Most NDIS SIL providers track referrals in a spreadsheet or a shared inbox. A support coordinator gets a message. It goes into the log. Someone follows up — if they remember, if they have time, if they're not dealing with an incident report.
That's five hours a week, conservatively. The market average NDIS support coordinator salary is $75,080; at a deliberately conservative $65,000/year, that's $6,250 per year just in labor — before you count the referrals that went cold because the follow-up took three days.
What "Manual Coordinator Outreach" Actually Costs
Break it down:
| Task | Time/week | Monthly cost (at $65k salary) | |------|-----------|-------------------------------| | Initial outreach messages | 1.5 hrs | ~$470 | | Follow-up sequences | 2 hrs | ~$625 | | CRM updates and logging | 1 hr | ~$312 | | Reporting | 0.5 hrs | ~$156 | | Total | 5 hrs | ~$1,563/mo |
That's the visible cost. The invisible cost: coordinators who don't hear back within 24 hours move to the next provider. In our own outreach data across NDIS providers, 67% of coordinator enquiries went to 3 or more providers simultaneously. First response wins.
What Changes When an Agent Handles Outreach
One startup SIL provider went from zero coordinator conversations to 5 hand-raises in 9 days after go-live. The agent:
- Monitored Facebook groups for new coordinators and provider requests
- Sent personalised first outreach within 4 hours of every new post
- Ran a 5-message follow-up sequence automatically
- Flagged positive responses for human review
Hours spent by the ops coordinator: zero.
The Real Question
It's not "can we afford an agent?" It's "can we afford to keep doing this manually while our competitors install agents?"
The Referral Agent installs in 3 weeks. The guarantee: a coordinator books a conversation within 90 days — or full refund.
See the full NDIS agent suite →
Apply for a Workflow Fit Call to see if it fits your operation →