By Steve Moran
The Brutal Truth: Senior Living Reviews Aren’t About Your Services — They’re About Your Heart 💔
I spend a fair amount of time looking at senior living consumer reviews. But maybe I shouldn’t because it’s mostly a depressing experience. Take a look at a few random reviews …
These Reviews Should Not Exist, But They Are Real
“They failed to inform me or call an ambulance for my mom’s fall at their facility in which she fractured her hip for 10 to 12 hours! (Time range due to conflicting stories about what time in the morning she fell.) Most of the caregivers are very nice, but I don’t think the staff are well trained. There were numerous problems while my mother was a resident there, including finding my mom in soiled Depends when I would arrive to visit, seeing other residents in wet pants.”
“When my family made the very difficult decision to put my father in a memory care facility, we fell in love with the community immediately. The grounds were beautiful, there was a large safe area for dad to walk in, he’s a mover so this was important. The staff was friendly and attentive.
“The first few weeks were rough, understandably, there were medications to adjust and routines to establish but by the end of the 3rd week we knew there was something going on that was not right so we gave our 30-day notice simply saying that it wasn’t a right fit, praying that the treatment wouldn’t get worse. The entire time dad was there the home was short staffed, we were told this by numerous people on different occasions. The nurses were not happy about it and talked amongst themselves about it frequently. I listened to nurses and a MedTech discussing people having urinated on themselves and how disgusting that was.”
“I just brought my own cleaning supplies including my vacuum to clean my mom’s one bedroom apartment since no one ever does. This is what she gets after a 15% increase in rent😡. The pile of dirt, dust, hair, debris was humongous and disgusting. I have a photo of the mound of filth I removed myself. The food is still often inedible, overcooked meat and undercooked vegetables.”
Here’s What Will Shock You — This is 100% unnecessary pain
No one actually writes a bad review or reports you to licensing because you …
- Provided inadequate care (unless it was really bad or negligent)
- Your menu choices were not all that good
- Your charges were too high
- Your housekeeping was inadequate
- Your life enrichment program was terrible
The Real Reason Families Destroy Your Reputation Online
They write bad reviews because of how you made them feel. You ignored their frustrations, you didn’t communicate with them, and you attacked them, sending the message that they are the problem.
It turns out that when people feel like they are heard, like they are a valued member of the community, problems can become opportunities.
The Magic Transformation Technique
There is nothing like saying, “I am so glad you noticed that; I am going to fix it right now.” And then, of course, going off and fixing the problem.
When you do that, those complainers will turn into your biggest fans. They will write the reviews you really want, they will give you testimonials.
It really is that simple.
Completely agree, Steve. The one other thing I’d add is that communities just need to ask for feedback. Because Accushield captures every visit at a community, we have found that when you simply ask visitors to rate their experience upon sign-out, the vast majority of the time, they are pleased. 93% of the ratings are 4 or 5 stars with over 2 million ratings. None of the ratings or reviews are gamed because every person is asked to rate their experience via the Accushield kiosk and mobile app.
While Accushield facilitates the capture of more Google Reviews than any other source in senior living, dozens of comments are left every day that are just for the community to see. It is a veritable gold mine for operators to understand what they need to do more of (or less of) to improve resident care and satisfaction. Let me know if you would like to discuss further.