Here are my top 10 positive and negative first impressions after touring 15 senior living communities in 3 days. (Part 2)
By Diane Twohy Masson My top 10 positive first impressions of touring 15 senior living communities were talked about in Part 1. My goal was to put myself in the shoes of the adult boomer child looking for the right retirement community for an aging senior parent. What would be his or her overall impression after viewing 3 to 5 senior living communities in a couple of days? Now, in part 2, letโs talk about how some senior living communities chose to put their proverbial foot in their mouth and some of the reasons why they did not make a good first impression for this adult boomer child.
What were my top 10 negative first impressions of 15 senior living communities?
1) Driving up and seeing a weed filled garden, the lawn too long or the building in any type of disrepair. (If they canโt weed the garden on a regular basis, maybe they wonโt be able to take good care of my mom on a consistent basis.)
2) A sea of people in walkers and wheel chairs staring at me as I walked in the building or looked in the dining room. If they were having a stimulating dining room conversation with their fellow residents or staff, they would not even have looked up at me (instead they were bored and ALL looked at me).
3) Bad smells โ from walking in a dining room and knowing someone needed his or her depends changed to smelling that old building smell.
4) No activities happening and the residents looking bored.
5) Having a resident say the food is bad (this literally happened).
6) Being shown an apartment that was not rent ready with equipment lying around or was being used as a storage room. This was surprisingly very common!
7) Not being offered a cold refreshment when it was 90 degrees outside. This happened at half the communities.
8) The majority of marketers sat me down and started grilling me on my momโs medical needs. It was all about medical questions and they didnโt focus on her as a person or my concerns as an adult child.
9) Seeing a resident eating alone in the dining room.
10) Experiencing a receptionist on the telephone, hold up her finger to me to wait, say something rude to a resident, hang up, roll her eyes and then ask me what I wantedโฆ Most of these negative first impressions can be easily corrected with good management and coaching the senior living marketer.
Even the best communities out there canโt predict what some of your residents would say to a tour. But if your residents donโt look happy โ what can your team do to redirect the seniors into an engaging activity? Look around your retirement community with the fresh eyes of an adult boomer child.
What do you see? Can you say that all of the first impressions of your new future residents are great?
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of โSenior Housing Marketing โ How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,โ available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is peaked to inquire on Dianeโs availability to coach your senior living marketing team (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) or have her put on a sales retreat for your organization โ please call: 206-853-6655 or email [email protected].
For more information:
Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
Look Me (Steve Moran) Up: Next week (May 7-9, 2012) I will be at the Aging Services of California Annual Conference where I will serve as the moderator for two sessions: Tuesday, May 8 – 10:30 – Boost Your Brand Online. Protect. Defend. Enhance Wednesday, May 9 – 2:45 – Dementia Care: Developing Approaches that Work The Following Week: (May 16-18) I will be at the ALFA Convention in Dallas. Come by the Vigil booth and say hello.
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Very good comments. It is surprising how easily negative perceptions can hit you when you are an impartial observer much less when you really have a need such as placing a family member. Makes you wonder why the staff can’t see these when they work around them daily.
Good articles.
Mike
Great post Steve. Solid observations for an industry where facilities so commonly have difficulty differentiating versus their competitors … where the items you’re discussing could easily be the difference between business won versus lost.
Although your points are all compelling, #9 really spoke to me for some reason.
Jay
Very good article. I agree that when you drive up to a facility that the outside says a lot about what to expect when you go inside. If the weeds have not been pulled out and the building needs to be painted, people will be turned off.
I don’t necessarily think there is a problem if one person eats by themselves as long as it doesn’t happen at all meals and on a daily basis. Their friend may be sick or not available and they want to sit where they always sit.
No one wants to smell dirty diapers any where in the building, especially in the dining room! Again, I found this article to be very insightful.
Having toured hundreds of buildings; I once had a property say “the Marketing person you had an appointment with called in sick today” and send me away without an apology, more times than I can mention the receptionist was busy on the phone with a personal call and had me wait, one time the executive Director wanted me to re-position my car in the visitor parking spot because it was ever so slightly not even with the lines. Most places are great; helpful, cheerful and great hosts during tours. The good far out-way the bad. Most surprising is when you offer feedback it is rarely appreciated for what it can do to help the property provide better first impressions.
From LinkedIn Groups
Great info Steve. This is basically a real estate transaction. Having once been in that biz for a number of years, here’s what the consumer sees. Curb appeal is the first, first impression. If the building doesn’t look like a well maintained, well cared for home, that’s strike one. One cigarette butt on the ground takes that building down one notch.
Once the consumer enters the building, three things happen in this order. They smell it, they see it, they hear it. If it smells like urine or dust or anything other than amazing, that’s strike two. If it looks unkempt, disheveled and disorganized, that’s strike three and they won’t be coming back to hear anything, such as your sales presentation.
Staff needs to pay attention ALL THE TIME and be proactive in making their building a home a consumer would want to live in.
Posted by Rob Anderson
From LinkedIn Groups
Too many residents sitting in wheelchairs and too few staff attending to their needs.
Mary Harroun
Posted by MARY HARROUN
From LinkedIn Groups
You are so right Steve. The negative impressions that you mentioned can so easily be corrected. In this competitive world, we should be constantly perfecting ourselves in this regard.
Posted by Antoinette Barzotto
From LinkedIn Groups
Excellent article. I work with a national LTC services company and I talk about this all the time and how their servcies can be instrumental in showcasing their client’s offering
Posted by Shawn Passman
Excellent!!! I once toured a daughter around a place many years ago, but didnt feel like we really connected. At the end, it boiled down to trash/litter in the parking area. She said “If you can’t pick up the trash in your parking lot, how can you take care of my mother?” It sure taught me a lesson!
From Linkedin Groups
Good article. Sometimes being in the LTC arena for so long, you forget what it looks like to a “first timer”. We all need to be aware of perception.
Posted by Stephanie Nehring
From Linkedin Groups
I totally agree with the negative impressions. One can also apply this to tours of long term care facilities as well (which can happen at anytime without appointments). A first impression can be a lasting impression. Positioning-body alignment says a lot to the visitor as well.
Posted by Susan Herlihy
From LinkedIn Groups
I had to laugh when I read the list of 10 negative impressions… very accurate. I have been touring with clients to assisted living homes & communities for over 9 years and the list hit home. Some of the stories that I have are so extreme it is hard to believe the actually occurred.
Posted by Angela Olea, RN
From LinkedIn Groups
I am curious to ask a question> How important is the first call to the retirement community — and do you believe a third source (outside the community) could handle all of the initial calls information gathering — and then hand the baton — over to the retirement counselor — and still maintain trust and security? I believe I spent as a sales rep to much time on the phone and not enough time within the community, working referrals, talking with discharge planners — in addition to family tours. Steve — I am curious if you believe there is problem with a third source doing all of this for the counselor — until the tour? Can trust be built threw a call center for the community with another person who is trained in that field — and hand-over that trust when they a ready to tour? Its sort of a comment regarding you’re prospecting …
Posted by David Frank Doherty
From LinkedIn Groups
Steve, thanks for posting! Diane aptly noted what we all cringe over and strive to keep our own communities (or clients’ communities) from doing. Scott–so right…the tour has to be about people, not buildings. Many older “comfortable” (but well-kept) buildings stay highly occupied because the staff have a unified, compassionate approach in their common mission, they’re excited about how their contributions help the success of the community AND they’re proudly introduced on the tour!
Here are some other key areas that communities need to stay ahead of:
* tissues/empty coffee cups/plastic gloves/trash in parking area
* a tattered American flag and/or a flag pole in need of painting
* outdoor furniture is disorderly or simply needs cleaning or a coat of paint
* outdoor furniture still outside in mid-winter under a foot of snow
* front doors needing painting, hardware polished
* lobby and tour path adorned with fake flowers/plants (and dusty to boot)
* a cafe/country kitchen intended to be clean and stocked with snacks/coffee but isn’t
* chipped chairrails, scuffed or damaged walls, doors needing painting
* conduting sales discovery around an impersonal conference table, instead of in a model apartment or a comfortable “hospitality room”
* a model apartment that lacks warmth, personal touches, decorations
* staff using caution about what is said over staff 2-way radios (and how it’s said)
* the executive director appearing disinterested upon being introduced, or avoiding being introduced (same applies with other department managers)
While most of the above relates to the building/grounds and not people, these areas can be interpreted as “if they can’t take care of this building, what about my mom” as Diane pointed out. One last note: since the reality is that probably every community has at least one resident who may say the food is bad or who actually requests to sit alone, it’s best to introduce visitors to as many residents as possible, especially those who are receptive and are happy to offer their perspectives. Also, when it does happen, roll with it, stay positive and move on–if a family senses you’re uncomfortable, they may wonder if there’s more to hide!
Happy selling and high occupancy!
Posted by Rodney Denman
Hi LinkedIn Groups
After reading some of these threads, I will introduce something new at our leadership meeting next week: I will give each leadership member until July 4 to ask me for a tour. They can ask for a tour of their familiar turf, or a tour of a level they know little about. They will have to come to me with a solid fictional situation and we will go through the tour seriously. Afterwards we will debrief, they can tell me what I could have done better, we will talk about smells, the no-eye-contact staff, etc. And we will have all learned something (dietary and maintenance have no idea of the daily rate we charge, for instance. The DON has no idea what an Entrance Fee is, etc). I will report in Mid-July.
Posted by Oliver Hazan
From LinkedIn Groups
If the Marketing person is clearly not happy with what he/she is doing, it is felt by the consumer, or if a marketing person keeps a prospect waiting too long, especially for a scheduled appointment. High pressure sales turns prospects off very quickly. Other things that can effect a prospect’s first impressions are: Cleanliness, smell, residents sleeping in lobby is usually not a good sign, Residents that don’t look happy or interact, no table cloths in the dining room, alarms with no response, a lack of activities, no interacting or no residents around. If the above issues are taken care of, the tour is usually a big success!
Posted by Ginny Davie
From LinkedIn Groups
Thanks for the post, Steve. Negative impressions or just a “bad day” can be deadly to the prospective admission. That visit or tour is just a snapshot in time, but like my mamma used to say, “Take a picture. It’ll last longer.” Negative impressions can last a LONG time.
Posted by Pamela Wolfe
Excellent article that I hope more people are exposed to (mainstream). Could be a game-changer.
From LinkedIn Groups
Ginny & Lou, good points both. Any ideas on building a team sales approach, rather than a territorial division of leads?
Posted by Amy Harrison
From LinkedIn Groups
What great observations, Part One, positive and this one. Thanks!
Posted by Amy Harrison