What next? Online consumer reviews for senior properties?

It’s happening now in the US so it will be here in Australia too, very soon. We’re all accustomed to the benefits of online consumer reviews influencing our buying decisions on travel and online shopping sites, and while retirement villages and aged care facilities may resist, the reality is that - like other types of social media marketing - they’ll have to embrace it sooner or later.

Online transparency is going to happen one way or another, so senior living operators will need to look for ways to ensure their reviews are mostly positive, as there’s nowhere to hide when they get a negative review.  Like travel operators, they’ll need to fix any problems quickly and publish a response online to avoid damage to their reputation, and also encourage their satisfied customers to publish their reviews too so the rankings are balanced.

Yet another example of the shift the internet has created in favour of the consumer!

Web-based technology is developing so fast that just a few years ago not many operators even had a website. Now they are actively engaging consumers with social media marketing campaigns, using Facebook pages, Twitter and more. The logical next step is consumer-driven activity, like online reviews. It’s already happening on corporate Facebook pages and elsewhere in an ad-hoc and piece-meal way.

So the question becomes how do you centralise this information, standardise rating criteria, verify the reviews and know they are genuine? How do you manage this information or provide a meaningful platform that consumers can access easily and trust?  One young man in the US has been working on these issues since he helped his grandmother find an aged care facility and became frustrated with the lack of transparency and difficulty finding practical information. (Precisely the reason the Seniors Housing Online website was established in Australia.)

The US Silver Living website officially launched in December, but they have been collecting information on communities for months from a variety of sources: the community itself, residents of communities, and mystery shoppers. It currently has agreements with three major senior living chains and report a range of reaction among communities the start-up has approached for partnership.

Tal Ziv the website founder says “we’re coming at it from a totally different perspective than anyone else. This transparency is going to happen, whether we do it or someone else does. Our best partners have been ones whose marketing departments have seen this [sort of model] in other industries,” he says. “They see [this information] is available in other industries and how it’s helpful in terms of conversion rates and getting the word out, and recognize it will also happen in senior care.” (Senior Housing News Jan 2013).

See Senior Housing News article.
Link to Silver Living website.
Link to Seniors Housing Online website.

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