Despite senior living communities’ ongoing efforts to improve their outreach and marketing campaigns, the fundamental basics of their marketing strategies are still seen largely as flawed.
Mystery shops completed by students in senior housing administration at George Mason University show that assisted living communities’ sales staff overwhelmingly fail to ask the right questions and provide the necessary information to turn a lead into a move-in.
“I’m not blaming the marketers for their performance; I’m blaming their employers,” says Andrew Carle, executive in residence and founding director of the mystery shoppers program. “What’s happening in our industry is this idea that as long as we’re at 90% or 92% occupancy, then the attitude is “What’s the big deal?” but the big deal is that you could’ve been at 100% occupancy with a wait list and opening your next building if you did this correctly.”
For the 34 mystery shops most recently completed in spring 2014, students were provided an industry recognized “A-lead” — an elderly family member requiring basic assistance, a home value and savings in excess of $400,000 and a willingness to move within 30 days.
Students called communities advertising the ability to meet required needs, using a scorecard measuring 30 criteria across four categories: first impression, needs assessment, ability to meet needs and follow-up/close. And the results are underwhelming, Carle says.
In only 26% of calls were students asked about the timeline of their family member to move, with only 32% asked about ability to pay. While the fictitious resident should result in a “100% tour offer rate,” in 21% of calls students were initially offered a brochure by mail. Furthermore, in only 42% of calls did the sales staff offer specific ways the community could help meet the needs of their family member.
“Basically, as an industry we’ve learned how to answer a phone in three rings, ask the name of the caller and offer them a brochure,” Carle says. “And even that we don’t do 100% of the time. How elementary is that for a $100,000 product?”
Since the mystery shop’s inception in 2004, there has been little change in overall performance by the industry at point-of-first-contact.
Between 2006 and 2008, only 40% of callers were asked the name of the potential resident and 48% how they learned of the community, compared to 38% and 47%, respectively, for 2014.
“For a decade, there’s been virtually no movement on the barometer,” Carle says. “Fifty percent or less of the time are our students asked, ‘How did you learn about our community?’ How are you supposed to measure all the dollars you’re spending on cost per lead and advertising and outreach if you don’t ask that question?”
The real message of these surveys is the importance of staff training, Carle says. There’s a strong disconnect between the product and the value that marketers and sales staff place on that product, and a missing link of not understanding that if sales staff performed at their highest level, the facility could be full with a waiting list.
“No other business accepts the mentality of not selling all of the product on the shelf,” Carle says. “McDonald’s wants to sell all of their hamburgers, not 90% of them. You could be doing a lot better. But [providers] don’t seem to feel a sense of urgency to change this.”
Written by Emily Study
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I work as a marketer in a retirement community in California. Part of my job is to evaluate mystery shopping reports with the marketer in question. I agree that we have a lot of room to improve with this vital part of our business. However, it has been my experience that mystery shopping is a flawed evaluation. The callers often don't have questions prepared to ask, which leads to uncomfortable and awkward conversations. They are also very easy to detect, and lead to the sales person knowing they are being mystery shopped and not taking the call seriously.
I find that most of our sales force do a very good job on the phone (otherwise they wouldn't have a job), and get high praise from real callers. Please take this report with a grain of salt.
Trying to understand how:
1. You think professional mystery shoppers don't have prepared questions to ask when, in fact, mystery shops are literally a pre-prepared assessment instrument.
2. Someone could know they were being mystery shopped – the purpose of which is to specifically evaluate their performance – and then respond by intentionally NOT taking the call seriously.
Wonder how your company feels about paying for these shops with staff with such a lack of basic understanding…
In my 12 years of being an assisted living sales/marketing director, I have been "shopped" dozens of times. I agree with CJ and have always taken these evaluations seriously because, albeit irritating, ultimately they are MY tools. However, being that senior housing companies are paying a big nickel for these services (and the expense usually hits the individual community's bottom line), I would encourage EDs to speak up to corporate when there are problems with the vendor's performance. There are better qualified mystery shopping vendors who understand both the customer and the assisted living model. This is not a "retail" environment and most vendors cater mostly to retail. If it is lucrative for vendors to capture this market they should be more selective in hiring and training appropriate shoppers (age, experience, ACTING ability – a thought just came to me – perhaps go after amateur actors?? Easier said than done. I have worked as a mystery shopper and know that the pool is minimally screened and the pay is pocket change). Most of my shoppers were so inept and obviously fake that it was difficult for me to "play the part" and perform my due diligence. Examples: College aged shoppers looking for an apartment for "grandma" who is independent and on Medi-Caid, overuse of technical "industry" language, failing marks for things the shopper didn't even catch and my biggest pet peeve – the shopper on a whim deciding to really get into it and robbing me of literally hours of time and energy. (Granted, the ones who got down and dirty with their stories were the best at fooling me). But my time is money for my employer. They should be strictly under an hour.
I work with the marketing folks daily and I believe part of the issue here is the high rate of turnover in these communities. Seasoned community sales people will ask the right questions, while newbie's, especially those who have never had a personal experience of looking at a community for a loved one, have no idea how to ask the "leading" questions to get potential residents in the door for a tour. I agree with Troy as well, mystery shoppers are easily identified when you spend your day talking with overwhelmed adult children and spouses who are burned out.