The Highest Quality Telephone Answering Service in the United States

Centratel

Telephone Answering Service

A nurse helps a man measure his blood pressure after a call from her Home health answering service

Grow your Home Health Care Business using Social Media

February 21, 2019
Home Healthcare & Hospice
By Centratel

In today’s busy society, social media is an essential marketing tool for Home Health Care Businesses. Because of the power of social media, companies now allocate about 7 percent of their marketing funds to these networking platforms. Did you know that there are nearly 1.5 billion social media users? The good news is that the abundance of online users constitutes an unlimited marketing audience. If you would like to grow your business and client base with the help of social media, you will need to create a team pulled from customer service, marketing and sales. Once your social media sales team has been formed, consider using these useful marketing tips.

Know The Purpose of Each Platform

  • Before embarking on your social media marketing journey, you must first understand the primary purpose of each platform.
  • Facebook: A good platform for lead generation and the “purchasing” stage of a sale.
  • LinkedIn: A LinkedIn profile can help you build brand awareness and generate leads.
  • Twitter: Twitter is best used as a way to announce the opening of new properties and deliver important messages to your followers.
  • Pinterest: One of the best platforms for driving sales as more than 90 percent of users plan expenditures using Pinterest.
  • Instagram: Most businesses use Instagram to increase interest in available services, drive traffic to their website, establish relationships with influencers, and enhance brand awareness.

Leverage Quality Content

For optimal consumer engagement, effective marketers know that they have to seed their quality content throughout targeted social networks.
Here are the general guidelines.

  • Facebook: Since this platform has been proven to be valuable for the purchasing stage of a sale, you’ll want to post high-quality videos and curated content to get followers interested in your business and the services that you provide.
  • LinkedIn: The users on LinkedIn will be most interested in company news and other professional content.
  • Twitter: Twitter can result in Increased Profit when used correctly. The best tweets are ones that inform users of offerings and service specifications. To keep things interesting, you can occasionally tweet a social contest or weather updates.
  • Pinterest: People who use Pinterest want to see how your care services can be embedded into their current lifestyle. As such, focus on posting unique infographics and step-by-step photo guides.
  • Instagram: If you want to experience business growth using Instagram, make sure that you post high resolution photos and videos with captivating quotes and interesting stories.

Connect With Users

The most successful marketers in the home health care industry understand that selling via social media cannot be accomplished without building strong relationships. Contrary to traditional advertising, the uniqueness of social media lies in the ability to engage in real-time conversations with online prospects and customers from anywhere in the world. To connect with your targeted audience like never before, comments and questions on these platforms should be responded to as soon as possible. Another way to establish trust among your followers is to tag users who frequently share your content.

Target Consumers’ Lifestyle

Most companies understand the basics of establishing relationships on social media, but few understand that to connect deeper they must target the consumer’s lifestyle. Instead of focusing your research on the “who,” such as names and contact information, seek out the “what” – people’s motivating likes and dislikes. After determining this important information, create posts that integrate your brand into that lifestyle. Remember that social selling is “un-selling” – listening to people online discuss their wants and needs.

Social Selling Cannot Be Successful Without A Live Answering Service

For those that want to remain pertinent in the home health care business, they must realize that effective social selling requires a meaningful investment of time, people, money, technology and organization. In order to ensure that these proven marketing efforts do not go to waste, you should also strongly consider using an answering service for your after hours and overflow calls. There is nothing worse than not being able to answer calls after generating many online prospects that could potentially increase your overall profits. Another tremendous benefit to using an answering service is that it alleviates the use of a voicemail or a phone tree setup for afterhours new patient inquiries, client calls and caregiver calls, while still ensuring that you and your staff get emergency messages. To capitalize on your social marketing efforts, make sure that you invest in a live answering service immediately.

A Telephone Answering Service Representative taking calls at Centratel

Centratel, based in Bend, Oregon, is a leading national telephone answering service with a specialized focus on the Home Health and Hospice sector. This service offers unmatched support to a wide range of healthcare businesses throughout the United States, ensuring effective and seamless communication solutions around the clock. Renowned for its exceptional quality and reliability, Centratel is recognized as the top answering service in the Home Health and Hospice industry, consistently outperforming competitors in both performance and client satisfaction.

Taking the Next Step

For more specifics on cost, to start the onboarding process, or to just talk to us, fill out this form with your basic information and if it’s during regular working hours (M-F 8am to 8pm EST or 5am to 5pm PST), we’ll get back to you within minutes. Or, during the above hours, you can simply call us at 800-664-7159 or send us an email to inquiry@centratel.com.

(And note: for a quick orientation on how we operate, take a moment to review one or more of the key points listed below.)

For more specifics on cost, to start the onboarding process, or to just talk to us, fill out this form with your basic information and if it’s during regular working hours (M-F 8am to 8pm EST or 5am to 5pm PST), we’ll get back to you within minutes. Or, during the above hours, you can simply call us at 800-664-7159 or send us an email to inquiry@centratel.com.

(And note: for a quick orientation on how we operate, take a moment to review one or more of the key points listed on the right.)

Terms of Service

Why Choose Centratel

BY SAM CARPENTER
October 1, 2024

1.CENTRATEL’S UNIQUE 30-DAY FREE TRIAL

Why is this important? Because it will provide you a truly accurate estimate of cost (we bill monthly), it will demonstrate our quality, and it gives both sides of this equation—you and Centratel—the necessary time to refine and perfect operational details.

Here’s a testimonial from a new medical client that had just finished their 30-day trial: “Of course, I love the cost as it is close to the amount I was allowed by the president of the company. I told him that if we did not continue with Centratel, I would resign as the Director of Customer Service, and I meant it. It’s a great fit. We have had NOT ONE complaint from a patient or in-house which, as you know, we received daily with our former answering service. I love you, Centratel, and the price. I’m ready to sign whatever documents you require. Thanks for the great service, and the free month! To a great partnership! -KB, Phoenix“

2.STATISTICALLY, THE BEST IN THE U.S.?

Answering service quality is 100% dependent on human action and reaction, and in the course of a single day a multitude of human decisions are made by the people who process the calls: Telephone Service Representatives, or TSRs. (Some answering services refer to them as “agents.” Others, “operators.”)

Like any other answering service, at Centratel we’re dealing with real live human beings and so human errors occur. But within this labor intensive service industry that is historically known for marginal quality, Centratel’s error rate is light years ahead of established standards. Our most recent Customer Reported Error Rate (July through September, 2024) was 1 customer-reported error for every 6,077 message transactions processed. That statistic is unmatched.

There’s no artificial intelligence manipulation, we do not offshore calls, and we were founded and have always operated within the United States. (Note that since early 2020, the COVID six-foot social distancing mandate drove thousands of small-to-medium sized answering services out of business. Large, foreign-owned multi-nationals, often disguised by the name of the local answering services they acquired, now thoroughly dominate the industry. Hence, an even further decline in general service quality. See this analysis.)

3.CUSTOMER SERVICE EXTRAORDINAIRE

Your concerns and requests will be instantly acted upon. It’s a work ethic that stands out in stark contrast from the general quality decline in human-to-human business-customer communications. You’ve seen it yourself, all around. At Centratel you will know the customer service people you’re working with by name, appreciating their special listening abilities as well as their take-action-now comportments i.e. see the testimonial in point #1 above. ‘Nuff said!

4.GETTING STARTED: IT’S SIMPLE AND FAST

Getting your new Centratel answering service 30-day free trial started is accomplished within 24-48 hours. From the start, your “onboarding” customer service representative will be with you every step of the way, listening carefully to your concerns, answering questions, and offering suggestions.

5.NEW TO USING AN ANSWERING SERVICE?

A majority of our current answering service accounts switched to us from another service because of quality problems. However, if you have not used a service before, you are not familiar with the options, benefits, and pitfalls. As noted, our 30-day free trial provides you—and us—plenty of time to precisely refine your desired message-taking and delivery protocols; to get things exactly the way you want them to be without any financial risk, undue pressure, or obligation. 

6.PRICING

Starting at $89 per month, our rates rank in the mid-range of the industry. For call processing, we charge by the “transaction unit” rather than the duration of time spent handling calls. Large “mega-services” operating in the U.S. prefer time billing because it ensures the company is compensated for lower-paid/high-turnover — and thus slower — agents. No matter the quality or how long they keep your callers on hold, they still make a profit. And yes, it can get expensive.

In any answering service, it takes a long time for a new agent to become fast, efficient, and stable. At Centratel, we pamper and reward experienced agents (via higher pay and great benefits) and therefore have extremely low staff turnover. Needless to say, experienced agents make fewer errors than trainees who learn on-the-job.

7.ACCURATELY COMPARING ANSWERING SERVICE PRICING IS COMPLICATED

It’s apples and oranges. There isn’t an industry standard for billing, and each answering service has its own formula. Also, as noted above, some services charge by agent “time” while others charge by “work units.” Some others combine the two. At Centratel, we charge for the work we do, not by the time we spend. The raw truth is that the only reliable way to determine monthly cost for a new service is to use that service for a solid month. Most answering services offer a 7-day free trial or no trial at all.

8.BEWARE: MONTHLY OR 28-DAY BILLING?

Important! At Centratel, we use a “monthly” billing cycle in which invoices are compiled from the first day of a month to the last day of that month. When soliciting quotes from other services, be sure to ask if the base-rate charges are billed monthly or on a “28-day billing cycle.” There is no good reason for a 28-day billing cycle! It’s bait-and-switch: customers billed on a 28-day cycle actually receive thirteen billings per year and therefore the overall cost is higher.

9.NO CONTRACT AND SIMPLE TERMS OF SERVICE

We do not require a yearly contract for service because we believe you should have the opportunity to evaluate us real-time, without restraint. Our terms of service are simple and straight-forward.

10.VALUABLE FREE GIFT FOR CONTACTING US

If you take the time to discuss answering service with us, on the same day we will ship you a hardcover copy of Sam Carpenter’s bestselling book, Work The System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less, now in its 5th edition. We’ll send you a copy just for contacting us. (Sam is the founder and President of Centratel. December 1st 2024 marks his fortieth year of ownership.)