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Company History
Many great ideas are born following a statement such as, “There has to be a better way.” And so began The CareGiver Partnership.
When Lynn Wilson and her family were caring for her elderly father six years ago, they became frustrated with how much time was eaten up by trips to the store to pick up products and supplies, only to find they’d either purchased the wrong thing or that a product didn’t work as they’d expected. They soon learned it was difficult, sometimes even impossible, to find knowledgeable customer service help to answer questions about products. General support and caregiver resources were even harder to come by.
This frustration, along with Lynn’s personal caregiving experience and professional customer service experience, formed the foundation for The CareGiver Partnership. Lynn had a natural partner in her husband Tom, the former President of Kimberly-Clark’s Global Adult and Feminine Care businesses (including the Depend®, Poise® and Kotex® brands). Converging with Lynn’s experience, Tom’s marketing expertise helped them identify a key market and need. With the growing Baby Boomer population, someone turns 50 every 11 seconds. Lynn and Tom saw an opportunity to better serve boomer caregivers and their elderly parents, who are seeking convenience and service, and increasingly rely on the internet to research and purchase products.
In 2004, Lynn and Tom co-founded The CareGiver Partnership. Since then, the company has served well over 10,000 caregivers and their loved ones coast to coast. At the same time, they’ve increased their product selection to more than 2,600 products.
1950s Style Customer Service
After more than 10 years in customer service at Dayton’s, Marshall Field’s and Macy’s, Lynn recognized the need to provide a whole new level of service which she coined Personalized AttentionSM. When it comes to service, Lynn realized that many caregivers and their loved ones - who were often dealing with emotional and frustrating situations - were furious when they were forced to deal with automated menus and waiting on hold. She addressed this concern by dismantling the fancy phone system in
The CareGiver Partnership’s Neenah, Wisconsin-based help center. She and Tom assembled a team of highly trained Product Specialists who answer calls by the third ring to personally assist each individual customer. The fact that all Product Specialists have been caregivers themselves makes them empathetic to the issues their customers are dealing with. Their in-depth product training helps them provide reliable advice simply not available elsewhere.
Though there have been many benefits to the technological advances of the last 10-15 years, improved customer service certainly isn’t one of them. Although The CareGiver Partnership prides itself on having one of the most caregiver-friendly websites in the business, knowing that there is a real person on the other end of the phone provides invaluable reassurance to its customers and caregivers. In addition,
The CareGiver Partnership offers complimentary consultation with their Physician Assistant to help answer their customers' medical questions.
The CareGiver Partnership delivers 85% of orders within two work days. Some orders arrive in one day and it rarely takes more than five work days for a customer to receive a product. Items ship from a network of 43 warehouses located close to caregivers’ and their loved ones’ homes or living facilities.
The CareGiver Partnership’s service is continually tracked by a third party marketing research organization to identify areas of improvement. The company’s guiding principle is “We’re pleased, but never satisfied.”
Lynn Wilson
In 2004, Lynn Wilson co-founded The CareGiver Partnership, along with her husband, Tom, as a natural extension of her many years of experience caring for loved ones and providing excellent customer service in the world of retail. Lynn prides herself on offering Personalized AttentionSM to help caregivers of all kinds find products, solutions, and resources to help them provide the best care possible for loved ones.
Lynn grew up in Naperville, Illinois, and attended Northern Illinois University and University of Illinois-Chicago, where she majored in marketing and psychology. Now that her children are grown, Lynn enjoys spending two days each week with her granddaughter, helps provide care for her mother, and is raising the next generation of her family, a poodle named Stella.
Tom Wilson
Along with wife Lynn and a board of 10 investor/members, many of whom were former executives in Fortune 500 companies, Tom Wilson co-founded The CareGiver Partnership in 2004. Tom has 36 years of marketing and executive-level experience building consumer packaged goods businesses with Kimberly-Clark and Colgate-Palmolive.
An entrepreneur at heart, Tom started his first company at age 25, manufacturing underground coal mining equipment. He later sold the company to Alco-Standard Corporation. He was first exposed to home care products working on Colgate-Palmolive’s Curity line of first aid products, but it was during his 22 years at Kimberly-Clark – leading the Depend®, Poise® and Kotex® brands as President of the global Adult Care and Feminine Care business sectors – that he recognized the need to serve boomer caregivers and their loved ones with products, services, and information to make life easier.
Dianna Malkowski
Dianna Malkowski is a Board-Certified Physician Assistant (PA-C) and Mayo Clinic-trained nutritionist specializing in diabetes, cancer, wound healing, therapeutic diets, and nutrition support. Her extensive and varied experience as a PA makes her an invaluable resource for customers and caregivers who need advice on a range of caregiving issues such as nutrition products. As a member of the board of professional advisors for The CareGiver Partnership, Dianna serves as a complimentary resource for customers with medical and product questions. Offering this service is just one of the many ways
The CareGiver Partnership provides unparalleled and personalized service to its customers.
Product Specialist Team
Our Product Specialist team provides another personal touch to customers of The CareGiver Partnership. Each member of the team is currently, or has recently, provided care to a loved one. That, combined with their depth of knowledge of our product offerings, makes them uniquely qualified to assist customers in making purchase decisions. In addition, we promise that when you call us between the hours of 9am - 4pm CST, one of our team members will answer the phone by the third ring and personally assist you with your order from start to finish. Now that’s some honest to goodness customer service – 1950’s style.
About Caregivers
- 65.5 million informal and family caregivers in America provide care to someone aged 20+ who is ill or disabled
- 27 million family caregivers provide personal assistance to adults (aged 18+) with a disability or chronic illness
- 1 out of every 4 households (23% or 22.4 million households) is involved in caregiving to persons aged 50 or older
- 6-7 million people (family, friends, and neighbors) provide care to persons 65+ who need assistance with everyday activities
- The main reasons adults need care are:
- Old age - 12%
- Alzheimer's disease - 10%
- Mental/emotional illness - 7%
- Cancer - 7%
- Heart disease - 5%
- Stroke - 5%
- The main reasons children need care are ADD/ADHD, autism, mental/emotional illness and developmental delay/mental retardation
Who Are Caregivers?
- 66% are female with an average age of 48
- 86% care for a relative, most often a parent (36%)
- 70% care for someone over the age of 50
- 14% provide care, over and above regular parenting, to a child with special needs
- More than 28 million family caregivers provide more than 20 hours of care each week
- Nearly 3 out of 4 caregivers continue to work while also providing care
- 4.6 years is the average length of time that a caregiver provides care for a loved one
- Today’s caregivers are older than their counterparts. Five years ago; the average age of a caregiver has risen from 46 in 2004 to 49 in 2009
Caregiver Challenges
- 80% of caregivers say they feel a great deal of stress
- 50% report having clinically significant depression
- 17% say their health worsened when providing care
- Caregivers spend $20 billion annually on products and supplies which aren’t reimbursed by Medicare
- Those surveyed suggested ways to reduce stress including greater access to informational resources, emergency response devices, transportation assistance, and respite services
This weekly newsletter includes articles of general interest to caregivers, highlights of new and useful homecare products, special trial offers of new products, personal caregiver stories, links to the caregiver resources library, and health and medical advice from The CareGiver Partnership’s board certified Physician Assistant and Mayo Clinic-trained nutritionist. The Caregiver’s Connection eNewsletter is a service of The CareGiver Partnership.
Maggie Baum
Second Banana
Buzz Monkeys Public Relations
7845 Harwood Ave
Wauwatosa WI 53213
email: mbaum@buzzmonkeyspr.com
phone: (608) 438-2814
