CareLineLive, an Award-Winning Total Care management System for Home Care Agencies Delivers More Time to Care

“Over 10 percent of our new customers are coming through referrals from existing customers, and for us, that speaks volumes about what people think of our product.”

CareLineLive’s holistic system not only appeals to care agency management but also to staff with CareLineLive’s Mobile App; delivering enhanced job satisfaction and security. Family and friends of those needing care also get reassurance with CareLineLive’s Family and Friends website, with instant access to details about their loved ones’ care.

CareLineLive is based in Slinfold, West Sussex.

Josh Hough: Interview Highlights

Why was the company set up? And how did you expand your company and its offerings over the years?

Originally the company was setup as an IT managed solutions company to help Small and Medium businesses make sense of technology. However, since the launch of CareLineLive, the business has begun to focus solely on helping Home Care Agencies. CareLineLive was started to address the management issues and safety issues of caregivers who travel around looking after people in their own homes. But what I then realised is that there was more than just an issue managing the carers, the care agencies themselves needed better management tools, and so CareLineLive was born. The product now not only runs an entire care agency’s back office, but it manages the staff too and helps ensure that carers have more time to care. Our product development and new features are not only created with our own visions, but we make sure that any customer feedback and suggestions are built-in with future developments. Our clients are actively contributing to the future success of CareLineLive.

What kind of responses have you received from your consumers over the years? How have they motivated you to shape your offerings/grow the company?

We find that with the industry we’re in, there is always adversity to change and that can sometimes be difficult to manage and to support. However, once we get our customers onboard and guide them through the process change, the responses to CareLineLive have been amazing. Over 10 percent of our new customers are coming through referrals from existing customers, and for us, that speaks volumes about what people think of our product.

What challenges did you face in your initial years? What can your peers learn from it?

When growing a startup, there seem to be three big issues – customers, staff and money. You need staff to tend to the customers, and you need money to pay the staff. I think all startups have the same problem, and we’ve been no different – the balancing act between the growth of the customer base, the strength of the sales team, and the money to pay them has always been challenging. When the business first started, the challenge was further compounded by the constant battle between customer requirements and development speed. As our product has now reached 100 percent product-market fit, we’re in a much stronger position, and so the battle now is just the challenge of sales obtaining new customers.

“Earning trust and respect of consumers all around the world is through consistent focus on delivering high quality in all of our actions.” How do you interpret this statement?

For me, I would interpret this as something our company actively strives to achieve. It’s important to me that our customers respect our work, and the first way of doing that is making sure that everybody within the organization recognizes the importance of our customers to us, and respects them equally. Mutual respect and understanding helps ensure our customers trust us, and with trust, we are given detailed enough information to be able to develop CareLineLive to a point that’s not only a market fit but of extremely high quality too.

How do you stay relevant to the consumer interests and needs in this highly volatile market?

By keeping our customers engaged, through regular newsletters and updates we stay relevant, and with relevance, we get told about new requirements and that enables us to develop for those requests. Keeping the customers at the forefront of our development mindset makes sure we always develop alongside their needs and regulatory pressures. The regulatory pressures are what make our sector the most volatile.

Do you have any new products ready to be launched?

The management of Home Care agencies aims at a never-ending chain of new features and developments that need to be launched to stay on top of regulatory requirements, and ahead of our competition. For us, our next stages are the additional parts of our care planning features, bringing CareLineLive up to having the tools to run every step of a care agency from their staff, to full client management, and more.

Does CareLineLive participate in the global sustainability movement?

As a tech company, we’re fortunate to be at the forefront of how we can utilize technology to lower our carbon footprint and then to maintain it at a low level. Whilst our business is currently very focused around the face-to-face model, as we scale and grow that will be harder to manage, so by moving to more online demonstrations and training, we’ll be able to lower our carbon footprint and stay as digital as possible.

Josh Hough: An Inspiring Leader

Josh Hough, Founder, serves as the Managing Director of CareLineLive. He started the business just after turning 18 back in 2010, after not quite getting the entry requirements to get into university to study law. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society and has completed the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Course in the UK.

“It’s important to me that our customers respect our work, and the first way of doing that is making sure that everybody within the organization recognizes the importance of our customers to us, and respects them equally.”