The home health care niche is one expected to outpace the health industry in 2019. With a projected $108.8 billion to be spent, more and more agencies will be opening their doors. This means a more intense focus on home care marketing will be necessary if businesses want to stay competitive.

Fortunately, there is a tool that many home health care businesses don’t utilize: the client survey. It may seem like an afterthought to send a survey to clients after they’ve received care, but this may be the most valuable way to market a home healthcare business. By gathering invaluable data from past clients, agencies can improve their current processes and attract new clients with positive scores.

Here’s why your home health business should focus on surveying clients:

Improve Current Weaknesses

At its core, a satisfaction survey allows a company to get a glimpse of what the customer is thinking and how they feel about the services they have received. For home care businesses, this is even more important. The services provided to clients involve their health, happiness, and longevity. Obviously, it is important to ensure they receive the best possible care in these areas.

However, home care businesses don’t have the luxury of being confined to a clinic or a hospital unit. They have nurses, physicians, and aides working in communities and inside of clients’ homes every day.

This makes it almost impossible to identify flaws in current procedures without the insight of those clients.

By asking questions within a survey, home care businesses can better identify areas to improve upon. For example, asking a previous client, “What disappointed you about our services?” or, “Additional suggestions you’d like to share with us.” These open-ended questions give clients a way to air their grievances.

Of course, no one wants to read about how poorly their business does things. Hopefully you won’t have many negative comments. With those that are received, home care businesses can spot trends and recurring complaints. From there, the necessary actions to address the problem can be taken to improve the service in the future.

Improving Customer Satisfaction

We just touched on the fact that providing a client survey gives customers a chance to voice any complaints they have about the care they received. Interestingly, this may ultimately boost their satisfaction in the long run. If the home care business manages it correctly.

So, how can a client survey increase satisfaction? Simple. Customers don’t want sympathy when they have a problem, they want action. Of course, a business can’t take action based on every customer complaint. However, they can keep record of customers suggesting the same changes or offering the same critique.

Then, after taking steps to fix the issue, the business can reach out to those clients with an update. When accompanied by a sincere note of thanks for their business and feedback, showing clients that your business cares about their concerns and takes them seriously is a fantastic strategy. It can help retain clients for the long-term and even regain previous clients who were unhappy.

Home Care Marketing Credentials

Home care marketing is all about showing the best of what your company offers to potential clients. In many cases, the family members of the client are doing a lot of research to find the best home care agency around. So, put yourself in their shoes for a moment.

Would you rather leave your loved ones to the care of an agency who only talks about themselves in their marketing materials? Or, would you be happier going with a business who lets their past clients do the talking? How would a glowing testimonial or stack of five-star ratings influence your decision?

If you’re like most people, hearing good things from past clients is nearly all it takes to sway a decision. By sending out customer surveys you have the opportunity to gather precious positive reviews for your home care business.

By asking questions in a scaled, 1-5, 1-10, manner, home care businesses instantly get data they can share. At a glance, potential clients can see anonymous averages of this rating to get a sense of the quality care offered.

Meanwhile, home care businesses can follow up with customers who leave positive feedback and ask for a testimonial. In exchange, you could offer a discount, a free service, or the client may do it for nothing because they are so pleased. Either way, this testimonial makes excellent material for marketing your home care business to future clients.

It is easy to get swept up in the hectic world of patient care and insurance billing and forget that home care marketing is essential to a successful operation. Fortunately, by taking advantage of the oft overlooked client survey, home healthcare businesses can gain a leg up on the competition.