In the early sixties the car rental company Avis launched an ad campaign with the slogan “We try harder”. It was created as a way to differentiate Avis from its main competitor, Hertz, and to convey the message that Avis was willing to go the extra mile to provide excellent service to its customers.
Avis’ point was that the number one company was resting on its laurels and did not work as hard at customer service as Avis did. Although Hertz was never called out by name Avis was asking that even if Hertz was the largest company did that necessarily make them the best? Is bigger always better? In a world where customer service was and remains increasingly the differentiator Avis chose to position themselves as the company people would rather do business with. And don’t we all like to side with an underdog that deserves to do well?
The ‘We Try Harder’ ads were an instant hit and within a year Avis became profitable for the first time in over a decade. Arch rival Hertz watched the market-share gap between the two shrink. In the subsequent 50 years Avis rolled out sub slogans along the lines of “When you’re only No. 2”, “Avis can’t afford not to be nice”, “Avis can’t afford to make you wait” and “Avis can’t afford dirty ashtrays”.
History tells us that in Europe Avis has long since become the market leader. And many brands since have used similar positioning to question the dominance of the number one and position themselves as the challenger brand. Pepsi’s use of the tagline “The choice of a new generation”, Volkswagen Beetle’s “Think Small” and Virgin Airline’s cheeky campaigns which challenged the staid and traditional airlines.
But of course this tale is about more than simply ad slogans. Claims made in ads do need to reflect the day-to-day reality of what customers experience from a business otherwise they will fall flat or catastrophically backfire. Consider the current wave of Facebook ads for National Rail which come complete with a slew of comments complaining about strikes, cancellations and high fares.
Reflecting on the old Avis campaign got me thinking about the way in which CareLineLive positions itself in the home care management software market.
I’ve been in position as Marketing Manager at CareLineLive for six months now and have spent a fair amount of time thinking about our differentiating factors.
I’ve discovered that there are many providers of home care management software. And yes, one or two very big brands with substantial capital behind them. CareLineLive is by no means the number one or even number two in terms of size. So how is CareLineLive genuinely different? Can smaller be better and how does CareLineLive try harder?
From my perspective from inside the organisation and by what our customers tell me I’d say that three things stand out:
- The product does what it says on the tin (to quote another famous ad campaign). CareLineLive is the genuinely all-in-one home care management software that we claim it to be. Software that works to deliver multiple features and functionalities extraordinarily well. Software that is properly thought through in terms of effective processes and functionality that result in considerable efficiencies for home care staff. Software that properly results in freeing up time for them to do what care staff do best – care for people
- The pricing is simple and honest. Subject to a minimum fee of £100 a month what you pay is a single fee per carer per month (based on average weekly numbers) that only goes up or down as your organisation grows or gets smaller.
We don’t charge any license fees for office and management staff.
And we don’t charge any extras when we roll out new functionality – which we do very frequently. Every customer has access to all the features within the software. - Our customer service is exemplary. To showcase that we’ve run a small scale marketing campaign ourselves in recent months under the slogan “We Are Humans”.
Software itself may be delivered via a computer or mobile phone but ours is developed by humans that very much care about the people working in home care and their clients. It is made by humans that work hard to understand what our customers want and need.
And our customer support is present, available and very human. Humans that answer the phones (yes we do answer our phones and respond to emails) quickly and efficiently, humans that follow up support tickets with diligence, humans that onboard new clients with patience and kindness.
And if, on the rare occasion a customer wants to end a contract, our processes are not onerous or unfair. We offer you our blessing and a quick release from contract thanks to typical terms of just three months notice after an initial 12 month term.
If you are struggling with deciding which home care management system to sign up to rest assured that with CareLineLive we really do try harder. We make big claims about our product and customer support. And we deliver on those claims.
Give us a call today to book a demo with our very human sales team.
