Most care homes focus on getting more enquiries. But are they converting the ones they already have?

When a care home has a vacancy problem, the instinct is almost always to go looking for more leads. More visibility. More marketing. Get in front of more families.

And sometimes that’s the right answer. But not always.

Because there’s a question that comes before “how do we get more enquiries?” — and it’s one that care home owners rarely pause to ask: what’s happening to the enquiries we’re already getting?

The honest answer, for a lot of care homes, is: not enough.

Calls are being missed. Online forms are going unacknowledged for days. Enquirers are being caught in the voicemail loop and never calling back. Families who were ready to book a visit have moved on — not because your home wasn’t right for them, but because someone answered the phone and you didn’t.

Before you spend another pound on marketing, it’s worth conducting a simple audit of how your care home handles the enquiries it’s already receiving. What you find might be more revealing than you expect.

The phone call reality

According to TrustedCarePro’s 2024 research, 67% of new care enquiries are made by telephone. Not email. Not a form. Not live chat. A phone call, from a real person, often in the middle of a difficult moment in their family’s life.

That phone call is the most important conversion point in your entire marketing funnel. It’s the moment when a family stops researching and starts engaging. How you handle it — or whether you handle it at all — determines what happens next.

Now here’s the challenge. The same research found that 29% of all telephone enquiries arrive between 10am and 12pm, with a further 23% between 12pm and 2pm. That’s 52% of your daily enquiry volume landing in a four-hour window.

Take a moment to think about what’s happening in your care home during those hours. Morning meds. Personal care. Getting residents up, dressed, and ready. Preparing and serving lunch. It’s the busiest part of the operational day — and it’s the exact window when families are most likely to be calling you.

Missing a care home enquiry during a busy shift isn’t a failure of effort. It’s a structural problem. And structural problems need structural solutions — not just goodwill.

The impact of a missed call is not just a lost enquiry. At a self-funding cost of £67,500 a year, a missed call that would have resulted in a placement represents an enormous amount of missed revenue — often more than the annual cost of having a dedicated enquiry handler.

Questions to ask about your phone enquiry process:

• Is there a designated person responsible for answering and logging enquiry calls during peak hours (10am–2pm)?
• What happens to calls that go to voicemail? Is there a defined process for returning them, and within what timeframe?
• Are calls being logged in a simple CRM or even a spreadsheet so that no enquiry falls through the cracks?
• Is the person who answers enquiry calls trained for that conversation — not just to take a message, but to have a warm, informative dialogue that books a visit?

Monday: the most important day of your marketing week

The TrustedCarePro data revealed something that care home owners often find surprising: Monday accounts for 21% of all telephone enquiries. Tuesday through Thursday each take around 18%. Friday drops off, and weekends account for about 8%.

The pattern makes sense once you see it. Families tend to do their research over the weekend — reading websites, comparing options, having conversations at home. By Monday morning, they’ve made a decision to act. They pick up the phone.

This has two practical implications.

The first is about content timing. The content families consume over the weekend — your blog posts, your social media, your website — directly drives Monday morning phone calls. If your website is uninformative, your social channels are quiet, and your Google profile is out of date, you’re invisible at the exact moment families are forming their shortlist.

The second is about staffing. Monday morning is, functionally, your busiest sales window of the week. If enquiry calls on Monday are being handled by whoever picks up the phone between other tasks, you’re leaving occupancy on the table.

The online form gap: your silent conversion killer

While telephone enquiries dominate, just over 25% of enquiries come through online forms. That’s a significant channel — and the one where care homes most consistently underperform.

Here’s the pattern that plays out in many homes: a family fills in the contact form at 9pm on a Sunday. The form submission goes to an email inbox that’s checked on Monday morning, gets glanced at between other things, and a response is sent Tuesday afternoon — if at all.

By Tuesday afternoon, that family has probably already spoken to two other care homes that responded faster.

Speed matters enormously in enquiry conversion. Research across the broader consumer services industry consistently shows that the likelihood of converting a lead drops dramatically with each hour that passes without a response. For a family in the middle of a care crisis, that dynamic is even more pronounced. They need help. They’re moving quickly. The first home that responds well is often the one that gets the visit.

Practical fixes for online enquiry response:

• Automated acknowledgement email — set up an immediate “thank you, we’ll be in touch within [X hours]” response so families know their form has been received. This buys goodwill and manages expectations.
• A defined response time — ideally same-day during business hours, next morning for evening submissions. Write it down. Make it a policy.
• Phone follow-up as default — a call, not just an email reply. For a decision as significant as choosing a care home, picking up the phone signals that you take the enquiry seriously.
• Form design — make sure your contact form asks for a phone number as well as an email address, so you have the option to call.

Weekend coverage: the 8% you might be ignoring

Weekend enquiries are a small proportion of the total — around 8% — but they’re worth thinking about carefully. Families who call or enquire on a weekend are often doing so because they’re at a point of urgency. A hospital visit on Saturday. A care assessment earlier that week. A family conversation over Sunday lunch that has crystallised into action.

These are often fast-moving, high-intent enquirers. If they’re met with a voicemail that says “our office is closed, please call back Monday,” they will call back Monday — but they’ll also call every other care home on their list.

You don’t necessarily need to staff an enquiry desk on weekends. But you do need a plan:

• A voicemail message that sounds warm and gives a clear expectation of when they’ll be called back (not a generic “leave a message”).
• A care manager or senior staff member with visibility of weekend email and form submissions.
• A website that does a lot of the informational heavy lifting on its own — so that a family who can’t speak to anyone on Saturday can still learn enough to feel confident and motivated to call back on Monday.

Live chat: worth watching

Currently only around 6% of enquiries use live chat, but that figure has been growing year on year. For now, it’s a small channel — but it’s the channel of choice for a certain kind of enquirer: someone who is doing research outside of calling hours, or someone who prefers to communicate in writing before picking up the phone.

Care homes that install a live chat function (or even a well-designed chatbot that collects contact details and answers common questions) now are positioning themselves ahead of a trend. The early mover advantage in any new channel is always significant.

The enquiry audit: your six-point checklist

Run through these honestly. Be the mystery shopper of your own care home:

1. Call your own home at 10:30am on a Monday. Who answers? How long does it take? How does the conversation feel? Does it inspire confidence?
2. Submit an enquiry form on your website at 5pm. When do you get a response? Is it warm and personal, or generic?
3. Check your voicemail message. Does it sound welcoming and helpful, or transactional and impersonal?
4. Look at your last 20 enquiries. Were they all followed up? How many converted to visits? How many just went cold?
5. Ask your reception or care staff: what happens when they’re busy and a call comes in? Is there a clear protocol, or does it depend on whoever is nearest the phone?
6. Check your Google Business Profile hours. Do they accurately reflect when someone can expect to speak to a human? Is there a note about how to reach someone out of hours?

Most care home owners who go through this process discover at least two or three significant gaps. That’s not unusual — it’s just a reflection of the fact that enquiry handling has never historically been a priority in an operationally demanding environment.

The good news is that the fixes are usually straightforward. They don’t require a big budget. They require process, training, and a little intentionality.

The final thought: marketing that converts is better than marketing that attracts

More leads don’t solve a conversion problem. If families are enquiring and then going somewhere else, the issue isn’t awareness — it’s what happens between first contact and booked visit.

The most cost-effective marketing improvement many care homes can make has nothing to do with a new website or a Google Ads campaign. It’s fixing the leaks in the enquiry process they already have.

A care home that answers every call, responds to every form within the hour, and follows up consistently doesn’t need to outmarket its competitors. It just needs to out-execute them — and that’s very much within reach.

Want an honest look at how your enquiry process stacks up?

Our free enquiry audit looks at both sides of your marketing: how you attract families and how you handle them when they arrive. We’ll give you a clear, practical picture of where the gaps are and what to do about them — with no obligation and no jargon.

Get in touch to arrange yours.

Data source: TrustedCarePro, “How and When Are Care Seekers Getting in Touch in 2024.”

Related reading

• The 9pm Phone Call Your Care Home Missed — And Why Families Don’t Ring Back
• Why Tracking the Source of your enquiries is vital for care homes
• 11 Creative Ideas to Fill Care Home Beds

How we can help: Care Home Enquiry System.