Archive for category: Marketing Resources

Humans are suckers for a good story, full stop. We love telling stories. We love listening to stories. And thanks to social media, there’s no shortage of ways to consume stories, either.

For the casual scroller, encountering interesting stories on social media can be a fun way to while away the hours. For savvy businesses, however, sharing memorable stories can increase engagement, brand recognition, and even sales.

Consider these compelling storytelling stats:

• Search Engine Watch reports that storytelling can increase content marketing conversion rates by 30%.
• Marketing Profs cites a study by cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner suggesting that a fact wrapped in a story is 22 times more memorable.
• Go-Globe notes in this infographic on storytelling that most consumers (75%) want brands to use storytelling.

So, let’s discuss the power of storytelling in senior living social media marketing—and some tips for creating truly memorable stories on three of the biggies: Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Facebook

Along with YouTube, Facebook is still the granddaddy of all social media platforms, with over two billion active daily users globally. According to Hootsuite, it’s also the most used platform in the U.S.

This makes Facebook an ideal platform for senior living communities to connect with prospects, current residents, and their families.

Facebook Storytelling Tips for Senior Living

Your residents are an excellent source of compelling stories, so turn to them for ideas. Even better, their stories won’t be the same ones people see on a competitor’s social media accounts.

Here’s how to use their stories on Facebook:

• New resident spotlights. By highlighting a new resident, you’ll create a warm and fuzzy feeling for the resident and their family. You’ll also show prospects how you celebrate residents.
• Holidays. Here are some examples. For Thanksgiving, ask residents to share their favorite family traditions. On Halloween, ask residents if they’ve ever encountered a ghost or haunted house. You get the idea. Consider venturing beyond traditional holidays and focus on creating stories around things like National Hot Dog Day or National Ice Cream Month in July.
• Day-in-the-life stories. Follow a resident around for a day in your community and highlight the happy moments.
• Timelapse videos of events, like decorating the Christmas tree or how the gardens change from spring to fall.

Regarding story length, remember that no one expects a novel or movie. Shorter posts typically get better engagement on Facebook.

What do we mean by short? HubSpot says 40 characters or fewer. If you’re about to say it’s impossible to share a good story at that length, consider the famous six-word short story attributed to Hemingway: For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.

BOOM. That little story, which weighs in at 33 characters, delivers one heck of an emotional punch. Now, we’re not suggesting that you must stay under 40 characters. But you should aim for no more than a couple of sentences. Do your best to keep your post under 200 characters (at which point the text gets cut off, and people need to click to “see more”).

How can you keep it short and sweet while still delivering a compelling story? Here are some strategies.

Provide a super-short story, like Hemingway’s, but illustrate it with a pic or two.

• EXAMPLE: Meet Mary. She loves quilting, cats, and a dry martini with three olives. Cheers!

o   Make sure you include a picture of Mary holding up her martini.

Offer a cliffhanger that entices people to click into a longer piece of content.

• EXAMPLE: Meet Mary. She loves quilting, cats, and a special libation that she swears has kept her 87 years young. Find out what it is in our latest Resident Spotlight.

o   Link to a narrative about Mary on your website.

Let videos tell the stories.

• EXAMPLE: Mary, our newest resident, reveals the drink she can’t live without.

o   Include a short video where Mary is toasting with her friends.

Videos are incredibly helpful in telling stories. Plus, videos boost engagement. (People spend half their time on Facebook watching videos.) Videos don’t need to be super long (think one to two minutes max), and they don’t need to be professionally shot, either.

Encourage residents and staff to keep their smartphones handy and share raw footage with the marketing department (here’s how to foster and reward this behavior). With an intuitive editing app like InShot, you can edit the raw footage into a compelling video.

Instagram

Instagram caters to a much younger demographic than Facebook. According to Hootsuite, 85% of IG users are under 45. You might be thinking, why bother? Well, nearly 16% of Instagram users are between 35 and 44, and 8% are between 45 and 54. Many of those users have aging parents and will likely be involved in the decision-making process when Mom and Dad consider moving to senior living.

The bottom line: Instagram is still an excellent place to share content, as long as you remember that you’ll most likely be talking to adult children rather than seniors themselves.

Instagram Storytelling Tips for Senior Living

So the question becomes, how do you engage this younger demographic, one that might influence their parents and grandparents?

We recommend turning to time-tested hashtags on Instagram—and reinventing them.

For example, hashtags like #food (and its various synonyms) are among the most popular hashtags on Instagram. Food is also among the most common questions communities receive from prospects and their families. Plus, it’s one of the topics communities like to promote as a differentiator.

You see where we’re going with this, right?

Use #food as the starting point for your storytelling. No, we’re not suggesting you show shots of what’s for dinner and call it a day.

Brainstorm all the stories around food in your community. Questions to ask yourself:

• What’s your chef’s story? Conduct a video interview with them. You could also do a timelapse video of the chef and their team preparing dinner. Or record another video of them doing something special, like decorating a cake for a resident’s birthday or making one of the most popular dishes in the community. And then—this is important—share the recipe in the caption.
• Does your community have a vegetable garden? Do the residents help with gardening? What’s grown, and what dishes are made from the harvest? Take a bunch of pics and include an engaging caption.
• Where are veggies and meats sourced from? If there’s an interesting story—fishmonger, local butcher, farm-to-table approach—highlight it.
• What are residents’ favorite meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Do a breakfast montage where you shoot a video of favorite meals interspersed with quick snippets of residents saying what they love about that meal.
• Do you host pasta parties, brunches, ice cream sundae bars, etc.? Lively reels with fun captions are always crowd-pleasers on IG.
• How about celebrations? Record a video highlighting how the dining staff works with a resident and their family for special occasions—wedding anniversaries, birthday parties, Mother’s Day brunches, and so forth.

Remember, no other community has your chef, your recipes, or your dining staff. By focusing on a popular hashtag like #food, you’ll gain traction (over time), but you’ll also be able to stand out—in a good way—from the competition.

Note: We’re not suggesting you can’t have content highlighting other areas of your community. But if you create stories around the food in your community, you’ll capture people’s attention and boost engagement. And we’re not just talking about more likes, either. People often share and save food-related content, especially food demonstration videos and recipes.

Here are some more tips for this approach . . .

• Don’t forget the captions. If you need inspo, check out how local restaurants and hotels approach writing fun captions on Instagram.

• Don’t forget to repurpose your videos. You can use the videos on other platforms. Share them on TikTok and YouTube as well.

• If your competitors join the #food action, that’s OK. Again, all communities will have different food tales to tell.

LinkedIn

Your community is only as good as your employees. The most successful communities usually have happy, loyal people who enjoy their profession and love working for your senior living community. If you have a rotating door of staff members coming and going, everyone will feel it (and not in a good way), including residents, families, and fellow employees.

While fixing employment challenges is beyond marketing’s purview, the marketing department can still help attract the right people to open roles within the community. This is where LinkedIn comes in.

LinkedIn Storytelling Tips for Senior Living

The stories you share on LinkedIn can provide a glimpse into what it’s like to work in your community. To get started, revisit your community’s mission and value statements. From there, share content that shows how employees embody these values.

For example, if compassionate care is one of your community’s values—and not just for residents but also employees—you could share the story about an employee who recently had a baby and the amount of parental leave they were given, the flexible “easing” back into their work schedule, and the adorable gift basket the community delivered to the new parent and baby.

Of course, everything you share has to be true, but you get the idea. By sharing a true story demonstrating your community’s values and how they affect employees, you’re showing prospective employees what they can expect. Showing instead of “telling” is the hallmark of good storytelling.

More storytelling ideas for LinkedIn:

• Employee Spotlight. Just as you have resident spotlights, you can record short videos or write up short narratives on employees.
• Employee Testimonials: Share written or video testimonials from employees about why they love working in your community. These personal stories can provide insight into your community’s positive work culture and supportive environment.
• Professional Development and Training: Highlight stories of employees who have benefited from ongoing training and professional development opportunities. Share how these programs have helped them advance their careers and improve their skills, reflecting your community’s commitment to continuous learning.
• Team Achievements: Showcase team achievements and collaborative projects that have significantly affected the community. This could include successful events, innovative programs, or any initiatives that highlight the teamwork and dedication of your staff.

Bottom line: Make sure you’re including compelling stories in your senior living social media marketing.

By tailoring your storytelling approach to fit each platform’s unique features and audiences, you can maximize engagement and highlight the vibrant life within your senior living community. These tips will help you create compelling content that resonates with current residents, prospective residents, and their families.

Here’s more helpful content on social media marketing in senior living:

• Social Media Marketing Perspectives – podcast episode
• 4 Reasons to Invest in Social Media Marketing
• Social Media Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
• User-Generated Content 101
• Is It Time for TikTok?

Nothing is more frustrating than spending precious budget and time devising and deploying your digital marketing strategy, only to experience “meh” results.

But the analytics don’t lie. If the results aren’t there, you must react. Here’s how.

5 signs you need to pivot your senior living marketing strategy

Sign #1: Most of your website traffic isn’t coming from organic search

70 to 75 percent of your website traffic should come from organic search.

Why? Well, leads from organic search have self-identified that they’re interested in (or need) senior living. (In other words, they want to hear what you have to say.) Plus, organic search traffic is free.

Running pay-per-click ads can be an effective marketing strategy, but the cost-per-lead can be expensive. For example, the cost per lead for memory care often costs $400 or more. Paid search traffic should be part of the mix, but the bulk of your website traffic should come from organic search.

⮚      WHAT TO DO: Performing a website audit is a smart first step. The audit can provide a solid overview of what’s working and what isn’t, allowing you to prioritize what to fix first.

Sign #2: You have tons of leads, but they’re not converting

Not all leads are created equal. Having tons of leads isn’t necessarily better than having a smaller number of targeted leads that are much more likely to convert.

⮚      WHAT TO DO: In this case, performing an SEO audit can be an excellent place to start. Doubling down on SEO efforts, targeting keyword phrases, and paying attention to local SEO (including the all-important “near me” searches) can be a fantastic way to increase targeted traffic. Note: You might see overall traffic numbers go down. Don’t panic. As long as conversions go up, you’re on the right track.

Sign #3: You have plenty of targeted traffic and leads, but conversions still aren’t where they should be.

Usually this indicates an issue with how you’re handling leads. Remember, not all leads should be treated the same way. Most often, the culprit is poorly executed or non-existent lead scoring, meaning ALL leads are immediately served to the sales team.

Remember, people enter your website at different points in their journey. Some are at the very top of the funnel, seeking education. They might not make a decision for 18 to 24 months (this is especially true for independent living). If you serve those leads to the sales team, they won’t convert no matter what you offer because they’re simply not ready.

⮚      WHAT TO DO: Revisit how you score and segment leads. That’s the first step. Then, you’ll want to create long-term nurturing campaigns for the marketing-qualified leads (MQLs). The goal is to nurture MQLs as they make their way down the sales funnel and help them convert into sales-qualified leads when they say they’re ready.

Sign #4: You have excellent conversions-to-tour but not tour-to-deposit

It’s easy to think this is a sales problem. After all, marketing has done its part by delivering qualified traffic that converts into tours. So, what gives?

A few things could be going on:

• The marketing messages don’t match reality on the ground. You need to market the community that exists, not the one you and your team wished existed.
• The personas you’re targeting don’t reflect the people who live in the community. While personas are fictional representations of ideal residents, the work that goes into developing them should be based on real people, a.k.a. happy residents who love your community. You might be attracting the personas that you made up based on hunches instead of focusing on accurate personas based on actual residents.
• You don’t have a post-tour communication plan. You might think this task is on sales and that marketing did its job by delivering the leads. But why not work together? Marketing can create an automated email nurturing cadence to complement the ongoing sales outreach and follow-up.

Marketing and sales alignment is critical; there should be an overlap between the two. The sooner both sides see and accept this fact, the better.

⮚      WHAT TO DO: Audit your messaging, personas, AND post-tour communications. Does anything feel like a bait-and-switch? Are post-tour prospects left hanging and wondering what to do next? Are the people you’re attracting to tours the complete opposite of the types of folks who thrive in your community?

Sign #5: You know many things aren’t working, but you’re overwhelmed, feeling tons of pressure from the bosses, and don’t know what to do first

We hear this one a lot. The C-suite is asking marketing teams to do more with less budget, and then it gets annoyed when you’re not delivering leads to sales. Or maybe the sales team is being cranky and unhelpful. Or perhaps you’ve been tasked with managing marketing, even though your specialty is more on the sales end.

⮚      WHAT TO DO NEXT: Consider working with an outside marketing agency specializing in senior living. The right agency can help you identify the issues, create a plan for addressing them, and help you achieve the results you (and the bosses) want. Here’s what to look for in a senior living marketing agency, including common traps to avoid. Hint: We can help. Our specialty is creating senior living marketing strategies that get quantifiable results.

Pivoting your senior living marketing strategy isn’t a sign of failure

Your marketing strategy should be dynamic and responsive to data-driven insights. Recognizing the signs that a pivot is necessary and taking proactive steps can help you compete better and achieve the desired results.

And if you need help doing any of the above, give us a shout.

Battling the “sea of sameness” is something most senior living communities struggle with. How do you differentiate your community from the one down the street or the next town over when you’re essentially selling the same thing?

Enter user-generated content (UGC).

User-generated content includes anything created voluntarily by residents, their families, or staff. Think testimonials, reviews, photos, and videos.

And guess what? UGC is effective. A 2023 survey from EnTribe notes the following impressive findings:

✔    Nine out of ten participants preferred brands that highlight content from real customers.
✔    A significant majority, 86 percent, reported greater trust in brands that feature user-generated content over those that rely on influencer promotions.
✔    Eighty-two percent of respondents said they would be more likely to buy products or services from brands incorporating user-generated content into their marketing strategies.

Bottom line: UGC is so influential because it’s authentic. People appreciate and trust authenticity.

But UGC offers another important benefit: It can help differentiate your community from the sea of sameness. Since user-generated content is specific to your community, people won’t see the same content on another community’s website or social media channels.

So now the question becomes, how can you encourage people to create and share this content? This article aims to explore that question.

Let’s get to it!

7 tips that will help you generate great user-generated content

Tip #1: Create spaces for people to share their content

Fostering a great UGC strategy begins with having a solid social media strategy overall. Audit your current platforms and make sure everything is current and on-brand. You should also share engaging content and actively encourage follows from prospects, residents, family, and staff. After all, why would someone want to share content with your channels if the places feel like ghost towns?

Tip #2: Leverage hashtags

People love using hashtags in their social media content. However, hashtags also serve a practical purpose: They can help you categorize and find user-generated content.

Consider creating a memorable hashtag that reflects your community’s values. Display the hashtag prominently around the community and include it on brochures, ads, and billboards. Doing so will encourage people to use the hashtag and allow them to search for and see other user-generated content with the same hashtag.

Tip #3: Hold contests or social media challenges

One effective way to encourage UGC is through social media challenges (also known as hashtag challenges or contests).

For example, you could promote a photo contest themed around #GardenDelights. In this contest, you invite residents to share and tag pictures of their favorite spots around your grounds. This would foster community interaction while also highlighting your community’s beauty.

Want to boost the engagement further? You could pick three of the best shots, re-post them on your social media channels, and ask people to vote for their favorite. The winner gets a prize.

Tip #4: Make it easy for residents to share content

Most of us have gone to dinner with people who must photograph their meal and post it to Instagram. No doubt, some residents might want to do the same with the lovely meals your chef creates. The issue? Some folks might not know how to upload their pic to social media.

To combat this problem, consider holding frequent smartphone workshops in your community to help residents learn how to take pics, record videos, and upload their content (with the all-important hashtags). Provide devices that residents can use, like tablets, and keep them in places where people congregate or where you hold events.

⮚      PRO TIP: Create a cool program inviting local high school students to teach residents about technology. Check out this news story where one community did exactly that.

Tip #5: Create a straightforward process for reviews

Reviews are probably the most powerful form of user-generated content. When people shop around, they look at online reviews to learn about other people’s experiences.

When it comes to reviews, people want to see:

• Recent reviews. If your most recent review is six months old, that will give people pause.
• Mostly positive reviews. Notice our use of the word “mostly.” Savvy shoppers don’t expect perfection. In fact, a community with only glowing five-star reviews will feel suspect. Don’t fret over the occasional three-star reviews. These come with the territory. Be mindful of how you respond to two- and one-star reviews (because people will be watching how you respond).
• Authentic reviews. People are savvy and can spot fake reviews.

Asking for reviews is an ongoing task, but marketing automation can help. Emails and text reminders can be scheduled to go out at different points in the post-deposit process. Make it easy for people to leave reviews. Include direct links to the site or sites where you’re seeking them.

You can also ask for reviews in newsletters, during family events, or by setting up a “review station” with a tablet ready to go in your lobby. Be proactive in managing these reviews by responding to them, thanking the reviewer, and addressing concerns.

Tip #6: Host live social media events

Live events are a fantastic way to generate immediate engagement. Consider hosting live Q&A sessions, virtual tours, or live-streamed community events. These activities allow for real-time interactions, comments, and shares, which will help spread the word about your community. Promote these events so that you have a good turnout and identify moderators to manage the interactions smoothly.

Tip #7: How to feature UGC on your social media channels

When it comes to using user-generated content, be mindful of the following:

• Always ask for permission before sharing residents’ content.
• Credit the original creator, whether it’s a resident, family member, or staff member.
• Create a dedicated section on your website for resident stories and photos.

Once you have a collection of awesome UGC, plan to repurpose it across your marketing channels. For example, you could feature a snippet from a compelling review in your brochures or on a print ad.

Show us how you use UGC in your senior living marketing!

Integrating user-generated content into your community’s social media strategy will boost engagement while making your community feel authentic. We’d love to hear how you use and encourage user-generated content. Share your stories with us on our LinkedIn page.

If you’re looking for more personalized advice, don’t hesitate to reach out. Let us help you make your senior living community shine online.

We talk a lot about the buyer’s journey, specifically the one the senior embarks on. But what about the adult child helping the senior make the decision?

The adult child’s journey runs parallel, but it is different, and understanding the differences is essential to your senior living marketing efforts.

At the 2023 SMASH conference, Jamison Gosselin, an executive-level marketing strategist with over two decades of senior living industry experience, shared interesting findings from an in-depth survey he conducted with thousands of adult children.

Below, we’ll discuss two key insights that Gosselin shared with Debbie Howard, Senior Living SMART’s CEO and Founder, during our Senior Living Marketing Perspectives podcast. (You can check out the complete episode here.)

1. Having an optimized website isn’t enough to land your community on an adult child’s radar.

Adult children in the early stages of the buying journey are usually trying to educate themselves about senior living—what it is, how much it costs, and what insurance covers. They’ll often perform searches around those questions.

But guess what? Google’s top results aren’t likely to include your community—even if you have content that answers those questions.

Instead, other sites with more authority—think government agencies like the National Council on Aging, lead aggregators like A Place for Mom, and magazines like Forbes—will rank higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

So now, the question becomes: Once the adult children educate themselves and are ready to compile a list of communities to tour, how do you ensure your community makes it onto their list?

If you think having an optimized website is enough, think again. Other factors influence the adult child’s list-making before the adult child even makes it to your website. And the most significant influencer is your community’s Google Business Profile.

Gosselin says the Google Business Profile came up a lot among his survey participants. He adds, “If companies are not completely optimizing every feature and functionality available on their Google Business Profile, then they are missing out because the Google Business Profile has a number of bells and whistles that are more than just bells and whistles, frankly, and are like the church bells that should be ding-donging every time someone goes and does a [search on] ‘senior living in Las Vegas’ or ‘senior living in Portland, Oregon.'”

Google Business Profiles are critical because of the prevalence of “near me” searches. If someone searches for “senior living communities near me,” Google understands where the person is searching and will serve up well-optimized Google Business Profiles accordingly.

Optimizing your Google Business Profile (GBP) goes beyond simply claiming it and adding a blurb or two and some photos. Here are several mistakes that we consistently see communities make with their GBPs:

● Not choosing the correct category. We’ve come across profiles for assisted living that use “skilled nursing” as their lead category. That won’t help your GBP show up for searches on assisted living.
● Not optimizing the Q&A section for long-tail keyword phrases. Answering questions is a great way to demonstrate your community’s expertise and compassion while also giving Google more context about what your community offers.
● Not using GBP posts effectively. Treat Google Business Profile posts like mini blog posts, where you can include clickable (and trackable) calls to action, like “Schedule a Tour” or “Join us for lunch.”

2. Don’t underestimate the power of referrals—or the adult child’s role in giving them.

Gosselin says 46% of his survey participants received a referral from a friend or family member. “That’s a huge number,” he adds.

However, too many communities don’t think through their referral or loyalty programs over the long haul. In particular, operators often forget to nurture relationships with the adult children of past residents.

The adult child’s journey with the community might have ended when their loved one died or moved out, but that doesn’t mean the child’s memory of their loved one’s experience ended. If the loved one had a genuinely good experience in the community, the adult child could remain a good referral source for years to come, provided you nurture this relationship and keep your community at the top of their minds.

Ideas for nurturing the adult children of past residents:

• Craft a special newsletter for adult children whose parents are no longer residents. The tenor and tone of this communication must be respectful, not sales-oriented, and you should carefully curate which adult children you add to the distribution list. Maybe you create a quarterly or yearly “Perspectives” newsletter or publication that shows what’s new in the community, highlights residents, and includes a spotlight on a long-term employee. These things can help keep your community on the adult child’s radar.
• Consider memorializing past residents so the adult child remains connected to the community. Invite adult children whose parents were particularly happy in your community to select a memorial item with their loved one’s name, like a brick in the new wall around the gardens, a butterfly tree, or a bench—you get the idea. Encourage the adult child and their family to visit the memorial anytime, including meaningful dates, like birthdays and wedding anniversaries.
• Send a “thinking of you” card to the adult child on the anniversary of their loved one’s passing. You don’t need to do this forever, but you could send a thoughtful card in the first few years after the resident’s death.
PRO TIP: People’s relationships with their parents are often fraught and complex. Don’t make assumptions about what the person might be feeling. Keep it simple. Here’s an example: “As the first anniversary of your mother’s passing approaches, we wanted to reach out and let you know we’re thinking of you.”

• Encourage adult children to maintain connections with other residents. Adult children often become friendly with people their loved ones befriended in the community. Encourage the adult children to stay in touch if it feels right.
• Don’t forget to send a thank-you note when the adult child makes a referral. Hopefully, your team is good at asking prospects who referred them to your community. If it turns out the referrer is the adult child of a past resident, you should still thank them by sending a handwritten thank-you note.

Understanding your community’s personas is the key to effective senior living marketing.

Creating personas isn’t a once-and-done exercise, and it isn’t something you should guess at or make up. We have a proven process for developing custom personas that will inform your marketing going forward. Contact us if you’d like to know more.

We don’t have to tell you that phone calls still matter in senior living. You’re living and breathing it every day.

But here’s an interesting stat from Invoca that verifies this experience: “70% of senior living and care consumers will call during the consumer journey. Since senior living and care is a highly-considered purchase, it often requires direct communication with a qualified agent.” (Emphasis is ours.)

The phrase “qualified agent” suggests a call center, a popular topic at the Senior Housing News conference in Tampa earlier this year. During various panels, several operators brought up the value of using a call center to improve lead response and conversions.

The question is, should you manage your own call center? Or should you outsource?

We have a strong opinion on this subject, and for a good reason: We built a senior living call center.

We launched LeadGenie in early 2023 to complement our marketing services and ensure that the leads we generate for clients are answered—and answered in a way that helps the prospect.

We got to this point after listening to countless hours of call recordings filled with lousy customer interactions and prospects who sounded frustrated (rightfully so). Many of these prospects had scheduled tours on the website, yet no one from the community had responded to confirm. Or they were dumped in voicemail, told to call back, or put on hold for so long that they abandoned the call.

It soon became clear that half of the leads we worked so hard to generate for our clients were mismanaged and never reached the salesperson.

So, we decided to build something that would work better for prospects—and our industry. The result was LeadGenie, a complete lead management solution with a call center at its core.

We’re not going to lie: It was really hard in the beginning. We made mistakes and had to rebuild the team and the infrastructure several months into the launch. Today, we know more about call centers and centralized lead management than we ever thought possible, and we love sharing our knowledge.

What to know about senior living call centers

The telephony system you choose can make or break your call center.

Your phone system must be easy for your staff to use. It should include workforce management to ensure proper staffing by day and time, provide transparency to staff performance so you can reward top performers and coach (or fire) underperformers, and generate a reporting dashboard to hold the team accountable to KPIs.

Speaking of KPIs, are you ready for some alphabet soup?

If you thought marketing jargon and acronyms were bad, just wait until you see the stuff related to call centers.

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

We set this with each client based on their goals. The most common is the percentage of calls answered within an agreed-upon timeframe.

We average 85/30, meaning we answer 85% of all calls within 30 seconds for inbound calls. We use minutes to measure outbound calls (generated from third-party leads and web forms) since the team has to receive the lead, read the notes, and make an outbound call attempt. We had a client with a 27-hour speed-to-lead that we reduced to a few minutes.

Once you agree upon the SLA, it should be visible on the client dashboard.

Average Handle Time (AHT)

Each client has a different goal regarding how deeply they want us to explore prospects. Some want light discovery with AHT under 3 minutes. Others want us to act as an extension of their sales team and conduct deep and detailed discovery, which can take eight to 12 minutes.

Call centers, whether you own or outsource, are labor intensive. Labor will be your biggest investment, so setting expectations on AHT is critical to achieving the desired results. Read more about call center best practices.

After Call Work (ACW)

Call center staff must document notes into your CRM once the call is completed. A few minutes per interaction must be built into staffing models and included in reporting.

Call centers might combine AHT and ACW into “screen time” if the telephony system records each agent’s screen for training purposes.

Workflow

Agreeing upon the lead response and follow-up cadence will help set the tone for a successful relationship. Some clients want us to manage a lead for only 24 hours, while others might want up to four attempts in three days. One client requested 14 touchpoints in 10 days, and others want us to own the lead until we qualify, disqualify, or advance it to an appointment.

Some of our workflows involve only inbound and outbound calls, while others include emails. Once everyone agrees on the workflow, there must be accountability for managing it successfully.

So, should you manage your own call center? Or outsource? 5 considerations.

The problem with managing your own senior living call center is you don’t realize how complex things can become until you’re in it. Five areas in particular can become headaches in a hurry:

1. Recruiting

This is a specialized hire (especially if you’re building a remote team). Do you have a recruiting specialist for this role?

2. Training

Do you have a team that can train new hires about the senior living industry? What about sales skills, call center skills, and technical proficiency? It can take skilled call center teams two to three weeks to fully train an agent before they’re ready to get on the phone. Oh, and training should never stop. You must have live call monitoring, evaluations of recorded calls, and one-to-one coaching with each agent.

3. Admin, HR, and Payroll

Do you want to manage a high-turnover, hourly staffing model with last-minute call-outs, no-shows, and missed punches?

4. Accountability and Productivity

Do you know how many sales activities each agent should complete per hour/shift? Do you have KPIs to measure quality, productivity, and results? Do you have the capacity to coach to improve performance and identify gaps in learning?

5. Knowledge Bases

You’ll have to build custom knowledge bases for each community so your agents can quickly provide prospects with answers to their questions. Agents will need more than what’s available on your website, so having the right platform to make it easy for agents to navigate while keeping the prospect engaged is critical.

Think you might be better off outsourcing? Give LeadGenie a try.

LeadGenie has been a great addition to our marketing agency services since it takes all the great leads we’ve been generating for clients and advancing more of them to tours and move-ins.

If you’re considering a call center partnership that allows you to use your CRM, customize your workflow, and measure results, schedule a call with LeadGenie. Visit the LeadGenie site to learn more.