The operating system for human services
Purpose-built tools for NDIS organisations
A connected CRM for care information
Smart rostering tools for frontline team
Stay in sync with billing automation
The latest tips, guides and industry research on the GoodHuman blog
Access set up guides, FAQs and support from our friendly Melbourne-based support
Explore the all-in-one service delivery platform in a 2-min demo
Get started today with a free trial of the entire platform
The people and values behind GoodHuman
Join the team
More than half a million Australians are now accessing NDIS-supported services. As the Scheme continues to grow, so does pressure on the disability support sector, particularly for large-scale support organisations who have been long-time fixtures of the community. With the rapid rise in demand, resources become stretched as support organisations strive to deliver high-quality services to a growing number of customers — without the same growth in their workforce.
The question then becomes, how do we do more with less? When demand is rising, it’s time to look to operational efficiencies that can enhance the customer experience and service quality. GoodHuman’s second annual Customer Trends and Values Report examines what customers value the most and where the future of support services is heading, to deliver clearer pathways and practical solutions to help organisations succeed in 2022 and beyond.
This report will uncover:
The findings in this report come from an Australian survey of 653 respondents (199 NDIS participants and 454 primary carers/legal guardians) between December 7, 2021 and January 7, 2022. GoodHuman worked with The Evolved Group to deliver this research and assess the experience of people accessing support services on the NDIS.
To find out what customers value most from support organisations, we asked them to rank their top priorities in order of importance:
Trust that staff have their best interest at heart
Specialisations and expertise in people with their specific needs
Quick and clear communication from their service provider
Last year’s report showed that trust and communication were most valued by NDIS participants and legal guardians. This year, trust (49%) and clear communication (35%) remain top priorities, alongside specialist expertise (38%) and good value and transparency around costs and billing (33%).
Specialisation and expertise with specific support needs was a new addition to the survey after many respondents told us that knowledge of their disability type was a key factor when looking for a support provider. This immediately ranked in second place for what people value most, with 38% of people saying this was their top priority.
Most valued attributes in a provider
Trust that staff have my/our best interest at heart 49% Specialisation and expertise with my/their specific support needs 38% Quick and clear communication 35% Good value from my/the plan and fee transparency 33% The option to choose a preferred support worker 28% The ability to find and book services instantly and as needed 26% A variety of different kinds of services to choose from 25% Guidance on how to navigate the NDIS system 24% Easy to use tools to help manage the plan and services 22% Positive reviews from current or past clients 19%
Despite being the highest priority for many respondents, finding an organisation that meets their specific support requirements is a challenge.
Of course, research and onboarding is only one step in this process. If you have customers that aren’t getting the expertise they were looking for, they will go elsewhere. 31% of respondents are looking to switch providers due to being unhappy with their existing support organisation — a quarter (25%) due to lack of expertise or competence in their specific situation.
More than half of all respondents (60%) currently manage services from two or more support organisations, with 30% accessing services from three or more providers. This suggests that people are less likely to look for a single organisation to do everything, opting for specialist providers.
What people want is more expertise in their specific needs and better clarity on the services offered by a support organisation. There are opportunities for support organisations to clarify and focus on what they do best, instead of feeling pressure to be ‘everything to everyone’.
While specialisation won’t be a fix for every support organisation, if your resources are stretched and operations are impacted, looking to your strengths is a great way to uncover efficiencies — and even grow your business without compromise to service delivery.
Narrowing the focus of your organisation doesn’t automatically mean your business will shrink either (this article from DSC has a great insight on being all things to all people). Research shows that people are willing to pay more for specialist services and to providers with experience with their specific situation.
By honing a reputation for delivering a few excellent services, your perceived value will increase and it becomes easier for people to find your services. Specialisation can even shield your organisation from reputational damage on under-serviced areas of your operation.
In terms of operational efficiency, specialisation allows team leaders to identify gaps in knowledge to provide targeted training to frontline support workers. It allows marketing efforts to become more targeted, costing you less money to find customers that can benefit the most from your new offering.
Even for the largest organisations with a broad offering, there are ways to divide and rebrand specialist services, so that teams within these departments can focus on delivering these services, rather than everything on your roster.
With most people in various forms of lockdown over the past two years, it’s unsurprising that the internet has become a more relied-upon tool to locate and access support services.
Internet search has increased by 33% from last year’s results, replacing a referral from a GP/Allied Health provider as the top resource for finding a support organisation. With face-to-face appointments harder to get, referrals went down by 27% and were more relied on by primary carers/legal guardians (24%) than NDIS participants (16%).
The question was asked of NDIS participants and legal guardians: Which of the following sources did you use to help you choose your provider? 24% used internet search in 2020. 32% used internet search in 2021 (up 33% year on year) 27% used NDIS website in 2020. 26% used NDIS website in 2021. 24% used support coordinator in 2020 and in 2021. 24% used referral from friends in 2020 and in 2021 29% used referral from GP/Allied Health in 2020. 21% used referral from GP/Allied Health in 2021. (Down 27%)
Spending time online is part of everyday life for most people now, so it’s natural that the majority of customers accessing support services are going to do research on this topic online.
Despite the amount of time spent researching and discussing support services, respondents didn’t find it any easier to find the right support organisations.
Three-quarters of NDIS participants and legal guardians have difficulties in finding the right support organisation (75%) and wish the process of accessing support services were simpler (73%) — both up from 67% in 2020.
All support providers have a website and NDIS website listing, but customers are struggling to find what they are looking for on these channels. Many respondents called for simpler information from support organisations and more transparency around service availability to reduce the time spent researching providers.
With finding the right support organisation more challenging than ever, it’s important to foster good communication throughout every customer relationship. Customers who reported having a positive experience with a service provider said it was because they were given what they value most: clear communication, specialist expertise and simple administration of their plan.
However, while communication is highly regarded by customers, only half of all customers have regular contact with their support organisation/s.
Pie chart depicting 51% of respondents receive check-ins at least monthly, whilst 49% receive yearly, never or can't recall Good communication and transparency are what builds trust. It allows people to feel heard and makes accessing services easier for your customers. Our survey found that customers who receive check-ins at least once a month are more likely to find it easy to coordinate their services across different organisations (70% disagree that it’s hard work). Of those who receive check-ins once a year or less, 59% ‘strongly agree’ that it’s frustrating having to explain support requirements to new people.
Customers want more transparency from support organisations, with clear and upfront information on waiting times and the specialist expertise offered. With an increase in online research to find services, there are new opportunities for support organisations to reduce the burden on both customers and their customer service teams with simple fixes to communication online.
Let’s start with the information on your website and NDIS listings. In the earlier days of the NDIS, it made sense for organisations to keep information broad, encouraging people to make contact to discuss their personal situation. Direct referrals were also the largest source of service discovery, so most people were directed to a specific organisation.
However, we now know that people are spending more time online looking for and researching disability support organisations — but it’s getting harder for people to find what they need. With the scheme growing dramatically in numbers, customer service teams are equally impacted and may struggle to keep pace with the volume of enquiries when relying on this approach.
Customers told us that the best experience is when a support organisation is upfront about what they did and didn’t do, while setting realistic expectations around availability and wait times.
The important takeaway here is that people understand that you may not have the exact service they need or may not be able to assist them immediately. The frustration arises from not knowing when they will hear from anyone, or finding inconsistent information.
When it comes to retaining customers, transparency and regular communication is just as important. By developing a regular cadence of check-ins with customers, people are not left guessing when they will hear from you. Whether this is a 1:1 check-in with a team leader or even an email survey sent quarterly, by showing a willingness to listen you can build trust and help customers feel more connected to your organisation.
Assign a communications team member or web task force to:
Technology itself is hardly a new trend, but with an evolution in the way that people engaged professionally and personally in 2021, a trend towards using technology to access and manage NDIS-supported services emerged — bringing new opportunities for support organisations.
In 2021, more than half of NDIS participants (56%) and legal guardians (64%) accessed support services online to minimise the risk of COVID-19.
Bar chart depicting responses to the question “Did you access any services online?” 36% NDIS Participants and 47% of legal guardians said “Yes, some or all of the services I had been using before” 20%NDIS Participants and Primary Carer/Legal Guardians 17% said “Yes, new services that I had not used before” 44% NDIS Participants and 36% Primary Carer/Legal Guardians said “No, I have not accessed any services online”
Accessing services online became a necessity for many people to protect their health, but it has proved to be a big hit with customers. Three out of every four (78%) of NDIS participants would like to keep accessing some or all of their services online. In fact 68% said they would like to continue to access all of these services online, with just 23% saying they would like to go back to receiving services in-person only.
Yes, I would like to continue to access the services online
Yes, I would like to access some of the services online
No, I would not like to access any of the services online
It’s worth noting that while online services were popular, location played a role in access to these services. In regional areas, 66% of NDIS participants said they did not access any online services in 2021.
This makes sense, given that lockdowns were not as prevalent in regional settings compared to metro areas. However, this could also be influenced by the availability of online services — providers in regional areas could safely conduct face-to-face services, so perhaps weren’t as quick to offer virtual programs. Given that the availability of services can be an issue in regional areas, this presents an opportunity for local NDIS service providers to expand their services by offering digital programs. For metro providers with digital programs already in place, there’s an opportunity to broaden their reach into regional areas.
Last year we surveyed NDIS participants and legal guardians about whether they would consider using an app to discover and/or manage services with their support organisations. 81% of respondents indicated they would consider using an app to help manage direct communication, service discovery, bookings and schedules, or their NDIS budget.
This year’s results were consistent with our previous findings, with customers most likely to want to use an app to engage directly with NDIS service providers.
Legal guardians in particular are interested in using an app to manage appointments and bookings online and 1 in 2 (50%) would use an app to manage their NDIS budget.
While the pandemic has proved especially challenging for the disability support sector, being forced to adapt to new ways of working has seen leaps in innovation within the industry. In fact, the NDS report said that 85% of industry respondents believed that their organisations were able to respond well to the challenges of the pandemic.
There has never been a better time to put in place new technology to reduce the burden on your resources — while also improving customer outcomes and experience.
Offering services online is one such adaptation. Implemented to minimise the risk to customers during COVID-19, we have seen from the survey results that they have proved incredibly popular with the majority of customers keen to access them in the future. Our survey results also revealed that NDIS participants who are currently looking for a new provider were more likely to have not accessed new services online — a hint that this has the potential to be a future trend or priority for customers when looking for support organisations.
Online services can do more than just smooth over disruptions to face-to-face appointments.
They also present a unique opportunity for new job creation within the industry. By creating new roles to manage and deliver online services, you can expand your applicant pool to include people who require more flexibility and couldn’t otherwise attend face-to-face appointments.
Technology purpose-built for the disability support industry can also ease stress on your operations by offering efficiencies and freeing up team members to focus on support, not paperwork. For example, here are some of the ways that GoodHuman can address what customers told us they care about most:
Workplace environments, standard working hours and face-to-face appointments are not accessible to everyone. Rather than pulling team members out of the field to manage and operate online services, ensure Human Resources are focused on hiring dedicated people who can excel with more flexible conditions. You can find more creative ideas here in The Support Workforce Guide.
Customers told us they value trust, transparency, expertise, and more flexible ways to find and get in touch with disability support organisations. Support organisations who can reach and communicate effectively with their customers are the most likely to stand out from the pack and succeed in 2022.
It may not sound like a radical change, but evolving the way you present and share information could make a dramatic difference to your customer experience — and the way your organisation operates.
With your customer base getting increasingly comfortable with technology as a part of their everyday lives, now is the best time to take a proactive approach to harnessing it as a way to deliver what they value the most. By using technology such as GoodHuman, automation helps organisations to drastically reduce their administrative workload and improve customer outcomes by focusing on personalised service over paperwork. Apps can also help frontline workers to share information with one another, helping to provide a consistency of service when operations are disrupted or staff are furloughed.
The next step for leaders within the disability support sector is to review your strategic direction for 2022 and see where a combination of technology and clearer, more transparent communication can make a difference to your operations.
GoodHuman understands that what the disability services industry doesn’t need is another piece of software. It needs an entire operating system — a single platform that works seamlessly to power every piece (and person involved) inside a disability support organisation. An ecosystem that connects every workflow through its lifecycle.
The GoodHuman platform is purpose-built to connect disability support organisations with frontline workers and NDIS participants, helping organisations provide high quality, relevant support to more people in more communities by transforming the way they deliver services.
We are currently partnering with leading NDIS support providers around Australia to launch GoodHuman across their organisations.
Sign up for a free trial or watch a 2-minute demo today, we would love to show you how our technology is transforming the way some of Australia’s largest and most well-respected disability support organisations are delivering their services.
You can also learn more about our vision and technology here:
Fill out your details below to see GoodHuman in action:
By entering your information, you agree to receive marketing content about ways GoodHuman can support your organisation. You may opt-out of future GoodHuman marketing emails at any time using the unsubscribe link within our emails. Read our Privacy Policy here.
Accessibility Tools
