Resident Satisfaction Surveys give you the information you need to be excellent providers

 Most senior living providers are committed to doing a great job for their residents and providing a great work experience for their team.  Most of those organizations are asking, in one form or another

“How can we be even better?”

The problem is that without a formal survey process that includes an anonymous system for gathering data, it is really tough to know if you are getting the information you need. As important it is tough to know if you are getting the right information.

Front Porch

Front Porch is a Southern California based not-for-profit that has10 retirement communities, 2 active adult communities and many affordable housing properties. They are a great organization that is committed to a process of innovation that will improve the lives of the seniors they serve. Not only do they innovate and experiment, they are committed to sharing their “lessons learned” both positive and negative.

Front Porch and ServiceTrac

I recently talked with Terry Bluemer, the Senior VP of organizational accountability at Front Porch about how and why they use ServiceTrac as their satisfaction survey partner. For many years Front Porch has been doing resident satisfaction surveys in the quest to create the best living experience for their residents.  Initially it was a home grown initiative where they created their own surveys then collected, collated and analyzed their own data.   Over time Front Porch concluded that doing surveys in-house had some significant limitations that included:

  • Consuming significant internal resources
  • A lack of comparative data from across the senior living industry
  • Limited sophistication in terms of creating and analyzing surveys and survey data

Why ServiceTrac

There are a number of companies that provide satisfaction surveys to the senior living industry and so they formed a task force to select the company with the best fit.  They chose  ServiceTrac for the following reasons:

  • ServiceTrac has a deep repository of regional and national comparative data.

Note: It is possible and occasionally even desirable to use custom questions.  However more often organizations are better served using standardized questions allowing them to do industry wide comparisons.

  • ServiceTrac has the most sophisticated and user friendly reporting platform which provides real time notifications and on the fly data drill down and analysis.
  • ServiceTrac had a reputation for providing great customer service and over time this reputation has proven to be accurate.

Using the Data

Front Porch surveys their residents annually and they use the data in these three specific areas:

  • To celebrate and recognize communities and community leaders who have made the biggest improvements in satisfaction results.  They specifically celebrate those communities who have the highest overall scores and highest scores in specific areas.
  • To identify and work to improve specific areas that are most important to the various stakeholders.
  • It provides the basis for discussion with residents groups about how Front Porch is doing and what  they can do to further enhance the resident experience.

Are you doing satisfaction surveys?  How are you using the data? Steve Moran

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