Coach's Blog » Mine the Diamonds in Your Own Backyard
Mine the Diamonds in Your Own Backyard
Are you continually going after new business without adequately reaching out to make your current clients happy? We’re all guilty of constantly looking for new avenues to attract new clients, however the average Medicare client is readmitted to the hospital and discharged an average of 1.5-3.2 times per year based on their primary diagnosis.
Customer retention and satisfaction drive profits. It’s far less expensive to cultivate your existing customer base and sell more services to them than it is to seek new, unknown customers. Business models across all industries show that keeping one existing customer is 5-7 times more profitable than attracting one new one.
It’s a no-brainer – your sweet spot in all of your marketing efforts should be to brand your agency with your current client population. Recent studies show that more than half of satisfied patients in the hospital could name the first name of a clinician who cared for them in the past. Less than 1 in 5 could name the agency that employed them! As care providers, we must remember to do the simple things to brand ourselves with our client population.
Make sure you have patient teaching literature to back up verbal instructions given by your clinical staff. Make sure your staff leaves business cards in the client’s home with each visit. Train your staff to repeat your agency’s name to your clients each time they refer to upcoming appointments or services. They should be saying the agency’s name 4-6 times per visit.
Finally, have a proven loyalty program that reaches out throughout the year with value-added collateral into the client’s home. You cannot take great care of your clients and then leave their subsequent discharges to chance. Make all your satisfied customers advocates for your agency.
If your discharge satisfaction rates are nowhere near your readmission rates, you have not branded your agency to your customer. Do not spend more and more of your agency’s profit dollars to go after new customers – begin a client loyalty program today.
Sign up today for a free 30-minute coaching call during which you will learn popular strategies that are working for companies all across the country. You will also get some free samples of effective marketing ideas sent to your company. Click here to sign up.
Working to grow your referrals,
Adam
a.k.a. - Home Care Referral-Man
P.S. – Go to www.MyHomeCareSalesCoach.com and check out an incredible referral-boosting strategy for April…The World Health Organization’s “1000 Cities 1000 Lives” campaign.
