Tips for Home Care Web Sites
Posted by Mike Ferris on Friday, September 26, 2008 and posted in Home Health Care Sales
Your agency’s Web site should be consistent with your commitment to sales, marketing and customer service. A Web site will reinforce your agency’s image, provide a means of getting information, provide a favorable comparison to your competition and make it easy for your customers to communicate with you electronically.
Following are some tips for making your agency’s Web site stand out from the competition’s:
Make it Consistent with Your Marketing Image. . .the Web site should look, feel and be consistent with all of your collateral marketing materials.
Clear Statement of Agency’s Competitive Advantages and Services. . .There should be a clear statement of the agency’s niche market(s) on the landing page and home page. This statement should immediately tell the visitor to your site what your competitive advantages are and why they should choose your agency. Brief and clear should be the mandate for this element.
Include Service Area Map. . .and make it easy to read and understand. This feature may be one of the most important items to include on your site. If you have multiple locations, it should have an easy way to contact the correct location or a central intake/information line. The service area map can be very important to case managers looking to place a patient/client and is also important for out-of-town family researching care options for a family member.
Easy to Contact Your Agency. . .If your goal is to have the visitor call or e-mail you, then make it easy to find your phone number and street address. Also, make it easy to send you an e-mail request from every page in your site. Clarity and ease of operation will make all of the difference in your response rate and the success of the site.
Include Real People Contacts. . .at every juncture make your contacts real to the visitor. Have the CEO (or owner) welcome the visitor, have the Clinical Director welcome the Medicare or Skilled care inquiries, etc. One of the elements people don’t like about the Internet is the faceless nature of many sites. We are selling people and the services they provide—make it apparent that you have the best and most customer service-focused home care professionals anywhere.
The Bottom Line: Build a Super Web site! Make it easy to use and allow visitors to the site to sign up for information and give you permission to contact them about Home Care Services.
