The home care industry is becoming more competitive on more than one front. Are you sure you have what it takes to beat the competition?
According to a UN report, in 2019, there were 703 million persons aged 65 years or over worldwide, and that number is supposed to double by 2050. This means that humanity will need more patient-oriented care, which in turn means demand for healthcare workers will increase and accelerate market growth.
There’s more. In 2019, the global home healthcare market size was estimated at USD 281.8 billion and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.9% to reach over USD 515 billion by 2027 (Grand View Research).
You know what it means for you? Competition.
And it’s not going to get better.
Only the agencies that know their weaknesses and can address them efficiently will dominate the market.
So, what are those weaknesses? Let’s discuss the three big ones:
Bad agency communication. Both patients and caregivers want to be informed. What is more, they need to be informed. Patients have to know the name of the caregiver, their limitations like language or religion, and, most importantly, the shift time. They also want to be notified of any updates. This goes both ways. Caregivers complain they cannot reach the office, especially for an urgent call – the lines are clogged. The agency’s office is understaffed, overloaded and rude. They have so many calls to make… As a result, caregivers are often left in the dark about schedule changes. Double bookings are not uncommon either.
The feedback problem. Many companies manage to collect feedback from patients (most do it via email or text messages. I’ll tell you a little later why it’s not wise). But caregivers are all too often left out. Which is not cool, since without the caregiver there can be no home care agency. If you can’t hear your caregivers, your attrition rates will be through the roof – if they aren’t already.
Growing pains and attrition rates. When looking for a job a caregiver will reach out to multiple agencies. The first ones to offer them shifts are generally the agencies that the applicant ends up working with. But rude staff manning the phones isn’t exactly helping. Of course, they got their reasons: let’s see how you match 3000 patients with a pool of 5000 caregivers and maintain your sanity. But the way they communicate, the scheduling mistakes they make (they are human, remember?), along with the two problems I mentioned above, take their toll on your reputation and attrition rates.
Now, let’s get to the part where you learn how to beat the competition.
Modern conversational voice AI can stir the conversation, go on tangents and even have all the idiosyncrasies that humans have (sigh, chuckle and insert fillers). While most robots spark suspicion by taking too long to answer, Dasha replies within 700 ms. To add to that, the AI will put down everything your clients and caretakers say so that you can export and analyze the data later.
What would make a conversational voice AI a good fit for your home care agency?
Staffing your patient shifts. You can make sure every shift is staffed and everyone involved is notified of any changes – without hiring more scheduling staff and at a fraction of the cost you are currently paying. Unlike human staff, AI doesn’t get tired or demotivated; our speech-to-text technology enables Dasha to put down every piece of information word-for-word and pass it on exactly as it heard it.
Collecting feedback. Email or text messages are the most common options. Yet they get 10-30% and 20-40% response rates respectively. Over the phone, you can get a 90%+ response rate. Add in the fact that patients are often older citizens who are not exactly tech-savvy and would prefer the phone, as well as the fact that you often don’t get answers to open-ended questions in writing (and these tend to collect the most valuable insights).
Helping you grow. Caregivers will submit multiple applications while looking for a job. The first company to call back gets the hire. This is a problem easily solved with conversational voice AI.
These are just a few ways you can use voice AI to turn the tide for your home care agency. If you’d like to learn more, take a look at this report.