3 reasons people with disability choose a service provider

At the VALID conference in Geelong last Friday, we asked people with disability who visited our stall a simple question: “What do you want in a service provider”?

Answers varied widely, from choosing my own support workers, to value for money and better pay for workers. But three in particular stood out as clear favourites:

1. Reliability. This is fundamental to any quality service — just ask Telstra last week! But it’s non-negotiable when you need that service for the basics of your daily routine. Can you imagine the stress of not knowing if you’ll be able to eat or get into bed unless someone shows up soon? Good service for people with disability means turning up on time, every time, and offering peace of mind to help them get on with living their life. We have a 99.9% reliability record so far, and plan on keeping it that way.
2. Mutual trust and respect. Some may ask how a service that doesn’t value its customers can even survive! But the point is that working 1:1 in people’s homes and supporting them to get out and about in the community is a deeply personal service. It means letting them lead, not pushing your own values, and letting them take a few risks without breaching your duty of care obligations. It’s not easy, which is why we pay above-Award rates to attract and keep our fantastic team.
3. Freedom in my life. Everyone has their daily and weekly routines, but many people with disability are stuck doing the same thing week in, week out. It’s partly a lack of funding (which the NDIS is helping to fix), but it’s also because traditional service providers need that level of routine in order to manage their business. InLife does it differently: our rostering is done online and we encourage clients to communicate directly with their team. We take head office out of the rostering equation to dramatically increase the freedom and flexibility in our clients’ lives. (We’ll show you what we mean in an upcoming post)

So service providers listen up! A good deal for people with disability means flexibility, reliability and respect. We’ve listened and we’re dedicated to making it happen.

Until next time,

David