27 April 2026 · CareTime
A care home looking to track and improve enquiry conversion has three categories of tool to choose between in 2026: call tracking platforms (such as Mediahawk), care-sector CRMs (such as CareHQ), and AI call monitoring (such as CareTime's Silent Guard). The three are often described in similar language but they solve different problems. Call tracking tells you which advert generated which call. A CRM tells you what happened to an enquiry once it entered your sales pipeline. AI call monitoring tells you what is actually happening on the phone — including the calls that never made it to either system. This article explains the three categories, where they overlap, and how to think about combining them.
A typical care home enquiry journey looks like this: a family member sees an advert, a Google result, or a recommendation, and rings the home. If the call is answered, the conversation gets a note in a diary, a CRM, or — in many cases — nowhere. If the call is not answered, the family member usually moves on. Industry research suggests around 85% of first-time enquirers do not call back if they cannot reach someone.
Three things commonly leak from this journey. Calls that are missed and not noticed. Calls that are answered but not logged. Logged enquiries that lose visibility once they sit in a CRM with nobody chasing them. Different tools address different leaks. Choosing the wrong tool for the leak you actually have is how care homes spend money on technology and see no change in occupancy.
Call tracking platforms — Mediahawk is the dominant UK provider for care — give each marketing channel a unique phone number. When someone calls that number, the platform records which channel it came from before passing the call through to the home. Over time the home builds a picture of which adverts, search keywords, directories or referral sources are producing calls.
This is a marketing measurement tool. It is the right answer for a care home that knows it is missing calls, knows it is converting some of them, but does not know which marketing spend is producing the calls in the first place. Call tracking will tell you that the £400 a month going into a particular directory is producing two calls a quarter, while the £80 a month going into a Google ad is producing twenty.
What call tracking does not do is fix what happens once the call is connected. It does not record whether the call was answered, what was said, whether the family member was followed up, or whether they moved in. Some platforms add speech analytics that summarises calls, but this is an add-on and is typically priced for larger groups.
Care-sector CRMs — CareHQ being a notable UK example — sit at the next stage of the journey. When a manager logs an enquiry, the CRM records the family's details, the resident's needs, the stage of the enquiry, and the next action. As the enquiry progresses through tour, assessment, and admission, the CRM tracks the stages and produces conversion reports.
A CRM is the right answer for a home that is generating enquiries in volume but losing them between first contact and move-in. It gives the manager a single place to see who is mid-pipeline, who is overdue a follow-up, and which stage enquiries tend to stall at. For multi-home groups, a CRM is the only way to compare performance across sites.
What a CRM does not do is capture an enquiry that nobody logged. If the family rang at 7pm, nobody answered, and nobody wrote it down, the CRM has no record. The same applies if the call was answered but the staff member did not enter the details. CRMs measure the enquiries the home knows about. The leak before that point is invisible to them.
AI call monitoring is a newer category. CareTime's Silent Guard is the only UK product currently focused specifically on care homes in this category. It connects to the home's phone line in the background, records every inbound call with a timestamp, categorises calls as genuine, nuisance or unknown, and produces a daily Morning Brief email summarising the previous day's activity.
The category answers a different question. Not which advert produced the call. Not what stage the enquiry is at. Just: what calls came in, were they answered, and what were they about. For care homes that suspect they are missing calls but cannot prove it, this is direct evidence. For homes that already know they have a problem, it shows the scale and pattern.
What AI call monitoring does not currently do is replace a CRM. It does not track enquiry stages, it does not produce conversion reports across a sales pipeline, and it does not connect to marketing spend. The Morning Brief feeds the front of the funnel. CRM and call tracking products address the rest.
The three categories overlap at the edges and the marketing language often blurs the boundaries.
Call tracking platforms increasingly add speech analytics, which produces something that looks like a call summary. Care CRMs are adding inbound call capture, often by integrating with a call tracking platform behind the scenes. AI call monitoring tools are starting to push call summaries into CRMs as enquiry records.
In practice, a home that wants the full picture can use all three. Call tracking shows which channels are producing calls. Call monitoring shows whether those calls are being answered and what they are about. The CRM tracks what happens after the manager picks up the enquiry. None of the three replaces another in full.
For a single home with limited budget, the right place to start is wherever the biggest leak is. If marketing spend feels uncoordinated, call tracking is the priority. If enquiries are getting logged then forgotten, a CRM is the priority. If the home suspects it is losing calls before they are even logged, AI call monitoring is the priority.
| Tool | What it answers | What it does not |
|---|---|---|
| Call tracking (Mediahawk and similar) | Which marketing channel produced each inbound call | Whether the call was answered or what it was about |
| Care CRM (CareHQ and similar) | What stage each known enquiry is at and where it stalls | Enquiries that were never logged, including missed calls |
| AI call monitoring (Silent Guard) | What calls came in, whether they were answered, what category they were | Which advert produced the call or how it converted to a move-in |
Silent Guard is built for the leak before the CRM. It captures every inbound call to the home — answered or missed — and produces a daily summary that takes under a minute to read. For a care home manager who already has a CRM but wonders how many enquiries never reach it, Silent Guard surfaces that number directly. For a manager without a CRM, the Morning Brief is often enough on its own to act on missed enquiries the same day.
Phase 2 of CareTime, currently in development, adds an AI receptionist that answers the phone when staff cannot. That closes the loop entirely: the AI receptionist takes the enquiry, Silent Guard logs it, and a CRM picks up the enquiry once it is captured. Until then, Silent Guard's job is making the missed calls visible so the home can act on them through whatever follow-up process it already runs.
Do I need all three? No. Most homes start with one. Pick the tool that addresses the leak you can already feel — uncoordinated marketing, lost pipeline, or invisible missed calls.
Will Silent Guard work with my existing CRM? Silent Guard produces a daily summary email and a contact log. Both can be reviewed alongside any CRM. Direct CRM integration is on the roadmap.
Does Silent Guard tell me what was said on the call? Silent Guard categorises calls and timestamps them. It does not transcribe call content. The Morning Brief is built around categorisation and patterns rather than transcripts.
How quickly does Silent Guard set up? A pilot can be active within one week. There are no changes to your phone system.
Start a 30-day Silent Guard pilot for £49 and see how many enquiries you are missing today.
CareTime's Silent Guard is available now for a 30-day pilot. £49, 1-page pilot letter — exit by reply-email.
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