I’ve been working in the care sector for more years than I care to admit, and Clarity Care Consulting is in its 9th year of finding care services for our customers. One of the things that still frustrates me the most is the poor level of customer care provided to people looking for care services for their loved ones.
The Clarity Care Consulting team normally have the ‘luxury’ of looking for care providers during the working week, but sometimes we are working for clients who need to urgently find care services for their family members, which puts us in a similar situation to many working families who can only visit care service providers at weekends.
An urgent search for care
Why Recently we had to do this for a client in Surrey who needed to find a nursing home for their mother. They were privately funding and looking at care homes, putting themselves at the luxury end of the market. Late on Friday afternoon we had managed to schedule a visit to a care home on Saturday morning so set out to the Guildford area with a plan to contact other homes in the area on the day. I was amazed at how many of the homes we contacted were not willing to let us visit the home over the weekend and those that did were not able to give an accurate picture of whether they had vacancies or how much the rooms might cost until a specific member of staff returned on Monday.
You won’t be surprised to hear that the ones who wouldn’t let us visit over the weekend didn’t make it onto the short list we presented to our client and we were frustrated that we had to provide a provisional report on the Sunday and then an updated report the next day once we were able to confirm vacancies and rates.
Surely care is a 7-days a week business?
The care industry is a 7-days a week business, so it shouldn’t be difficult to ensure that there was at least one member of staff at each home who is able to provide visitors with a guided tour of the home and its facilities, as well as them being left with a summary of information that potential customers are likely to want, such as does the residential home have any vacancies and typical costs for the different types of rooms. These can be presented with the caveat that there may be conversations already taking place with others to fill vacancies so there will be a need for additional conversations.
Although, ‘care’ is our focus, it is the overall customer experience our client and their family are going to receive from the provider that is paramount to us, whether it be a care home or care at home and is the reason for our personalised service.
If you need help finding residential care home or other care services at home, please call the Clarity Care Consulting offices on 02392 251351 to discuss your needs with one of our independent care advisors.
