Barchester Healthcare
Barchester Healthcare is one of the UK’s largest providers of care homes, operating over 250 services across the country.
The Barchester group operates approximately 250 services across the country, supporting individuals with a range of needs including dementia and nursing care.
The organisation predominantly targets the private fee-paying market of those who require care; sales are handled by the individual homes and their Managers.
TrustedCare are a great partner for us and really understand the customer mentality when looking for a care home. With moving mystery calling over to them as our trusted supplier, we have seen improvements in our customer experience, especially through the call and coach model they provide.
Even when the call hasn’t been in line with our processes and ways of working at Barchester, TrustedCare provide the feedback with kindness and explain the opportunities to improve, leaving colleagues feeling equipped to improve, not demoralised on having a low score.”
Challenges
As one of the largest and leading care home groups, Barchester has always had a strong focus on customer service excellence and effective sales management.
Although Barchester employs the services of a central enquiries team, a large majority of enquiries are made and managed at home level. A significant amount of training around enquiry capture and sales management is provided to teams based at the homes.
Barchester employed the services of a well-known market research company to mystery call their care homes, ensuring that process was being followed and the right questions were asked.
This approach provided the senior leadership team with an insight into the working practices of their homes. However, it took a long time for the feedback gathered during these calls to filter through the company to the individual who dealt with the initial enquiry. The market research company did not have particular expertise in care and often services came at a high cost, therefore they had to take place irregularly to align to budget.
Barchester was looking for a way to regularly deliver the feedback obtained during the mystery shop directly to the call handler quickly, helping to improve their approach and champion success.
What was achieved
Barchester partnered with TrustedCare to deliver a ‘Call and Coach’ mystery calling programme.
The members of the TrustedCare mystery calling team are highly trained customer service advisers who have managed thousands of care enquiries. They provide feedback to the call handler based at the home when the call reaches an end.
The feedback includes tips and techniques to capture more information and improve call outcomes.
- Call quality and data capture increased across the group
- Homes booked more visits with care seekers
- Gaps in knowledge and training identified
- Best practice championed across the group
- Evidence that new policies and practices were being followed
Services used
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