Have you ever answered a phone call not intended for you and ended up having a great conversation?
It happened here at SCCS last week. A woman called thinking we could make recommendations for an assisted living community.
While our team is something of a walking competitive analysis on a nationwide scale, we stay out of the recommendations business.
Now you’d think someone calling around for recommendations for a parent must live far away from them, right?
That’s why it was surprising to learn she lived only a few miles from her dad and his New Jersey home.
The phone call was interesting and enlightening. Here’s a little bit about how it went down.
Assisted Living Digital Leads Start Close to Home
“Jane,” as we’ll call her, was pretty frustrated trying to figure out what kind of care her father needed moving forward and find a care provider they could trust.
Assisted living sites just weren’t mobile friendly, according to Jane.
The scenario she outlined is one most of us with industry experience as very familiar with and have heard plenty of times before.
Her dad had been living alone in a home he previously shared with his late wife for over 40 years.
The house had a lot of stairs. An inaccessible bathroom. No close neighbors.
Jane’s father had taken a bad fall overnight and wasn’t able to call for help. She found him the next morning after he didn’t answer the phone when she made her regular morning check-in call.
She jumped on her cell phone to research care options while she was waiting for him to be treated in the emergency room.
Unfortunately, Jane didn’t find the websites listed in her Google search to be so helpful.
Some sites took forever to load. Others loaded but the functionality was a hot mess.
All but one lacked the information and tools she felt were necessary to understand the differences between each type of senior living.
Did her dad need assisted living? Dementia care? Or a nursing home?
The Need for Content Rich Assisted Living Websites
The senior care websites Jane found mentioned all of those types of care, but didn’t provide an understanding of who was a good candidate for each one.
The only exception was one of the national chains that was nearby. While she was leery of big companies, Jane felt like maybe they were more of an expert based on what she saw online.
Because her dad was hospitalized for several days, most of Jane’s searching was done on her cell phone while sitting at his bedside.
Jane works in regional marketing for the a regional hospitality company and was expecting to be able to learn more and even book tours from her cell phone.
While there’s no way the complexity of the senior care business can be compared with the hotel industry, especially in terms of booking space, the bottom line was that she felt that our industry was failing adult children when it comes to mobile marketing.
By the time she left the hospital later in the evenings, phone calls to local assisted living communities left her more exasperated.
No one answered phones during evening hours. If someone did answer, it was often a nurse or aide who just asked her to call back in the morning.
Now imagine a different scenario…
Mobile Friendly Assisted Living Content
Your site is optimized and mobile friendly. A frantic daughter could access more than just basic information about your community’s features and amenities.
She would be able to see your small company has the same level of expertise the big chains do. All based on the opinion she’s forming from your digital presence.
A daughter like Jane would find an interactive tool or a guide that helps her learn more about the levels of care.
Even better would be that she could take or book a virtual tour online from her father’s bedside at the hospital. Or even email a contact person for more information.
These aren’t tremendously difficult types of content to add to your site, and they make a big difference.
So, take time now to visit your website using your cell phone. Ask a few folks you trust to do the same.
Then visit your competitors’ sites on your cell phone, especially the national chains in your market.
How would a family new to this industry judge you when compared with the big guys?
Are you losing business to them that you aren’t even aware of? Unless your site is on par with theirs, the answer is probably YES.
Drop us a note if you have questions or need a little help improving your assisted living content and creating a site that is truly a resource for seniors and their families. We’ll be happy to help.