Customer Retention Strategies for Home Care Agencies – Wooing Your Existing Clients

According to globally-recognized Home care Coach and Consultant, Michele Ellis-Williams of Michele Lee Ellis Consulting, many start-up home care agencies lose more than 20% of its client base each year, simply by neglecting their existing clientele. In some cases, this leakage is extremely high – as high as 50%. Unfortunately, not many agency owners truly understand what this means.

Take, for instance, two home care agencies – agency A and agency B. Agency A manages to retain 90% of its clients, the other manages to retain only 50%. If both agencies were to acquire new clients at the rate of say 20% annually, agency A will witness a 10% net growth in clients every year. Agency B will have no growth. Over the years, Agency A’s client base will virtually double or triple, while agency B will have little growth if any.

“The easiest way to grow your agency is to retain your existing customers. Unfortunately, most agency owners invest a lot of resources, time, and effort chasing new clients, totally neglecting their existing customers in the process,” explains Coach Michele. “If you are not ready to woo your existing customers, then you must be ready to lose them. Today, home care consumers are spoilt for choice – if they feel they are no longer being appreciated where they are, they’ll simply move their dollars elsewhere, most likely to the competition.”

So, how can you avoid this fate as a home care agency owner?

Here are some tips from our home care coach and consultant, Michele Ellis-Williams:

Listening To Your Existing Customers

“Unfortunately, many agencies use their customer service as a platform to sell and upsell. While there’s nothing wrong with that, making money should not be seen as the only motivating factor,” advises Coach Michele. “Agency owners should also use their customer service to show their existing clients that they actually care about them. Listen to your clients, ask for their feedback, embrace their reviews, including negative feedback, and use the information to improve your service.”

Encouraging Your Existing Customers to Complain

“More than 50% of dissatisfied home care clients don’t complain – they simply walk away and you, as the agency owner, will never know why. The thing is, these clients will not tell you why they left, but you can rest assured they’ll tell everyone else, including your potential clients,” continues the home care coach and consultant. “By encouraging your clients to complain, you will actually be encouraging them to talk to you more freely –to get any negativity towards your agency off their chests. That way, you can collect feedback that will help you to serve them better. Complainers are often rebuked, but they are actually good for business.”

Practicing What You Preach

“Customer retention and long-term success belong only to those who avoid ethical shortcuts. As a home care agency owner, you must strive to ensure total consistency between what your clients experience and what you say or preach. In other words, the standard of your services must go hand in hand with what you have promised,” says Coach Michele.

At Michele Lee Ellis Consulting, we specialize in assisting home care agency owners with achieving their goals and objectives in business. If you like, we can introduce you to more customer retention strategies that you can implement without having to spend much.

Feel free to get in touch with us via the numbers provided below. We are willing to help you in any way we can!

Phone number: 888-462-8885

Office Phone Hours: Tuesday-Friday 9:30 am-6:30 pm EST

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