The results for the January 2013 Client Satisfaction survey are in and once again they are very positive! The National Business Research Institute, Inc. (NBRI) conducted the survey and reported the results as percentile rankings which were compared to the industry average. This is the second survey deployment organized by NBRI allowing Comfort Keepers^® to compare the results with the previous year as well as to other Home Health Care Services companies. Keep an eye out for the executive summary and surveys which will be mailed in the next coming weeks. Thank you for making Comfort Keepers a high-performing organization in its industry!

The question the Business Coaches and Committee Members are hearing frequently is, "Why is fall the target timeframe before the system will see national advertising?"

There is a great deal of ground work that must be completed to ensure we execute well.

It has been extremely important to the franchise community that franchisees have a key decision-making role in all things related to the NBF. The processes are contractual and outlined in the addendum. Since the committee convened the first of March, they have:

• Sourced over 54 organizations as potential participants in the RFP process (creative, media, and call management)
• Confirmed participation with a subset of organizations
• Written and distributed the RFPs
• Are preparing to review all of the submitted RFPs which begin arriving May 10 - 17
• Are preparing for face-to-face presentations June 4- 6 and selection soon after
• Retained an accounting firm

One of the more complex vendor relationships will be the onboarding of a call management organization. The nature of our protected territories, and the servicing of clients in open territories, will require a time commitment and great deal of communication with the vendor and franchisees to handle lead flow fairly and to the best of our abilities.

If you as franchisees have not yet contacted your Business Coach to mystery shop your office, do it today. To date approximately 25 franchisees have been shopped for phone effectiveness and there is opportunity for each of us to deliver a more professional sales experience on the phone. Take this time to improve your conversion rates.

The committee will be retaining businesses to help us develop and implement national branding and advertising and there is an associated cost. When the vendors are selected and budgets are developed and approved, the Fund must have adequate dollars to pay for the advertising.

At the annual conference this year, the Business Coaching team hosted a booth to help franchisees determine if the Affordable Care Act applied to their business and if so, how to determine full time employee status and calculate the employer mandate penalty using the new calculation tool created by CKFI. If you haven't already done so, please contact your Business Coach to discuss this information.

You can also access additional information provided by Blue Cross and Blue Shield about how to determine if your business will be assessed a penalty and how to determine full time employee status by clicking here.

'Legal Eagle', Audrey Mross keeps us up to date on the latest employment law issues and timely topics in her monthly Employment Law Update for May. To find briefs on everything from medical marijuana use by employees to FMLA discrimination protection, hot topics for multi-state employers, and more, click here.

National Brand Advertising is right around the corner, so what better time to polish your client care management skills? This webinar will provide you with the tools to manage client care through scheduling and Telephony. Learn more about the eRSP tool, some best practices for intake, assessments, reassessments and the client scheduling cycle.

To join this webinar on Wednesday, May 15th, 2013; 11:00 am EDT click here and enter as a Guest. To join the audio portion of the call, please dial (800) 591-2259 and enter the participant code 886411.

If you held a Nourish Senior Life™ event in March, April, or May, please let us know! We will be holding the quarterly March through May drawing on June 7th. By registering your event and updating us on the success that you had, you could win a $100 gift card in the Quarterly drawing, and possibly an iPad mini in the cumulative Grand Prize drawing at the end of August 2013! The registration and update forms are easy to fill out and will only take you a short amount of time. Registration and/or updates will earn you one entry each for a chance to win the gift card and iPad mini. Click here to Register or Update now!

Today is the last day to take the free 30-minute training webinar to introduce you to the new Holmes Printing website for Comfort Keepers^®. Learn about the easy to use navigation and ordering process. The e-mails you received from Holmes over the last several weeks announced the changes to their website and included sign-up information for the webinars. Holmes will host this last webinar today, Friday May 10 at 10 AM, EDT. To sign up go to: https://adobeformscentral.com/?f=CnICLbHLvKDYKqRWU7j%2ABA.

Did you miss a previous edition of the Friday Flash?
May 3
April 26
April 19
April 12