It has only been a few weeks since A Place for Mom launched a senior care review site, but Golden Reviews already believes it can do a better job.
Based in Chicago, Ill., and launched by Leo Friedman, the company’s goal is to bring transparency and accountability to the senior care industry through its 110,000 community listings on its website. After going live in March, the company has more than 2,000 reviews with at least 200 reviews being added or modified each day, says Friedman.
Golden Reviews plans to compete with companies like A Place for Mom by touting its “mantra of transparency,” Friedman tells SHN.
“We want to give an inside look into nursing homes, assisted and independent living that is transparent,” he says.
The reviews are built one at a time using “transparency advocates” tasked to go into local communities and encourage people to post reviews. After a review is submitted, it goes through an internal process to ensure its legitimacy.
Having reviews on listing sites is becoming more important, as Caring.com data for its consumer review component showed that listings with reviews received five times the amount of inquiries compared to those without.
Golden Reviews has also launched what it calls the “Golden Seal,” the only consumer-awarded third-party mark of quality in senior housing and care. If a community receives a certain number of reviews with an average overall rating of 4.25, the community is awarded a plaque and badge that can be used in marketing materials.
The company generates revenue from referral fees, as well as its Care Partner program. For a monthly fee, communities can join the program and get advance notice to any negative review as well as one week to resolve the complaint before it goes live on the site.
“The review, whether positive or negative, will always be published on the site,” Friedman says. “By being a Care Partner, communities have the ability to respond publicly and address any problems.”
The review space in senior housing is heating up, with the Assisted Living Federation of America entering a partnership with Caring.com, as well as SeniorHomes.com allowing consumers to provide feedback.
Written by John Yedinak
New
Thank you Senior Housing News for the spotlight.
While Golden Reviews generates revenue from referral fees and reputation management, in order to fulfill our mission, we focus on reinvesting heavily into transparency advocates who continuously collect senior care reviews nationwide.
In addition, we would love to partner with senior care providers to help with proactive review collection and reputation management.
There would seem an inherent conflict between "transparency" and "reputation management." The latter would suggest that Golden Reviews is a marketing tool for the industry rather than a consumer-focused entity. That would be a shame, but not a surprise. How does one be "a mantra for transparency," anyway?
Thank you for your continuing coverage about the importance of online reviews in the senior housing industry! https://seniorhousingnews.com/2013/01/28/senior-li… And congratulations again to the hundreds of senior housing providers who have earned the annual "Caring Stars" award recognizing assisted living and memory care service excellence based on consumer ratings and reviews: http://www.caring.com/bestseniorcare This January, there were 383 communities in 40 states who earned this honor by receiving three or more positive reviews in 2012, at least one of which with the highest 5-star rating, and by having an overall average rating (across all reviews on their listing) equaling greater than 4 stars with no unresolved negative reviews. The prior year, there were 120 communities in 24 states who received this consumer-awarded third-party mark of quality in senior housing — all of whom get a special badge for their listings, websites and marketing materials, as well as other promotion of the quality distinction. On Caring.com, providers may post a response to any review on their listing, positive or negative, and we're excited to see many providers now actively taking advantage of this long-standing feature, as well as seeking new reviews from their customers to qualify for the Caring Stars award in January 2014. Caring.com does significant outreach to prospective and current residents, family caregivers, and geriatric experts to collect consumer reviews — with 35,000 consumer reviews now live on the site across all categories in the Senior Care Directory (which yesterday earned "Official Honoree" recognition in the 2013 Webby Awards: http://winners.webbyawards.com/2013/web/general-w… ). Thanks again to Senior Housing News for doing more stories about the impact of online reviews in senior care!
Regarding the opening paragraph:
A company can't be a mantra. I think the person who was quoted meant their company's mantra was "transparency" but the article says that the company itself is trying to be a "mantra of transparency".
I apologize for not being able to respond to you by name, but I want to address your "reputation management" – comment.
Unlike many of our competitors, Golden Reviews does not discriminate in featuring our Caring Partners listing any differently than communities that do not pay for the "reputation monitoring tools". We encourage ALL of the senior care providers to personalize their listings with their photos, description, reviews from their residents and families, stay involved in actively monitoring reviews and take full advantage of our web search optimization as an opportunity to be recognized as a GoldenSeal Partner. All of those features are offered at no cost to the care providers, but it's a matter for them wanting to actively stay involved with the reviews. Our mission is truly to bring transparency to senior care by facilitating a platform of open dialogue between care providers, their residents, and their families.
How transparent would it be for a community that pays a fee to get an opportunity to fix a problem for a week before the bad review is "live" ….
Seems like you can "pay" to play…