Welcome

...to Stephen Tweed's Leading Home Care Report. This special report is for CEOs and senior executives of America's leading home care companies. This report is published every other Wednesday by Leading Home Care ... a Tweed Jeffries company for our clients, friends, and advocates who want to grow their home care businesses.

Leading Home Care Report is a permission-based newsletter. It is only sent to those individuals who have requested it, or who have given permission for their address to be added to the distribution list. If you have received this report by mistake and would like to be removed from the list, we apologize for the inconvenience. Please go to the bottom of this report for instructions on how to unsubscribe.

Through extensive research, Gallup has learned how to measure where a company is in customer engagement based on these four levels:

1. Confidence - The customer believes that your company can be trusted to keep promises that it makes.

2. Integrity - The customer believes that your company will always treat its customers fairly and can be counted on to stand behind its products and services.

3. Pride - Reflects the degree to which customers feel appreciated by the company and are proud of their association with the brand.

4. Passion - The customer believes that the brand is essentially irreplaceable and represents a perfect fit with the customer's needs.

How would you rate your home care company on these four levels? More importantly, how would your customers rate your company?

For more on this, visit Gallup.

2. Focus on the customer's emotions. Home care patients, family members, physicians, and other referral sources react based on feelings. Help your staff recognize the emotions that customers are expressing.

3. Help customers feel protected rather than taken advantage of. Have team members practice listening for patients and family members feelings of vulnerability.

4. Train team members to reassure customers that their concerns and problems are being taken care of quickly and effectively. Communicate clearly what is being done to resolve a problem and when the problem will be solved.

5. Educate customers, don't patronize them. Team members need to understand that many times patients, family members, and referral sources need information and education to understand how the home care system works. Be patient in helping them learn.

6. Apologize, don't make excuses. When a customer calls with a problem or complaint, listen carefully. Then apologize immediately for any inconvenience and begin to take action immediately. Never make excuses for the company or get defensive.

7. Compliment customers on their history with the company. This is particularly true of physicians and other referral sources who have sent you patients in the past. Let them know how much you appreciate the things they have done for you in the past.

8. Support your customers' desire to feel in control. Everyone is a "control freak." The healthcare system, by its nature, sometimes makes people feel like they are not in control. Anything you can do to help customers feel like they are still in control of their own situation helps them feel engaged.

9. Treat customers as individuals. Each person with whom you come in contact is a unique individual, and wants to be treated that way. If your agency is dealing with hundreds or thousands of patients, family members, physicians, and other referral sources, sometimes it's easy for front line staff to get caught in policies and procedures that make their jobs easier rather than making the company more customer responsive.

10. Help customers feel good about the company, not just about the person who helped them. It's important to train your team members to continually build up the company, not just themselves. Never let a team member fall into a situation where they say, "I'd love to help you, but I can't because our company policy won't let me." No customer wants to hear about company policy.

Our research in home care sales and marketing shows that there are certain types of engagement required to bring in new customers, and other types of engagement needed to keep customers for the long haul.

To grow your company, you need both new customers and loyal repeat customers. Examine how you and your team members engage your customers and explore ways to increase the level of engagement.

For more ideas on increasing customer engagement with your sales and marketing representatives, watch for three new offerings from Leading Home Care:

1. The Fall 2006 Sales Training Teleseminar Series
2. The Sales Training Boot Camp, sponsored by your state home care association
3. The Sales Manager Interactive, a multi-media networking experience for home care sales & marketing managers.

I was privileged to speak for the first conference, called Private Duty Boot Camp back in 1997. This program has come a long way since then, as it has grown in size and content.

This year's conference runs from Monday, November 13th through Wednesday, November 15th. I'll kick off the last morning of the conference with a program called, "Building Your Private Duty Referrals Dashboard: An Electronic Tool to Gauge Your Success."

In this program, I'll be describing in detail our Private Duty Scorecard and the success we have had with our Private Duty Planning and Coaching clients in measuring the success of their businesses. I'll show you step by step how to set up your Private Duty Scorecard, and how to measure the Critical Measures of Success in Private Duty Home Care. We'll also be sharing some new benchmarking data that we're collecting through our collaboration with Outcome Concept Systems.

There are some other wonderful presentations on the schedule that you will want to be there for:

• "Build Your PD Business the Right Way" - with Lucy Andrews
• "HR Pitfalls" - with John Gilliland
• "State Law Roundup" - with Tim Purcey
• "Non-solicitation and Non-compete Clauses" - with Liz Zink-Pearson
• "Magical Customer Care" - with Al Jensen
• "The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Home Care Managers" - with Dexter Braff

Don't delay! Make your hotel and plane reservations today for a terrific time in Las Vegas, and come back with some valuable tools and techniques to grow your Private Duty Home Care Business.

Register NOW for the 9th Annual Private Duty National Conference

These are the questions we hear all the time from new AND experienced sales people in home care. Now, we have the answers for you.

I've teamed up with Michael Giudicissi, former Vice President of Business Development for a major home care company, to bring you the latest ideas and information on how to make more effective sales calls in home care. Based on a new book by the same title, Making the Approach: Advanced Sales Training for Home Care Professionals is a three-part audio learning program for your entire sales team.

Session #1 – The First Call – Thursday, October 12, 2006

The first program in the series will focus on what you need to do before you make the first sales call, and how you can turn that first call into more business and more follow up calls. Michael and I will dissect the first 15 seconds of a sales call and give you all you need to know about pre-call planning. Then we will help you design and plan that first call on a new “A” prospect.

You’ll learn about pre-call planning, what to bring – and what not to bring – on your initial sales call, and how to craft your “30 Second Elevator Speech.” Then you’ll get the scoop on how to “set up for the follow up,” and how to close the first call and leave them wanting more.

Session #2 – The Second Call – Thursday, November 9, 2006

Now that you’ve made that first call, what are you going to say or do to get back in the door? In this session, Michael and I will guide you through planning and making the next call. You’ll get great ideas to answer the question, “Why are you calling again?”

You’ll get powerful information on how to build trust, position your company, and handle issues or objections. Then, you’ll hear powerful tips on asking for the sale.

For many new sales reps, making that follow up call is the biggest challenge in home care sales. This teleseminar will give you what you need to know to overcome that hurdle and make the approach you need to get the business.

Session #3 – The Third Call and Beyond – December 14, 2006

In this session, you’ll get ideas and insights on how to feed your referral sources and prospect information . . . NOT with donuts! Too many sales reps in home care fall into the pharmaceutical trap of only being able to get in the door by bringing lunch. Krispy Kremes^® are not the key to a doctor’s heart. There are better ways to get your message across and build customer loyalty.

In this session, Michael and Stephen will give you the tools to build “The Respect Factor – the unbreakable relationship,” and describe how to aim for customer delight. You’ll find out how to make your customers your sales force, and how to “Lock Up Your Territory.”

To participate in this advanced sales training teleseminar series, contact your state home care association, or register directly online at www.leadinghomecare.com.

Register today ... through your state association ... or online at Leading Home Care!

Stephen is a past-President of the National Speakers Association, a 3500 member international society of experts who speak professionally. He is also the father of a 37 year-old son who is physically disabled and uses the services of home care on a daily basis.

Meet the entire Leading Home Care Team