by Stephen Tweed

Here are some interesting facts and data that will show you precisely how you can increase your private pay  revenue by 20% without spending one more dime on marketing.  Over the years as I have worked with hundreds of home care companies on sales, marketing, and public relations, I’ve seen the number of inquiries go up dramatically. However, I have also seen a slower growth in admissions because the company does not have a terrific system of handling inquiries and converting them to admissions.

Today, I was doing a little math to demonstrate how you can grow your business just by doing a better job of handling inquiries and referrals that come into your agency. 

Let’s Look at the Facts

According to the 2012 National Private Duty Benchmarking Report published by Home Care Pulse and the National Private Duty Association,  the median revenue for independent and franchise private duty home care companies was $1,099,000.  Also, according to their data, the average conversion ratio of inquiries to admissions was about 31%. 

That means that for every 10 calls that come in, 3 get converted to patients and 7 disappear.  If you are typical of the benchmark companies, that means you are spending a lot of money to make your phone ring, and then letting 70% of the prospects slip through your hands.

If you could just improve your overall conversion ration by 20%, you could grow your business by over $210,000.  That means by doing a much better job of answering the telephone, using a proven process of engaging the caller, conducting an effective in-home assessment, and asking for the business, you could convert 37 out of 100 callers instead of 31 out of 100. 

We have calculated that the median sized company that serves 140 clients per year will get about 452 inquiry calls.  Improving your conversion ratio means increasing from 140 clients to 168 clients, and with a national average of $7,799.00 per client in revenue, that comes out to about $211,232 in additional revenue without generating any more inquiries or referrals.

Ten Steps to Convert More Callers

Here are steps you can take to turn inquires into admissions:
1.  Understand your caller
2.  Understand what your caller is looking for
3.  Hire the right person to answer the phone
4.  Prune the dead wood
5.  Develop your Answer Order
6.  Train your Team
7.  Use The Inquiry Form
8.  Track results with the Inquiry Log
9.  Analyze the results of your Inquiry Log
10. Learn to deal with Price Shoppers.

Capture the Caller: Turning Inquiries Into Admission in Private Duty Home Care

To help you understand the details of each of these ten steps, I’d like to invite you to participate in a live web conference on Thursday, December 20th, 2012 at 4:00 pm eastern time.  My special guest will be  Barbara Akst, President of Training Unlimited in Annandale, VA.  Barbara will share some of her practical experience in conducting hundreds of mystery shopper calls with home care companies across the country.  She’ll describe for you exactly what she has learned from talking with so many home care companies, and how you can apply these lessons to grow your business by 20% without spending any more money on marketing.

For more information on how you can be part of this live, interactive web conference … CLICK HERE!