customers, the better you will connect with them. So unless you have too many customers - stop and take the time to get to know each of them. Then review every service offering and every piece of communication to make sure that they are going to be acceptable to your existing customers.

First Impressions
How many opportunities do you have to make a first impression? When you have a bad first impression more times than not you will find another company for the specific product or service. Even when one forgives the bad first impression, the customer proceeds with a cautious attitude and will bolt with the first sign of trouble. Home care agencies must never forget this important element. The first impression may be formed by the way in which callers are greeted and welcomed upon their first call the to the agency. Or, it may be formed by the first person to visit the client or patients home or the referral sources office. You will never know where or when you will form these first impression - so invest in making sure that every impression your agency makes is great.

Image
Big companies spend millions of dollars cultivating and creating an image. If they are on the mark, they will have a very positive return on those dollars invested. Many companies trade off of images that were created many years ago. The secret is continually cultivating and promoting their products in a consistent manner to preserve the image. If management makes a fatal mistake and doesn’t recover fast enough, they will many times start on a downward spiral that may destroy the company. What is your image in the community? Once you have defined it clearly then you must make sure that everything that you and the agency do is consistent with building this image.

Phone Manners and Voice Mail
When you call into a company that you are choosing to do business with and their phone manners or phone system makes you mad, what do you do? You call their competitor.

Think of this situation: Your community education team (marketers) have worked for months to cultivate an important new referral source. They call in the first referral only to be told “Oh, we don’t do that.” Wrong answer! Or, they get put into voice mail or are treated rudely. Who are they going to call with their next referral?

Poor Quality
It always amazes me when I see a large company using really poor quality materials in their marketing. I have seen two major national home care companies (that will go unnamed) use fourteenth generation photocopies in marketing letters sent to physicians! One of the letters was a mail piece to a doctor that had never used this particular agency. Enclosed was a copy (poor) of a document labeled “Rights of the Physician.” It didn’t matter that the piece was a poor choice to use in an introductory, cold letter - the doctor never got past the fact that it looked awful. The other was a letter sent out to a physician after they had sent their first referral. The nicely done cover letter welcomed the doctor. They should have stopped right there, but they didn’t. Enclosed was a (you guessed it) very poor photocopy with a statement signed by the management providing information that the agency is required to send out to new doctors by their own policy. Once again the doctor was not impressed and was actually amused enough to give it to me!

Web sites
Everyone has a Site these days. And consumers are getting very sophisticated in their use of the Internet. If you don’t make it easy to use your Site and very clear what the user needs to do to do business with you, you will loose them. Simple as that. It goes back to knowing your customer and designing your Site with them in mind. If you expect to have Senior citizens use your Web site it might be nice to have large print and easy to follow instructions.

Sales people
If you are like me, you dread it when you need to go to the car dealership to buy a new car (or a used one for that matter). Why? Because of the awful sales people and sales tactics employed. The last time my wife and I were looking for a car, I made the mistake of going to the most convenient dealership. Bad idea. After playing where are car keys so that I can leave with the sales people and the sales manager for over an hour Think of the more successful dealerships of late and you will almost always find that they have changed their sales approach. Rarely will someone rave about a dealership unless they had a good sales experience. Home care sales people have to be accepted as professionals and must represent themselves and your agency well. They will never be successful if they do not. The worst thing that you can have happen with sales people in home care is turnover. If you hire unprofessional sales people you are guaranteeing turnover.

Service and Quality
Have you eaten at a new restaurant and came away really impressed with the food and the service? What happens when you go back and it is not as good? You stop going to that restaurant. Soon the restaurant has gone through all of the new customers and are soon going out of business. This happens too often in home care as well. Once an agency gets too busy they stop providing the same level of service and soon they are not as busy.

CRM
There are nationally known companies that have invested tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. They do so thinking that it will “fix” all of their customer service issues. What they have found out is this: Bad Customer Service + CRM still equals Bad Service. What CRM will do is to support your customer service and sales force. It will help them to know their customers and their likes and dislikes. Glad the other industries paid the huge bucks to do the research for us!

The bottom line is that you must know your customers and then protect your relationship with them. Polish your image, make sure your people are dressed for success and happy marketing!