Increase Home Care Revenue by Changing the Way Your Team Answers the Phone!

Your phone is your front door, and families decide whether to trust you fast. We talk about the moment a stressed adult child calls looking for help for mom or dad and how a rushed “hello” can quietly kill a referral that could have turned into months of care. When most home care leads come in by phone, phone answering is not reception work. It’s home care marketing, intake, and trust-building all at once.

We break down the essentials of home care phone etiquette that actually move the needle: answering live whenever possible, stating your agency name and your name, slowing down so callers can understand you, and using active listening so people don’t feel brushed off after telling their story for the tenth time. We also get specific about holds and transfers, including the small habit that changes everything: asking permission and explaining what you’re doing before you put someone on hold.

Then we shift to the systems that prevent follow-up failure. We talk voicemail expectations after hours, why complicated phone trees drive hang-ups, and how to use a call champion, a simple checklist, or a CRM to capture the right details and ensure timely callbacks. You’ll hear why mystery shopping your own agency is one of the fastest ways to improve conversion rate, plus a few wild real-world call stories that prove training can’t be optional.

If you want more inquiries to turn into starts and you want callers to feel calm, heard, and confident, this conversation gives you a clear standard you can share with your whole team. Subscribe, share this with your scheduler or intake coordinator, and leave a review with your best tip for answering the phone under pressure.

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Transcript

Takeover Intro And Housekeeping

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, it's June 3rd, 2026, and they let me take over the mastermind for a day. Oh yeah. Don Fiala is out on vacation, and our lives are a little crazy here without her. But we're gonna power through. We're gonna talk about one of my favorite things in the whole world in here in a minute. How do I? Oh, oh, oh, here we go. Oh, there we go. Do we need to do introductions or are we good? I can introduce me.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

I think we're good, unless you want to go ahead. Maybe there's some new people.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Okay. I'm Belly Van Bouven. I'm the founder and co-owner of Approved Senior Network. But these ladies are your experts in home care marketing and sales in person. I usually do more of the online stuff, but one of the things that really gets my goat is phone answering. All right, so I'm gonna keep going here. Whoop, I I'm on my laptop instead of my regular desktop. Okay, housekeeping. If you could just mute your lines and talking, share stories, experiences, tips. We want to hear from you. And in the chat, Lisa has probably already put in a hi, how are you? Happy Wednesday. We want to hear from you in the chat, or if you want to unmute your line, you can make recommendations and tell us what you want to know. If there's something that we haven't covered, and I don't know what that might be, but if there's something we haven't covered, we absolutely will do that. Yes. Ah, so today's, I think though, this is oh, let's you guys talk about the free giveaway.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Okay, I could do it. So once

Giveaway And Who’s On The Call

SPEAKER_01 1:40

we are gonna give away July fun leave behinds. Everybody that's here, if you are interested in receiving the July leave behinds, we will customize them to your agency. Put yes in the chat. You have to promise that you're gonna send us pictures when you're out there marketing using them. So put yes in the chat. And at the end of the program, Lisa and I will put everybody's name and a hat and we will pick a winner and I'll give you a long time. Oh yeah, oh yeah, not the yeses.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Awesome. Okay, so let's keep going. Yes, put yeah, put the yeses in there because really good pictures. Okay, so people who are on this call and anybody who watches this as a replay, you could be a salesperson in the field, you could be a marketing person, you could be the owner, you could be co-owner. There's all kinds of positions that y'all are filling, and probably most of you wear many hats, and one of them might be answering the phone still in your own office or some phone setup. So we're gonna talk about some strategies and tips for phone answering, because I promise you that if you can master

Why Phone Answering Wins Clients

SPEAKER_00 2:52

how your phone is answered for your home care agency, you will make more money. And isn't that really caring for people is number one? But you gotta be able to pay your bills too, right? So the way we answer the phone, honestly, that's a big deal. That is a big deal, and having a well-versed person or people answering those phones, super important. So every call counts, phone etiquette and best practices. We're gonna talk about how turning those phone calls into actual business, how that works. You guys let me know if anybody needs me to stop or ask questions. So we're gonna talk about why phone answering matters, the first impression factor. And you guys know that Annette, Don, and Lisa talk about first impressions all the time. And 90% in our experience, 90% of the leads that come in for home care agencies are coming in through the phone. Now, their referrals are a big part of that. But if you said to yourself, how many forms are people gonna fill out on my website versus how many calls? 10% of people will fill out forms. Usually that's on the weekends or at night, but about 90% of people who are looking for home care are gonna, if they have the choice, they're gonna make that call. So that's why this is so important. Everyone on your team is a marketer, you are marketing, and no matter what your role is and who's listening to this, you are a marketing person for your you represent your company and you are marketing. Phone etiquette essentials, handling common calls and mistakes to avoid in action steps. A lot of people don't think about this, especially if I'm the owner and I'm the one answering the phone all the time. I don't think about this maybe as much as I should because I'm wearing a lot of hats and I know how to answer the phone. What are you talking about, right? So, in home care, a phone call is rarely just a transaction, right? It's a moment of need. Whoever is calling into your home care agency is overwhelmed, they are stressed out, they have no idea what they're talking about, they don't know what they don't know, and they're starting to realize that this healthcare system is crazy and they need some help with their mom or their dad. So they're scared and just maybe dealing with a thousand other things. So the more compassionate and helpful that answer person who answered the answering the phone really is, the better off. So we're gonna talk about that a little bit here. I gotta move stuff around a little bit. First impression. So the reality is that you have about seven seconds of your first interaction with someone to help them feel comfortable and help trust you. Seven seconds. I'm gonna give you an example of what bad bad answering is here that will not win trust, will not want someone to say, This is the company I want to work with. My mom used to tell me when I was in my late teens and twenties, you sound you talk too fast. You sound like the person taking the orders at the McDonald's drive-thru. But I don't know, and she didn't get annoyed with me because I talked so fast. She is a slower talker, she's also a baby boomer, but she's a slower talker. Doesn't mean she's dumb, and it doesn't mean she's she's a very smart woman. She just comes from a time when people really listen to each other, they really talked. And you and your folks are now speaking to a lot of Gen Xers and a lot of boomers who aren't accustomed to as ABC Home Care is saying can't hear very well for the first of all. And if you say they don't know what you're saying, they don't know who they called. Here's what I would want to hear if I were calling a home care agency for my mom right now, ABC Home Care, this is Mary. How can I help you? That is what I want to hear. I want to know who I called, what your name is, and then I want to speak. And I want Mary to listen to me. But that's not all what we're always getting. So we're gonna talk about some of those things. I just want to give you some clarity on good answering versus not great answering. So what's at stake? If you're if folks on the team are not answering the phone in a clear, well-enunciated way, loud enough for someone to hear, you're gonna lose the business. A family calling about care for an aging parent is making a huge emotional and financial decision right now. This is life-changing for them. It might not be for you because you do this every day, but for them, this is like, how in the world are we gonna do this? How in the world are we gonna pay for this? How in the world do we know if the person coming out to the house is trusted? And so if you are cold or rushed or disorganized, or you just put them on hold without saying anything, or you and I get it, offices are busy, then they will just call the next agency on their list. So you have seven seconds to make a really good impression over the phone. Trust and reputation and conversions is what we're talking about. So the warm professional greeting means you're competent. The word of mouth about your business, they may have already read reviews, they may have already talked to someone in the hospital who recommended you or at a skilled nursing facility. And then when you answer that phone, you're gonna be more likely to get a conversion if you're doing it right. Everybody in the office, everybody out in the field, every caregiver, every phone answerer, every receptionist, assistant, scheduler, everybody's a marketer, right? If we consider everyone to be a professional representation of our business, then everyone knows should know how to answer the phone because you know, so-and-so's busy. So April's gonna answer the phone, or Mary's gonna answer the phone. Everyone needs to do the same thing every time. So if a scheduler sounds frazzled or a care coordinator puts the call on hold and doesn't explain anything, just oh, hold, please, click, done. That's not the way to handle this. Or a caregiver might be there or might answer her phone and the trust is eroded because they're rushed or they're they don't know they're not taking the call correctly or whatever. So this is what we call building a phone culture. So if you have a little bit of training, you have a little bit of phone culture, you don't have to go crazy on this, but just giving everybody some skills that they should have in their back pocket anytime they are the person answering the phone, it's really going to be helpful. The person who always answers the phone, whether that's you or someone else in your office, is the first one that needs to understand everything. But after that, everybody needs to be

Build A Phone Culture Companywide

SPEAKER_00 10:05

just have a little in-service, have a little luncheon where you talk about phone answering. So the schedulers, we just talked about the schedulers, definitely your marketer, the care coordinator, the caregiver, and the scheduler who's talking to the caregiver is also the marketer, right? How they're treating that caregiver on the phone, if they're nice, accommodating, and trust me, all of us here in this room know how frustrating and I don't know, just uh scheduling is the hardest job ever, right? It is so we all get that, but I've also talked to a million home care agencies, and I can tell that the scheduler who is trained a certain way or has a certain attitude toward caregivers that is positive, encouraging, helpful is gonna get a long, a lot more attention, a lot more people to pick up shifts than the one who's mean and negative and jerky and doesn't care. The one who's frustrated and so tired of people calling in, you change the way you're speaking to people, especially on the phone, that whole mantra of everybody's calling in sick, I don't have anybody to cover a shift, and the whole negativity can shift to a positive. Maybe Mary really likes you, the caregiver Mary. And so when you need to fill a shift, because you have such a great rapport with her, she'll fill in for you or fill in that shift for you. So phone culture is so important, not just from the client's perspective, but also how you treat your caregivers, other staff, everyone. Let me know if I'm moving too fast or thousand percent, thousand percent talking too fast.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

I'm calling and Valerie, you may cover this in the other slides, but making sure somebody answers your phone because I can't tell you how many

The Greeting That Calms Families

SPEAKER_01 11:59

agencies I call it goes to voicemail. And if I was somebody that was looking for some home care, I would just go to the next one on my list. So try not to let your phone go to voicemail. Somebody needs to answer live.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

That's right. And we're gonna talk a little, that kind of is a little bit on this slide, but so etiquette essentials. And this is something that I learned a long time ago. I don't practice it as much as I should. But if you're smiling, it's really hard to be a jerk on the phone. So answer within three rings, use your name and agency name. Hi, this is Valerie or approved senior network. This is Valerie. How can I help you? Even my cell phone today, if you have my cell phone number and you call me, if you're lucky enough to get me to answer, I'm just kidding. But for me, I don't take all the calls. But the but when someone calls me and I don't know who they are, but I know it's it's the plumber and I know I got to answer the call. I say, This is Valerie, may I help you? Even if it's my mom or I don't know it's my mom, but it doesn't matter. I always say who I am and how can I help you? Because it could be a business call coming in. And everybody in my world knows that I answer the phone weird because of that. So please answer within three rings, smile. They can hear your smile when you say it with a smile on your face, your tone and language, clear enunciation and slow down. I just value may help you. ABC Homecare, can I help you? No, what hi, slow down. If I'm older and I can't hear well, I have no idea what you just said. And oftentimes, so I'm 55 and I will still say, who did I call? Because I'm not really sure if I called the wrong number at that point because I didn't know what they said. I can't, I didn't understand it. They were yes, and if you do have to use, oh, wait a minute. I yeah, phone etiquette. So tone and language, we talked about that active listening. All right, this is something I know I've heard Dawn and Annette and Lisa talk about a lot. And that is when they worked in the home care world, they did a lot of listening. So instead of let me, I'll get me, I know it's okay, I'll get Mary and she'll talk to you. No, no, no. Stop. This person probably has told their story 40,000 times. Just listen to them for a minute and then relay some information to the next person who's really gonna be the person to take that call. Let them talk. It's not gonna hurt you, it's not gonna change the world if you don't answer or if you're not over here typing in the computer. You just need to listen to them, let them get it off their chest and let them talk. And then, of course, active listening, don't interrupt, but say something like, It sounds like you're looking for some support for your mom. Let me make sure I understand and repeat back to them some of the things they just said and make sure that you heard them right. And then after you are sure that's what they're calling about, whatever that issue is, then say, Mary's gonna be the best person to handle that. Let me get her for you. Can you hold? Is it okay? Holds and transfers again. Always ask permission. So for me, when I call the vet, and that's because they have two dogs, I've called the vet fairly often. They will always say, Elm Point Animal Hospital, this is Mary. Is this an emergency or can you hold? Now, in their case, sometimes people have dog emergencies or cat emergencies. You probably don't have that, but you can say, I there's another call on the line. Can you hold for one moment? Ask permission. Of course, hopefully they're gonna say, Yes, that's okay. And if you're happy and bright about it, then they'll be happy and bright about it. And don't leave them for too long. All right, so let's see. Messages, voicemails, and follow-up. Taking a great message. When you can't connect a caller with the right person, taking a complete and accurate message is critical. So

Messages Voicemail And Fast Follow-Up

SPEAKER_00 15:53

if they just told you their story, write it down or write some semblance of it down, summarize it, and make sure the next person on the list has that summary. Don't just put them into voicemail and tell them they have to tell the whole story again or make them feel like that. Yeah, don't just write called or call Mary 314-495 blah blah blah blah blah. Put a note for that person as to what's going on. Maybe you have a system that you put notes in, a sticky note, whatever it is. A voicemail greeting should always be professional. But as Annette said, we don't want to use voicemail unless we have to. I know that's hard. I know that when you're a smaller agency and you're wearing all the hats and you're with a client, you can't possibly answer the phone. There are ways, there are cost-effective answering services, there are cost-effective, and there are expensive answering services. It depends on what your needs are. But if you can manage to have someone answer the phone live for you, and that is really where it's at. I we also come across a lot of clients who have a huge, what do you call it, that you have to press one, press two, oh yeah, press three for the black office press one, for the blah blah office press five. And then they have oh, for home care, press one, for hospice care, press two. Oh my no. For current clients, billing issues, totally different.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Yeah, if you're a caregiver.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Okay, so even your caregivers don't want to deal with that. So having an answering service that can ask those questions, listen to those answers, and route the person to the correct line is really where it's at. And if you're smaller, you probably don't have all you probably are taking care of all those things all at one time. But as you grow, having those one minute, if I see we do tracked and recorded lines for some of our clients, and I highly recommend that you do that because you, as the owner, get to listen to those calls and use that as a teaching moment. If you hear calls that sound terrible, then you can not use that as some kind of horrible thing, be their staff, but just say, here's let's talk about how we're answering the phone. Use that as a learning moment. Mr. Ed might have been happier if we had said dick d as opposed to we can't do that right now. We'll have to call you back later. What? Even if Ed's a person that's always calling your office for everything, be nice, be nice. So use tracked and recorded lines as a learning tool and as a learning experience for yourself and for the people answering your phone. We return calls within two business hours. If you're going to say that on a voicemail greeting, if you're gonna say that, then you need to honor that promise and make sure you're calling them back. If I call a home care agency on a Saturday, I kind of or Sunday, I expect to get an answering machine or a voicemail or an answering service. I get it. It's off time, or if it's at night, I expect that it might go to voicemail. It's like after six o'clock in the evening or something. I get it. But please call me back when you say you're gonna call me back. If that's the next morning, that's okay. Designate a specific team member each day as the call champion, responsible for ensuring no inquiry goes unanswered or unacknowledged for more than two hours. So if you have someone who's always your call champion, that's fine. But if you have a bigger office and you can share the load a little bit, make sure someone is calling that person back within two hours. Call champion, that's a cool name.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

And then call champion sometimes needs to take a break. So, what we used to do in our office is we have the all hands on deck, like a Slack channel. And okay, I've got to go to lunch now. So who's taking this? And it might be even pre-scheduled, but if you needed to use the restroom or if there's something came up where you needed someone else to help you, all hands on deck, someone needs to take the calls, incoming intakes, and we all would pitch in. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

That's great, it's great to be able to share the load for sure.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

I was gonna add, Valerie. So we always had a live person on call. And if it was an evening or a weekend, if somebody called for services and they could wait till the next morning, that's fine. But sometimes they call and I need something right away. Whoever was on call was trained to call one of us in the office. Hey, we just got an inquiry. This person really wants somebody to come out tomorrow to see their mom. So we would call people on weekends. Yes, and if it was a anytime we had an inquiry, rarely, unless they said, Oh, it's fine, call me tomorrow. But there was always somebody in our office that was designated to make sure we call people whenever they call.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Yeah, yeah. I want to add to that too. So we had the same situation where we were answering live on the weekends. We were even starting cases on the weekends. We were picking up, transporting from hospital to home on the weekends. It didn't matter. So we had a scheduler and a client care type person that would double a little bit in the marketing section, but mostly client care, pop-ins, all those things need to happen on the weekends just as much as they do on the weekdays. So yeah, we did too. We answered our calls live.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Yeah. And do a little if you are an agency where other people besides yourself are answering the phone, do a little mystery shopping. Call in from a different phone number and see

Mystery Shop And Call Types

SPEAKER_00 21:26

how that phone's being answered. That is always a great way to find out what's going on, what people know if they're listening. Because most of the calls that come in are going to be pretty much the same. There's just a few different issues. It's either a caregiver, a client, current client, or someone who needs care, or maybe a referral source. So that you know what everyone should have an answer or have a at least a routine with each of those types of callers. But making the collar feel heard, value, and making sure. And letting them know they've reached the right place is really important. They're just they're so overwhelmed. And it's probably a crisis in their mind, whatever's going on. So the call types are going to be family inquiries, referral partners, caregiver calls, and current client concerns. All of them really need the same amount of attention and listening skills and slowing down and speaking to them and listening to whatever it is they need. Common mistakes, missing calls means missing a client. So anytime you can have somebody actually live answer, that's really the way to go. Families in need are rarely call back. I can remember setting up home care for my husband's mom when she started to need a little extra help around the house. And I called two agencies on a Saturday. And the first one that called me back was the one that got our business. One called me back that day, one waited until Monday. Got our business because I got it. I knew that it was a weekend. I didn't expect anything crazy. But just because that person called me back on a Saturday and cared enough to get the information right then, that was all I needed to know. This was important to them, just as important to them as it was to me. Rush conversations, hurry, distracted. We all feel that way sometimes. They're gonna feel like a burden and you want them to be that priority. So slow down, be present for whoever that person is. And then poor follow-up. Now, our I always talk about for a long time, I've talked about follow-up failure. And that could be follow-up failure with referral sources, follow-up failure with potential clients, with colleagues. If you tell somebody you're gonna call them back or you mean to call them back, put it in the CRM, make a note, whatever makes you do that thing, put it in your calendar, call so-and-so back today. Whatever that is, please do it. We our clients have access to a CRM that can automatically text, it can automatically email, it can automatically do a lot of things for you if

Common Mistakes And Revenue Loss

SPEAKER_00 24:10

you want that set up so that you're not missing that follow-up opportunity. And then end the call with clarity. I know there are lots of sales trainers out there who teach book a meeting from a meeting. Book a meeting from a meeting. That doesn't, that can mean a lot of things, but if you're on a call and you know that and the call's about to end, make sure that the next steps are outlined for that human person and for yourself. When we hang up today, I'm gonna go ahead and talk to Mary, our care coordinator. She's gonna call you back and make an appointment to come out to the house and talk to you a little bit more. Tell them what is going to happen next. Don't leave them out in space. We'll call you back, let you know what's happening. No, tell me who's gonna call me next. Tell me who's gonna come out to the house. Tell me, give, just give me some idea of what is happening. That's good communication. That's what that is, and it will help them be less anxious. The real cost of bad call experiences 80% of callers will not leave a voicemail without an expected timely callback. I think 80% of callers just hang up. If they really need something, they're not gonna leave a voicemail, they're gonna call the next agency. Yeah, first agency to answer wins the inquiry, or the first agency to call them back. Like in my case, whoever took the time on a Saturday, it was that important to them to get the business. Of course, I'm in this business, right? So I get I knew that was a good sign. So that was the person who got it. Yeah, and think about it this way: every person who calls in who's a potential client, an adult child with a senior in their life that needs care, that is months of recurring revenue on the end of that phone line. It's not just losing a client, it's not just one thing, it's months and months of revenue. If you know what your lifetime value of a client is at $10,000, is it $20,000 usually? What if you know what that is, and someone was just rushed or rude or just put somebody on hold without if they're not taking care of them from the moment they answer the phone, you've just lost that $10,000, $20,000 potentially.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

That's a good way to put it.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

So think about it that way. Months of recurring revenue is lost if you have people answering your phone in not a great way. So every call is an expression of your agency's values and a chance to build lasting trust from the very first hello. Building a stronger phone culture inside your agency. A great phone culture doesn't happen by accident. It's built. So have a meeting, have a sit-down, talk to everybody about every call being important. A caregiver calling in is just as important as a client who is, or a potential client, a referral source. Everybody's important on the end of that phone line. So look, do some mystery calling or ask somebody in your family, ask your husband, a wife, a sister, a brother to call in and talk to your home care agency about someone potentially needing care and see how that goes. Let them report back to you from a novice, from someone who's not in the industry. How did that go? How did it sound to you? Were they rushed? Audit your greeting, call your own agency right now. What did you hear? And then do some role play. If folks are having some challenges with answering calls, let's sit down and do it together. Let's talk about the challenging calls that come in and better ways to respond. If you don't practice, you're not that person's not going to have a solution the next time that happens. Create a follow-up system, whether you have a call log or a CRM. I also encourage everyone to have a checklist next to the phone on a pad of paper or whatever it is and ask the right questions. Get the right information, name, phone number, email address, how did you hear about us? How old is your mom or dad? You can ask some simple questions and have a lot of great data to share with the next person in line who's really going to be taking that call. Celebrate great calls. So when a team member handles something really nicely, recognize it, talk about it, and have a party. Remember that small, consistent improvements, they add up over time. You don't need to change everything, but pick one action step and start today. I can tell you that long time ago, we do not listen to phone calls because I feel like it's a HIPAA violation for us to do that. And it may or may not be, it's a great area. But when clients of ours have tracked and recorded phone lines through us, we do not listen to the calls. But back in the day, a long time ago, when we first started doing that, we listened to the calls with our clients. We would have a meeting, and let's say, let's see how things are going. And we'd play some of those calls. And it was horrifying what was happening on the other end of those lines. And they had no idea that people were getting served. It was just a litany of stuff. People getting served divorce papers at work, people like there, someone was calling to say, This is from the sheriff's office, somebody who's been arrested. They had people answering the phones who you know, they they had, and I have college-age children, they're 19 years old, and I get it, they need a summer job. But putting my 19-year-old on the phone at my home care agency without training, any one of them could do it if I practice with them a few times, but without any training, is it hello? What hello? Who is this? Who did I just call?

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

A little bit of training, a little bit of, but I do think that someone with a little bit of life experience behind them as a full-time person who's an admin or answering the phone is really good because they get it. They talk slower, they listen longer, they're okay with being compassionate and caring on the phone. Whereas someone who's young may be a little bit too fast, they may not have as much life experience, they may not understand the gravity of the situation as well, those kinds of things. So pick and choose who's answering your phone, but by all means, train everyone. Okay.

unknown 30:39

Me.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

The phone is your front door. Every call is a chance to build or break trust, treated accordingly. And every we've talked about this, every team member is

Training Stories From Recorded Calls

SPEAKER_00 30:48

a marketer. Etiquette is empathy in action. Having good etiquette on the phone, it means that you care. It shows that you are compassionate, but you are also caring about how you are coming off to the person who called. Good etiquette is never gonna hurt, it's always gonna be on your side. And then system beats good intention. Systems beat good intentions. So having those follow-up notifications in your CRM or call logs or a checklist by the phone, whatever that is, is important. But if you're doing a checklist by the phone, make sure someone's entering that data. Now, today I imagine that when people answer the phone, they have a computer screen in front of them and they are taking down that information right there on that computer screen. That's what I imagine. Not all the time, not for every agency, but that's probably how that works most of the time. And making sure that checklist is there is still really a good idea. So anybody have any questions, any experiences? I can tell you a couple of crazy stories if you want to hear them.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

We have a comment from Carmel. She said, Can't stop laughing, Valerie. That is a my 19-year-old nephew, answers his cell phone. Or they don't answer. My kids don't answer the phone.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Oh no, yeah, no. Hello. If I have your agency and you said, hello all the time. One time I was listening to calls with a client, and I we just did it as a courtesy. It wasn't like it was mandatory or anything, but we were just going through calls and I clicked on, he said, click on that one. And I clicked on it, and he said, Hello, he was sound asleep when he answered the phone. And he's wait a minute, who's this? And it was the guy that was with me, listening with me on the phone. He's the one that answered the phone. Oh no, he was so embarrassed. I said, I'm so sorry. So and I guarantee you that never happened again. He was so mortified by how he answered the phone. He didn't realize that it was what was happening and he was asleep. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

Anyway, oh my god, he was probably on the call or something, and which is a risk you take when people have worked all day and that's their own call day as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

Okay, I got one more weird story for you. Oh, this is just craziness. Okay, so we have clients all over the country, a lot of them have the tracked and recorded lines. We were listening with them to different calls that were coming in to try and educate and all that. And this one guy, I noticed as I was listening to calls that this one number kept calling multiple of our home care agencies. It was the same phone number over and over again, and it took me a while to catch on. And so I started listening to a couple of the calls. Oh, this guy was psycho, and he was calling home care agencies all over the country and acting like he was inquiring for services for himself, and usually it was some nice young girl who answered the phone, and she was being very pleasant, and he would start asking weirder questions and weirder questions. Oh my gosh. And at the end, he would say, I need somebody to come over and change my diaper like three times a day, or I don't know, something weird. Oh my gosh. I was like, Oh, and so eventually the poor soul who's at the home care agency would catch on and be like, and they would just hang up. But I was like, this guy calls everybody on the history and asked them if they'll change his diaper. He didn't live in the area where this home care agency service. Oh my gosh, it was like 10 or 11 of these calls. So, anyway, that's certainly not on that's horrible. I caught a serial weirdo, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

That's pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

He was recorded all the time doing this, and then it stopped. That's horrible. Oh my goodness. But if that guy calls you, he's a serial caller.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Correct him and say it's an adult brief.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

So anyway, but yeah, so I I would just say this that any improvements you can make on how your phones are answered, what you say when you answer the phone, clarity, slow, all those things matter so much to these families that are in crisis. They feel like the world's coming in on them or their parent, and they just need a good listener.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

So that's I'll say too that if you are sitting

Checklists Mirrors And Car Calls

SPEAKER_02 35:32

at a desk, if you have folks that are sitting at a desk, what we always did is we said, okay, you have your checklist, like you talked about. We also had a priority call list. So if it did happen to go to voicemail because for whatever reasons you're on the other line, or maybe you're the only person that's on call that weekend, or what have you. And then there was we had a list on who you have to call back within a certain amount of time. What type of call was it? APS. So you're calling within an hour, things like that. A payroll question, maybe an hour because it's a caregiver and they're gonna get really upset within by the end of the day, maybe it's a billing issue. But then you have to also let those people know that these things are happy. We're gonna give you a call back at this time to go over it, or we're gonna call you back and we'll get you to the right person on Monday, or something like that. But one of the things we also did besides the checklist and the priority list is we had a mirror next to our desk. You guys have probably all heard this, but a mirror, so you could look at yourself and say, Do I look like I'm happy? Do I look like I would be a person that we'd want to talk to on the other line? And so I think that that would help some people too. Love it. And not everybody's at the desk. So a lot of how we were, I'm driving, I've got my GPS, I've got this, I've got Google Ads calling in, and you're trying to balance all that. You've got to pull over. So you have to try to make your office, your car, a quiet office, too. So that's a challenge.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Sometimes your car is the only place you can't answer the phone where it's quiet. That's why people record videos in their cars. I'm starting to realize that's because it's the only place where they get privacy and quiet for five minutes.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

So that's where I eat my Dubai chocolates in the car.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

All right. So do we want to talk about sales training coming up before we do handouts?

SPEAKER_01 37:18

I think I mean before we do the leave behinds. I see a bunch of people here on the call that are in our sales

Sales Training Invite And Wrap

SPEAKER_01 37:24

training. We have summer is here and we have classes in June, July. I'm going to be starting to add some August, but we do have availability. So if you're interested, let us know. It's a 12-week, once a week, an hour via Zoom sales training class. We tell you everything you need to do know, what to say, what to do. We may customize leave behinds, how to get those private pay referrals. So if anybody's interested, let us know. I will get that information to you. Awesome. Hello, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

See you next time.