The senior living business may be turning a close eye to consumer reviews over the last few years, but how much do they really matter?
Shoppers have taken to review sites as a first step in research for all kinds of products, from goods to services and everything in between. Senior living is no exception, as a number of review sites have rolled out improvements and new ratings hubs as recently as this week when RetirementHomes.com launched its service. Touting itself as the most comprehensive senior housing resource for baby boomers, RetirementHomes.com allows for residents and communities to weigh in with their take on the communities listed—through reviews.
“This feature will allow anyone who visited a senior living community, has lived or currently lives in one, or simply has a loved one in a community, to share their thoughts and help others in their search for the perfect home,” said RetirementHomes.com CEO Evan Heltay in announcing the launch of its new site.
But how important are reviews in senior living—where geography plays such a key role, and often those who are using the services choosing just one provider rather than sampling many.
“Our belief is that consumer reviews will never have the same impact in assisted living as they do in other consumer markets because we will not reach a critical mass of reviews,” says Seniorhomes.com CEO Chris Rodde. “Consumer reviews do serve a purpose and do provide value to assisted living decision makers, but will never become a key decision making element.”
Seniorhomes.com takes an example from trip Advisor to demonstrate how a certain hotel located in Miami, Florida, could garner nearly 1,500 reviews on Tripadvisor. Because it has more than 250 rooms and hosts from 5,000 to 10,000 visitors each year, even a small rate of response to reviews of 1% to 2% will net hundreds of customers’ feedback.
Yet in assisted living, Rodde notes, the potential review pool is much smaller—around 375 per average community, per year, including family members of residents who may be inclined to write a review. But because the average length of stay is 18 months, the potential per year falls. Add other factors, such as the inclination of the average resident to submit an online review using a computer or smartphone, and the pool falls even more, netting just a handful—two to five—reviews per year.
“Assisted living reviews do provide value, but will not become as influential a data source as in other markets,” Rodde says. “Reviews, especially ones that share someone’s personal story, can help show the personality of an assisted living community….we believe that reviews are valuable and can influence someone’s decision, but never to the extent in other markets. Reviews will certainly influence decisions, but won’t likely drive decisions.”
Reviews can be helpful for other reasons, such as improving conversion rates by their presence on a community’s site.
“Let’s go get reviews as an industry, but let’s just be clear about the role they will play,” Rodde says.
Written by Elizabeth Ecker
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While I agree that reviews in senior housing may not be used to the extent that they are in the travel and dining industries, the key is in how they are used. While families are searching 10-12 area communities, they will use the reviews to vet the buildings. Those who have positive reviews based on quality of life and resident safety will be much more likely to get a phone call from the senior or their family members. Those who do not have quality reviews will be eliminated from the competition for those shoppers- the ones who do not have a direct referral.
I certainly would like to see reviews of senior living communities in my geographic area.
As a former licensed senior living provider, I tried to take into account what would be helpful to both the consumer and the senior living provider. At SeniorSpotChicago.com we too, have a directory of services, however I have turned off comments. I feel that there are many ways to help boost the reputation of a provider and help consumers make an informed decision. We welcome local senior providers to submit events and educational articles at no charge to our Chicago 50+ audience. It is a win-win with the consumers gaining valuable information on senior living, health & wellness, retirement, etc and the provider gains credibility and connection with the consumer. I continue to feel that as a consumer, I would be more apt to trust a senior provider who has shared valuable information with me prior to my need for placement.
Caring.com has been hosting senior care reviews since 2009 (with the acquisition of Gilbert Guide), and our Senior Care Directory now features tens of thousands of consumer reviews from senior living residents, their families, senior care experts, and prospective clients (who've toured the communities and wrote reviews about what they saw/experienced). In analysis of assisted living and memory care reviews posted in 2012, we found that provider listings that had reviews received more than 5x the amount of prospective client inquiries than listings without reviews: https://seniorhousingnews.com/2013/05/30/senior-li… Also, in our surveys of family caregivers, online reviews have consistently ranked among top considerations for finding and selecting assisted living for their loved ones, and callers to our senior living referral line regularly ask about them as well. Our research shows that ratings and reviews provide families with tremendous value and play a strong role in affecting a caregiver’s selection of care. Ratings and reviews may even be more important to senior care services than to other industries.
I agree, Denise. Especially when you consider the financial & personal investment vs a hotel stay, you would think reviews would be even more important.
As Elizabeth wrote, reviews are an excellent opportunities, not just for residents and prospective residents to share their thoughts, but for these communities to respond.
On RetirementHomes.com, which Elizabeth cited, our review function allows just that- for communities to reply directly to reviews, opening up a new line of dialogue between operators and (prospective) residents.
Caring.com likewise has a Provider Response feature. Increasingly, senior living providers are utilizing this feature to increase awareness about their customer service channels, address concerns, express gratitude for positive feedback, and communicate with prior, current and prospective residents.
There's a new website that does professional reviews of communities – NOT user reviews which tend to be emotional and reflect personal opinion, which we all know is usually influenced by only the very good or very negative experiences. their stuff is great, but they are only in TX and FL right now. <a href="http://www.seniorlivingreports.com” target=”_blank”>www.seniorlivingreports.com.
Well! Online review sites can be a great place for taking personal opinion of users and with the help of this review you know about good and bad things of the services that provided.
I have a hard time understanding how reviews wouldn't be helpful, particularly for such an emotional decision and for such an inherently fragile community.