The bitter pill is that when a bad prospect interaction occurs, the leadership of the community will almost never know.

By Steve Moran

If you have been a reader for a period of time, you know that last year (2014) I did a series of articles based on touring or . . . trying to tour senior living communities. Unfortunately, more often than not, those attempts to tour put senior living in an unflattering light.

In my tour adventures I made a personal commitment to publically praise and acknowledge great experiences and when the experience was sub-optimal, to mask the name of the community and operating company, but privately contact the management company and let them know what happened.

The bottom line is that when I had a bad experience there was zero risk to the community and some upside for the tour to be used as a teachable moment. The bitter pill is that when it happens with a real prospect, the leadership of the community will almost never know. This really hit home for me a couple of weeks ago when I read a series of articles by Ellen Belk, an Alzheimer consultant who went looking for a dementia community for her father. Her experience looked a lot like many of mine, except for one big difference.

The leadership will never know.

Split Second Feedback

I recently had a chance to visit with Mike Miller, a senior living veteran and the founder of Split Second Feedback. He has developed a series of instant comment cards that are designed to help owners and operators get instant feedback on tours (and other things).  This means near real-time feedback allowing you to know about the good stuff and the not so good stuff. 

Not A Satisfaction Survey Replacement

These tools are not designed to replace traditional resident and employee satisfaction surveys, which tend to be much more comprehensive in terms of both the questions asked and the ability to extract and analyze significant amounts of data. Unlike the satisfaction process, which can take weeks or months to create, implement, crunch and analyze, the Instant Comment Cards are designed to provide you immediate feedback.

In some cases, it might mean actually being able to salvage a tour gone bad.

From The  Airline Industry

Several months ago I was fed-up with the horrible customer service of American Airlines and switched to Delta Airlines (after 8 months, a great choice). One of the things that happens after almost every Delta flight is that I receive an email from Delta asking in some fashion “How did we do?” I filled in the first one, but pretty quickly realized doing it every time where I would say things are great, was a waste of time (and not helpful to them anyway).

Except that if I ever had a bad experience. I would take the time to fill out the survey to express my displeasure. 

The bottom line is that these surveys do two things for Delta and will do the same things for you:

  1. The will tell whoever you are surveying that you care enough to ask.
  2. They will help you identify and correct problems early and quickly. 

Platforms

The most common way they are sent is via email but they also have the ability to survey via a kiosk in your community, on your website or by phone.

They have a bunch of samples for you to look at and try on their website.