One of the core fears teams face when implementing technology that reaches clients in the community, is that of losing touch with them. In today’s world, most teams spend large amounts of time on the phone discussing with things with clients such as who’s coming to visit, requesting changes or other peripheral topics.
These calls can sometimes lead to other discoveries that help support clients so when teams are looking to automate communications and open self-service, the question arises. “If we aren’t speaking with our customers all the time, how are we going to support them?”
Whilst this has been the standard approach to customer service for many years, providers are finding it harder to facilitate across the growing number of clients in the community and the limited resources to support them. Most teams used phone and email as their main form of communicating and managing client enquiries because that’s they way it’s always been.
The problem providers face is that things are getting missed because enquiries are impossible to track using only email and phone. This lack of service level is escalating into complaints, team burn out and major inefficiencies that lead to reduced outcomes for clients and the community.
In a recent conversation with Caitlin Burke, Executive Manager at Mercy Services, a leading provider of home and residential care services in NSW, we discussed how they have tackled this problem.
Caitlin shared that: It’s all about choice. Whilst some clients still want to call to tell you what happened this morning as well as what they need, and we provide that service. Others don’t and might think about something at 11pm at night or well outside of business hours. For us it’s about tailoring our offering to provide choice as the type of clients change, whilst ensuring we are always there when they need us.
Sure, maybe you don’t capture that second thing all the time because they’re not taking the call, but they can send it in later or do it on their own terms, so we never miss it. It kind of plays out evenly overtime.
With care service platforms, it means teams are available 24/7 and all enquiries and communications are centralised, allowing teams to keep on top of everything with ease and never miss a request.
It’s also about future proofing explains Caitlin. Because Hayylo is bedded in and part of our onboarding process. It means every client that comes in, we can talk to them about it as their client profile is developed. More clients are going to come through with a mobile phone or an iPad, not less. We are never going to have less; we are always going to have more and more of a need for this sort of system. As a sector, it should be second nature by now.
Whether they (providers) do it now when they are small or when they’re servicing thousands of clients, they’re going to have gains. There is never a good time to do it either, it’s one of the things that we’ve learned with all the system changes we’ve had over the years. We joke that in the last five years, we’ve had fires, floods, COVID, you know, all sorts of stuff. Lots of good reasons to not change but it’s something that we must do as a sector.
Care service platforms are a necessary evolution for the community services sector as they ensure that nothing gets missed, everything is centralised and clients, families and teams can stay connected in ways they prefer. Reach out to Hayylo to see why care service is the new norm across care.
