Thursday, December 31, 2015

A New Year is Upon Us; get an edge on your competition

As you are aware, home health is a very competitive market.  There are many options for families and their loved ones to choose from when looking for assistance.  There are many factors that influence a family’s decision to choose a specific company for the care of themselves or a loved one.  One very important one is the availability and response time of the needs of a loved one.   As an answering service, All City Communications can directly improve the chances of making sure the family looking for a home health service selects your company and additionally can make sure your current clients’ needs are responded to immediately which greatly improves the reputation of your company.

Availability and response time begins from an initial phone call when looking for services.  Did the phone get answered by a voice mail or machine or was there a friendly voice listening to the needs of the caller, no matter the time of day.  All City Communications is available to answer all your calls live 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including holidays.  We never close and we will always answer your calls as your business without the caller ever knowing that we are not in your office.  In the caller’s eyes, you will be available all the time and your response time will be excellent. 
I am sure there are many reasons a family should choose your service over any other services in your market, however, if you are not available or responsive to their initial inquiry, you will never have the chance to explain why your service should be the one selected.  If your competition is available and responsive to the caller, most likely they will start the selection process ahead of their fellow competing home health companies.


Be available and be responsive in the New Year.  Don’t let the competition in your area gain an upper hand in the selection process.  Even if your caregivers are much more empathetic and professional than your competition, if you are not available to speak to your potential clients or current customers, you will never have a chance to share the qualities of your home health service that makes a difference.          

Monday, December 14, 2015

People will always be the key to excellent customer service

There’s a story I read on the internet (so you know it has to be true!) awhile back about a major snowstorm in Pennsylvania that occurred near the holidays. As a result of the blizzard, an 89-year old man, living on his own, got snowed in at his apartment. His daughter was concerned that he would run out of food, so she called a number of stores to see if they’d deliver.
No luck… until she called Trader Joe’s. Now, Trader Joe’s doesn’t normally deliver, but after hearing this woman’s story, they agreed to do so. In addition to taking the woman’s order, the Trader Joe’s employee also suggested food items that would work for her father’s low-sodium diet. Half an hour after the call, Trader Joe’s had delivered about $50 worth of food to the man’s apartment.
And to top it all off, when the woman went to pay Trader Joe’s for the food and delivery, they told her not to worry about it and have a Merry Christmas.  Now, maybe this story has been “embellished” a bit for the internet. Maybe not. But the point I want to make is that the interaction centered on real communication between two people.
At a hotel where I once stayed, I heard about a guest who was working out in the hotel gym and pulled a muscle in his neck. A trainer at the gym recognized the injury and suggested a massage. The massage therapist knew about the guest’s problem even before meeting the guest because the trainer had already filled him in. Finally, when the guest got into bed at the end of a long day, he went to sleep on fresh, firm pillows. The hotel had switched out his old pillows, knowing the firmer ones would be kinder to his pulled muscle.
The open lines of communication facilitated by the hotel and executed by its staff created an amazing customer experience.  Both the overt and subtle forms of communication are always at work in the relationships you have with your customers. Displaying attentiveness and a positive attitude, for example, goes a long way toward creating the kinds of relationships we’re all after.

Technology will continue to advance and the possibilities of communication will continue to expand, however; the essence of customer satisfaction and success will always fall on the ability of a person to listen and communicate effectively with their customers.  Technology is helping to change the future of customer service for the better. But there will always be a place for people, especially good communicators.

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

The 6 P’s of a decision

I was recently sitting at a restaurant speaking to a few friends of mine about why and how people decide to buy a certain product or service and it made me think, “Why do people decide to buy?”  One of my friends claimed that he doesn’t make any decisions based on emotion but rather he avoids any wasteful spending choices by making all his decisions with logic.  His claim of having all decisions being made by logic made me remember a professor I once had and the 6 P’s involved in any decision.  Even though logic can be a part of a decision, it still boils down to these 6 P’s or needs being satisfied in the decision process. 

The 6 P’s are pleasure, peace of mind, profit, prestige, pain avoidance and power.  Every buying decision we make revolves around one of these P’s, or needs being met.  Think about the last buying decision you made and I can guarantee one of these needs is being met.  The advantage of knowing these needs in a person’s buying decision allows you as a business and as a sales person to find creative ways to address the needs of potential customers and encourage buying decisions.  These 6 intrinsic needs being met are the “So What’s in it for me” in the buying decision of the customer. 

I used these 6 P’s as a way to justify a question I had.  Recently  I was watching the Presidential debate.  I said to myself, “Who would want to be President at this point in history when the world seems to be a chaotic mess?”  Well, I decided to think about the 6 P’s and it became clear as to why someone would want to be President.  At the top of the list, the need of Power is being met.  After all, there is no more of a powerful person in the world once you become President.  The second P on the list that motivates someone to want to be President is Prestige.  The historical significance of becoming President of The United States is obvious.  You will be remembered in history until the end of days and the prestige or status associated with being President of the United States is unmatched.  Finally, there is a need that I wish wasn’t becoming so prevalent in the decision to become President, Profit.  According to a CNN analysis of 12 years of federal financial records, former President Bill Clinton had his most active and profitable year on the lecture circuit in 2012, delivering 73 speeches for $17 million from mid-January 2012 through mid-January 2013. That brought his total haul in speaking fees since leaving the White House to $106 million.  Bill Clinton is profiting from being President.

When you are selling your product or service to potential buyers, remember the 6 P’s and how those P’s impact why a customer buys.  If you can understand that, you will achieve all 6 P’s or needs being met for your business and for yourself.