5 Steps to Growing Your Home Care Business

With the market becoming increasingly competitive, how can you make your home care business stand out as the clear choice? Well, because research is what we do, we conducted a home care survey to find out why clients pick the provider they do, and what keeps them loyal afterward. This research revealed five traits common to winning providers, which we have turned into our steps for growth. Not surprisingly, all five steps relate back to client satisfaction, which is the driving force behind success.

1. Be Professional.

Your business is essentially attending a job interview anytime a prospective client engages with you. They can reach out to you in person, over the phone, or even by visiting your website, and they need to feel like they can trust you. Be sure to present yourself as caring and reliable. Be punctual in any scheduled meetings and answer requests immediately. It’s not uncommon for clients and their families to connect with caregivers through social media, so ensure your team represents your company and its values appropriately through their Facebook pages and other social accounts. Employees should be polite in dress, manner, and speech.

2. Provide Exceptional Customer Service.

Have you ever had a customer reach out to you just to let you know everything is going perfectly? While this can sometimes happen, the vast majority of customer interactions are requests, concerns or complaints. Be sure to fill your customer service positions with the right people–those who will have patience when a difficult client is being more difficult than usual. Training your team to understand that they are dealing with real people who have real concerns and needs that must be met can go a long way in building empathy among your team. Through exceptional customer service, you will build loyal clients who will then recommend your services to others.

3. Show Off Your Happy Clients.

Nobody likes being the first to a party. The music should already be playing, people should be dancing, and everyone should be shouting how awesome the party is. That’s what customer testimonials do for your home care business. Posting client satisfaction quotes on your website and in your brochures comforts your prospective customers by showing them how happy you make your clients. Pairing these testimonials with real, professional-grade photos of your clients (not stock photography, but real clients) will make this even more effective.

4. Be available 24/7.

Health issues don’t follow a 9-5 schedule, and the truth is that home care provides extra help to those with health issues of one kind or another. Whether you’ve been hired by the person you’re caring for or by their family, they want you to be available at any time. By making it clear that your team will be available around the clock, your clients will feel secure knowing that no matter what time it is, they can get ahold of someone. If you opt not to have a receptionist working through the night, you may want to consider forwarding your office’s main line to a cell phone after regular business hours to answer emergency calls.

5. Screen and Qualify Your Caregivers.

If a man has an aging mother who needs extra care, the reality is that he probably can’t quit his job to take care of her full time. So if he is going to hire someone to be there in his place, you can be sure that he wants someone who will show his mother the love that she deserves. Not everyone has the disposition to be a caregiver, and hiring should be done with this in mind. This doesn’t make them a bad person, it just means it’s not the right thing for them. As a home care owner, it’s your responsibility to ensure your caregivers are qualified and will provide the level of care your clients deserve.

If you remove the data and the statistics, it boils down to this: you are being hired to take care of someone who is loved. As a home care provider, you bear the burden that others would carry, and you do it cheerfully. By being loyal to your clients and giving them priority, they will in turn be loyal to you. This loyalty will drive momentum, growth and success. But most importantly, your loyal clients are what will make your home care business stand out as the clear choice.