On Hold Messages For Assisted Living And Senior Care Centers
If you’re the director or marketing manager for an assisted living center or senior care community, what marketing tool deserves your closest attention? The answer may be right at your fingertips – your phone’s on hold button!
According to the Assisted Living Federation of America, Eighty is the average age for an assistant living resident, and their concerned child is sixty. This means you’re not faced with the same challenges as those businesses who are targeting millennials. There’s no need to be concerned about how you can try and dominate social media, after all, your target audience isn’t the Twitter generation, it’s the telephone generation! They may search online and respond to ads, but ultimately they will call and ask about what you offer.
ALFA data shows that in most cases, the first contact a senior or their family member makes with assisted living is on the phone. So, you run a nice facility. The building looks great; the staff is top notch, but most prospects will call your facility before they ever drive up to see the nice building or meet the happy residents and staff. So when these prospects call your facility ,what are you doing to turn hold time into a tremendous marketing opportunity? Do you have boring elevator music? Or perhaps even worse, nothing on hold at all?
In an article by Steve Moran, publisher of the Senior Housing Forum and speaker on a number of topics that are important to the senior living sector, he recently notes the importance of hold music. He says: “I call 15 to 20 nursing or assisted living facilities each week, and while I may be getting old and cranky, lately my telephone experiences seem to have gotten dramatically worse.”
When families and seniors select an assisted living community, it’s a life changing decision. It can be intimidating for many families out of fear of making the wrong choice. This is where on hold messaging at your assisted living center or senior care community can be used as an opportunity to inform, educate and reinforce to prospects why you’re the right choice! Yet many assisted living directors don’t give on hold marketing much thought.
Your on hold music should be more than an afterthought. It should be viewed as a powerful marketing tool to connect with your prospects. It may not only be your first and only chance at making a great first impression, but also to provide answers to your caller’s most important concerns and questions such daily living activities; feeding, bathing, dressing and grooming. Perhaps the search is for a setting that helps maintain independence, or one that’s safe and secure. Having a message on hold can answer what assistance, activities or food service your facility offers, or if your caller’s parent is isolated, lonely or bored, how your facilities activities meet that need.
An on hold message at your assisted living and senior care center can also be a great tool to help in attracting prospects by boosting attendance at community and social events can provide a strong opportunity for growth. So, be to include information about upcoming events in your on hold recording.
