“Automated” does NOT mean “impersonal” . . . not anymore.

By Tom Goldman, COO, SoftVu, a Senior Housing Forum partner

Not often publicly stated, but an unfortunate fact for many nonetheless, is that the average assisted living community only follows up on about half of all inbound leads within the first week. Why does this happen? Lots of reasons — prospects who aren’t deemed “acute” enough to fill an immediate need, no returned phone call, sales person is too busy, and it’s too hard to prioritize leads. . . .

If you are like most who run assisted living communities, financial happiness exists north of 85% occupancy. But closing that last 15% to get to full occupancy is often harder than filling the first 85%. So what to do?

The answer lies within those very leads that are being ignored/abandoned . . . and I’ll show you the math.

In an average 50 apt/bed community that runs at a steady 85% occupancy rate, you need to fill those last 8 vacant spots to get to 100%. Let’s assume that this particular, average community gets 1 lead per business day, or 20 per month, with an abandonment rate of 50%. Over the course of a year, that means about 120 leads are ignored (20 x 12 = 240 x 50% = 120). Now . . . if just 10% of those 120 leads could be nurtured and closed, that would be 12 more residents for your community. But wait, you only have room for 8! Most communities would love to wrestle with that high-class problem.

Available Technology

So how do you do that, without adding sales staff or spending a ton of marketing dollars? Simple. You use technology that’s available today to allow you to automatically nurture those leads you would otherwise ignore. And, what’s great is that you can leave your sales team alone! Let them do what they do best. For very little money and effort, you can put a highly personalized, yet automated, email lead nurturing program in place that ensures 100% of leads get the attention they deserve.

Now, a mistake many folks make is to assume that “automated” mean “impersonal”. No longer true. In fact, to the contrary, with today’s sophisticated automation systems the responses to any inquiry can be highly tailored; so much so, that you are the only one who will know they’re automated. So you can let the leads come in and have your sales team pick the ones they want. Everything else goes into the automated lead nurturing queue.  

The Calculator

Here’s a little personal manual “calculator” that can help you figure out how many open beds you might be able to fill with a program like this:

_____Total beds available (A)

_____Average Vacancy Rate (B)

_____Average Open Beds (A x B)

_____Total Annual Leads Received (C)

_____% of Leads Abandoned (D)

_____Total Number of Leads Abandoned (C x D)

_____10% of Total Leads Abandoned (Total Leads Abandoned times x .1)  

Do The Math

What’s your total? Now you have the number of beds you could be filling with a good lead nurturing program.

Is 100% occupancy attainable? Can you finally make the switch from scrounging for leads to managing a waitlist? Absolutely. Just “do the math” and harness available, affordable technology to help you reach your occupancy potential.

For more tips on how to close the occupancy gap, visit www.SoftVu.com or give us a call at 913-696-9700.

Connect with SeniorVu and never let a lead hit the ground again . . . ever. Call 816-759-2586 today.