Today’s seniors live longer, are generally more active, and are likely to prioritize friendships and social interactions. Senior living communities are finding that appealing to this demographic requires them to offer an experience-based approach that keeps the focus on resident satisfaction.
A recent study showed that nearly 20% of seniors in independent living communities said their top concern when moving in was maintaining friendships and activities. In fact, nearly all of their top five worries revolved around experience. Resident expectations are high when it comes to maintaining a vibrant and active lifestyle, and they want their senior living community to facilitate an enriching living experience. When they do, those communities find that occupancy increases, their reputation grows stronger, and their finances improve.
Here, we’ll take a closer look at why resident experience should be at the forefront of your senior living operations, how this approach supports thriving communities, and the ways smart technology solutions can help you achieve more resident engagement and satisfaction.
We sometimes tend to think about resident experience in terms of activities and enrichment, but in reality, every aspect of your senior living community contributes to their overall experience. This includes the care they receive, their safety and security, their connection with family members and loved ones, their dining options, their relationship with staff members, and their quality of life.
Happy residents like to share their positive experiences, and that means greater word-of-mouth advertising for your community. You can be sure that prospective residents and their families have done their due diligence in investigating your community’s reputation: reading online reviews, taking virtual tours, following you on social media, and even speaking to other residents. What they learn from this research phase is often worth more than all the high-end amenities you offer.
Neglecting resident experience leads to negative reviews, low retention and high turnover, sluggish move-ins, and lagging occupancy. Damage to your reputation can be difficult to repair, and in this case, an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.
Taking proactive steps to generate loyalty in existing residents begins with providing them with a personalized and engaging experience. To do that, you have to start by fully understanding resident needs and make meeting them one of your top goals.
Resident experience impacts occupancy in several ways. Primarily, residents who are highly engaged and highly satisfied are less likely to move out, keeping retention high, while they are also more likely to provide referrals to prospective residents. What factors are at play in improving occupancy through resident experience?
While unhappy residents can cause serious damage to your brand reputation, you can always implement your strongest defense: happy residents.
Word-of-mouth remains the most powerful marketing tool in senior living. When residents feel valued, heard, and engaged, they become natural brand ambassadors. They share their positive experience with friends, family members, and in their broader social circles offline and online.
In today’s digital landscape, brand reputation is built across numerous channels. Online review platforms like Google and others tailored to the senior living industry are often the first stop for families researching their options. Communities with consistently high ratings and glowing testimonials stand out in a crowded marketplace, while those with negative reviews or low engagement struggle to attract qualified leads.
You can reinforce your brand reputation in several ways, including:
Investing in resident experience isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s also a smart financial strategy that directly impacts your bottom line. How?
Creating an experience-driven senior living community requires intentional focus on several key elements that work together to deliver consistent resident satisfaction.
Today’s seniors expect personalized experiences that respect their individuality, preferences, and lifestyles. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all programming or rigid schedules. This requires you to learn the life stories of your residents, understand their interests, and create schedules that work with their daily routines. This kind of flexibility and tailored experience improves resident satisfaction and increases their feeling of independence and autonomy.
Communication breakdowns are among the most common complaints in senior living communities. An experience-driven approach requires establishing clear, consistent, and proactive communication channels that make residents feel informed and included. Remember that it is equally important that family members are involved in all communications, making family portals and regular updates a key part of your communication strategy.
Activity and enrichment programming is at the heart of resident experience, but quality matters far more than quantity. Meaningful activities align with resident interests, abilities, and values. This means offering programming that provides purpose, stimulation, and social connection. Consider implementing some of the following:
The transition to senior living is a significant life event, and can often be a stressful experience for seniors and their loved ones. How you manage this process sets the tone for the entire resident relationship. Streamline your onboarding experience to ensure pre-move-in tasks are smooth and simple. Set clear expectations with residents, family members, and staff so everyone feels prepared and supportive. Finally, ensure that the move-in process feels organized and hassle-free, but also welcoming and warm.
Even the best senior living communities experience occasional service failures or resident dissatisfaction. How you respond to these situations is what separates experience-driven communities from the rest. In fact, effective service recovery can actually increase loyalty. Most residents who experience a problem that’s handled well may become more satisfied than those who never had an issue. Make sure you have a plan to turn service failures into opportunities by creating feedback loops that collect, analyze, and act on resident feedback.
Delivering personalized, consistent, high-quality experiences across an entire senior living community requires more than good intentions. It requires systems and technology that enable your team to work efficiently, stay organized, and maintain focus on what matters most: resident satisfaction. Here’s what you need to succeed (and how Eldermark NEXT can help you get there):
A customer relationship management (CRM system designed specifically for senior living serves as the foundation for experience-driven, streamlined operations. Eldermark’s CRM centralizes all resident and prospect information in one accessible platform, eliminating scattered spreadsheets, missed follow-ups, and information silos. Every team member who interacts with residents or prospects can access the information they need to provide personalized, informed service.
Timely, relevant communication is essential to resident experience, but manually managing communication for hundreds of residents and prospects is neither efficient nor sustainable. Eldermark’s marketing automation capabilities enable you to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time, without overwhelming your staff.
Online reviews significantly influence prospective residents and their families, but manually requesting and managing reviews is time-consuming and often forgotten amid daily operations. Eldermark automates the review collection process, sending timely requests to residents and families at optimal moments, including after a positive experience, following a successful event, or at regular intervals for long-term residents.
Transparent, easy access to information is a cornerstone of trust and satisfaction. Family and resident portals provide this access while reducing administrative burden on your staff. Eldermark’s family portal allows adult children and other family members to stay connected with their loved ones through access to activity calendars and participation records, care updates and wellness information, billing and financial details, and direct messaging with staff.
You can’t grow what you don’t measure. Experience-driven communities use data to identify trends, spot opportunities, and make informed decisions about operations and resident engagement. Eldermark’s analytics, ElderSmarts, and dashboards provide real-time visibility into the metrics that matter most for resident experience, like occupancy rates, activity participation, response time, and survey results.
The true power of Eldermark isn’t in any single feature. It’s in the comprehensive, end-to-end nature of the platform designed exclusively for senior living operations. Rather than juggling multiple disconnected systems, Eldermark users work within one intuitive platform where information flows seamlessly between functions, reducing errors and creating operational efficiencies.
Committing to an experience-driven approach requires measuring your progress and impact. These key performance indicators help you track how resident experience initiatives are performing and where opportunities for improvement exist:
Transforming your community into an experience-driven operation doesn’t happen overnight, but you can start making meaningful progress immediately with this practical, step-by-step advice:
If you’re ready to leverage new technology to support your experience-driven approach, getting started with Eldermark is a straightforward and streamlined process, and we’re sure you’ll see our commitment to your experience in everything we do. It all begins with a conversation. One of our team members will reach out to discuss your community’s specific needs, challenges, and goals. We’ll then provide a customized demo that focuses on the features most relevant to your priorities, so you fully understand the capabilities and the implementation process. Schedule your demo today to get started!