Client Types: Potential Clients

Potential Clients

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Potential Clients

Required Data for Potential Clients

Potential Client

All persons seeking services in an agency begin as Potential Clients. They may also be referred to as “encounters” and access the agency as a walk-in, phone call, email, or referral from another agency. 

There are several possible paths for the Potential Client:

• The person may not be eligible for the agency’s programs and services and returns back to the community.
  
• The person may not be eligible for the agency’s programs and services but the agency makes a one-way referral to another community agency. A one-way referral is defined as providing the person with information about another program or agency elsewhere in the community but there is no follow-up.
  
• The agency may not have the service the person needs and either is provided a one-way referral to another program or agency or returns back to the community.
  
• The person after the initial encounter is determined to possibly meet eligibility requirements and an Intake is administered.
  

While it is not required, it is important to track how many potential clients encounter the agency, how many are provided a one-way referral and/or return to the community and how many actually become clients. This helps to better understand community needs. At a minimum, the organization should collect where possible a first and last name or some other client identifier of this initial contact or encounter and what services are being requested.

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Required Data for Potential Clients:

• None

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