Cornerstone Caregiving provides in-home, non-medical care to seniors in dozens of cities across 15 U.S. states, with expansion to new markets in the works. “As people get older, they typically have a better end-of-life experience and live longer if they can stay in their homes,” says Director of Development and Operations, Jessie Grant.
But as people age, they often face issues like dementia, assistance with activities of daily living (bathing, eating, personal hygiene, etc.) or limited mobility that make it difficult to remain in their homes. Cornerstone Caregiving provides a full complement of 24/7 services to help seniors stay at home longer, from medication reminders and meal prep to transportation and companionship.
As you can imagine, delivering 24/7 on-call care to clients across dozens of cities and multiple time zones presents unique communications challenges.
“OpenPhone allows for the team to be a lot more cohesive and efficient.”
Jessie Grant
"The nature of what we do is not 8-5, it’s 24/7. So we constantly have someone on call," says Jessie. "And who is on call rotates, because if you’re on call all the time and getting calls in the middle of the night, that’s going to burn you out pretty quickly."
Cornerstone Caregiving tried solutions from Phone.com, RingCentral, and Nextiva. Sharing full access was complex or impossible on these platforms, since they’re built around individuals owning phone numbers instead of teams sharing numbers. Managing multiple client accounts from a centralized location was very difficult.
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Jessie Grant
"Sometimes a client would contact a manager who wasn’t on call or not use the main number," says Jessie. "Things were slipping through the cracks."
When everyone was responsible for their own phone number, it also didn’t allow people to be fully “off” when they weren’t on call. Managers would often receive voice and text messages in the middle of the night to their individual phone numbers, instead of those calls going to a shared, main line that everyone could access.
Some offices tried to solve these problems by having a physical "on-call" phone that managers would pass off to one another at the end of their shift. That kept client conversations in context and allowed team members to truly be offline when their shift was over, but it presented some obvious logistical challenges.
Cornerstone Caregiving realized they needed an always-on solution that allows multiple people to staff a shared phone number in shifts to field client and caregiver texts and calls. That way, after a call comes in, their office can dispatch a caregiver to the client’s home. They also needed a business phone system with at least two dedicated numbers for each office. They wanted a main line clients can call or text to request caregiving services. Plus, a separate, shared number the office can use to dispatch, schedule, and recruit caregivers.
They required a platform that supports both incoming and outgoing communications, and offers 24/7 access to multiple team members. The system also had to be reliable — someone’s care hangs in the balance.
OpenPhone solves all these problems and allows Cornerstone Caregiving to provide a higher level of service.
Shared numbers mean managers can collaborate with one another to provide a higher standard of care to clients. Clients can call or text one main number, and have confidence that they’ll reach the right person. Other features, like do not disturb and business hours, allow for employees to fully disconnect when not on-call, helping them avoid burnout. All that happens in a shared, virtual environment that lives on everyone’s own devices — no need to pass a physical phone back and forth.
Cornerstone Caregiving makes use of OpenPhone’s call recording feature to keep everyone in the loop. Plus, team members can always click into any conversation thread to review the complete text and call communication history."
A lot of things can happen overnight. Instead of someone having to recollect the call that happened at two in the morning, the person who wasn’t on call can go back and listen to the phone call recording and get filled in on exactly what happened," says Jessie. "It allows for the team to be a lot more cohesive and efficient."
Since calls are recorded, Jessie and her team can also give very specific feedback and make sure care quality remains consistent and high.
On the internal communications side, OpenPhone makes it easier to quickly communicate with caregivers and potential new hires.
"One thing that has led to a more productive office is snippets," says Jessie. Recruiters use saved snippets to follow up with caregiver applicants, making sure they know where and when they’re expected for interviews, and to ensure they remain in compliance with insurance regulations. Instead of copying and pasting or manually typing out these oft-used text messages, Cornerstone Caregiving’s operations team can just push them out to applicants with a couple clicks.
"OpenPhone really allows us to focus on what we do, and not be stuck in the details," says Jessie. "We don’t have to make sure we’re crossing our T’s and dotting our I’s. It’s really just a click of the button, then I’m done and I don’t have to think about it anymore."
As Cornerstone Caregiving expands into new cities, OpenPhone will be an important part of their communications stack. For Jessie and her team, OpenPhone’s simplicity allows them to get set up quickly, whether that means outfitting an entirely new office with client communications capabilities or onboarding new caregivers. Everyone can get up to speed fast and immediately have context into ongoing customer conversations.
"I would recommend OpenPhone to businesses that are growing who want to focus on their product or service instead of dealing with difficult set up and steep learning curves," says Jessie. "It’s just way better than anything else out there and has relieved the constant headache and annoyance that comes with most other providers."
OpenPhone allows Cornerstone Caregiving to provide more reliable and consistent care to clients, while improving productivity and team cohesiveness.
Join thousands of businesses already using OpenPhone to communicate better with their customers.
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