Fox Business, March 30 2012
By Nancy Colasurdo

Oh, the stories they tell, those folks from Nurse Next Door. A home care services company based in Vancouver with about 50 locations across North America, its care givers know there is more to looking after a senior citizen than making sure she has her meds squared away.

“This is our difference,” franchise partner Carol Lange tells me in our recent interview. “We ask, ‘What did you used to like to do before you got sick? How can we get you back to that?’ They don’t really know stuff that is missing from their life until it’s added back in.”

What a tuned-in observation. So often when adult children look in on family members, they unwittingly begin to see the senior citizen as simply their medical issues. That’s why Nurse Next Door prides itself on a culture that is fertile ground for delicious stories like getting someone on the putting green for half an hour or in a pool for a swim. There’s functioning and then there’s living.

This is what sprouts, I suppose, when you begin a company from a place of nurturing. Co-founders John DeHart and Ken Sim learned firsthand what standout care meant to loved ones and it only reinforced what had already been their clear mission.

“Just because someone is a nurse or care giver doesn’t mean they should be,” DeHart says in our recent interview. “We hire the smile.”

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John DeHart discusses the aging population and Franchise Expansion into the US. Click Here

Arif Abdulla cringes every time he sees the same old stereotypical images of seniors sharing a laugh over a cup of tea, watering their flowers or playing chess.

As vice-president of marketing and communications for Nurse Next Door, a Vancouver-based home healthcare service provider with locations across the country, Abdulla is aware that today’s seniors see themselves not as frail and sedentary, but vital and active.

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1. Ditch Assign Seating

Private offices are an expensive addiction. Ask John DeHart, co-CEO of home health care provider Nurse Next Door. The company reduced office space while expanding from 28 people to 45 at its Vancouver headquarters last year. How? By making all desks available on a first-come, first-served basis. “Even I don’t have my own desk,” says DeHart. The company saved $60,000 in rent and $40,000 in IT infrastructure costs. Continue reading →

Nurse Next Door show small businesses how to make use of word-of-mouth marketing

Some 10 years ago, word of mouth emerged as a form of guerrilla marketing to help cash-strapped small businesses get noticed in the marketplace. Word-of-mouth marketing aims to generate buzz about a business, with the hope that it will eventually reach those who actually need whatever the business is selling.
 One Vancouver company has raised word-of-mouth marketing to new levels as it has expanded over the past decade. And it’s doing it in an industry that hasn’t changed substantially in 100 years.

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When a competitor took to its website and accused elder care company Nurse Next Door of providing shoddy customer service thanks to its franchise model, the founders looked into taking legal action. Continue reading →

Nurse Next Door
Vancouver, BC

Type of firm:
Home health care

Customer-service strategy:
When this company (nursenextdoor.ca) stumbles, it delivers a “humble pie,” a fresh-baked apple pie accompanied with a note that reads in part, “We are very humbled by our mistake and sincerely apologize for the poor service.” Continue reading →