CRM for Senior Living: Driving Engagement Through Stronger Sales Relationships

When developing its all-in-one operating system for senior and assisted living, the Aline team knew that a key part of the equation was customer relationship management (CRM). Senior living communities rely heavily on a steady influx of new residents, not just to make a profit but to add fresh perspectives, personalities and preferences to a vibrant social dynamic at the heart of any community.

Helping prospects become residents requires establishing a personal relationship between the potential buyer and sales counselors. This is challenging, however, when every prospect requires you to process a plethora of personal and technical information.

Sales teams once had to make do by keeping note cards or maintaining spreadsheets by hand. Aside from the inefficiencies, these manual processes allowed information, relationships, and sales to become disjointed or even slip away. It would be especially difficult for busy sales professionals with many interactions to track and maintain. Customer relationships can be difficult to establish and require constant upkeep and attention, or else valuable potential clients may stay home or go elsewhere. After all, a team that can’t reliably pay attention to prospective customers does not inspire trust in their organization’s ability to pay attention once they become residents.

To keep up with their other work and “wow” customers with their attentiveness and responsiveness, senior living sales teams need a platform designed specifically for the industry, a tool to keep leads from falling through the cracks while leaving time to connect with residents and families. This need for personal relationships, automated data collection, and regular communication is what inspired Aline to create the most powerful, purpose-built tools for the senior living industry.

What Is Customer Relationship Management Software?

CRM is a type of software platform that business owners, salespeople and support teams use to track communications and maintain positive relationships with leads and customers. A CRM platform takes a number of applications including:

• Databases
• Spreadsheets
• Calls, emails and text messaging
• Scheduling and journaling software

The platform puts them all in one user-friendly, cross-referenced and integrated system. This creates a single centralized and streamlined source for all information and interactions, making relationships with consumers easy and intuitive. Staff members share access to the same CRM system, and can all make changes to update information and work together to close sales and provide amazing service.

CRM software was created to record, organize, and manage data for business contacts. Different industries often use specialized CRM software that suits their needs and best facilitates customer relationships. A simple spreadsheet may be sufficient for businesses without too many contacts, or those that need to track only static data like names, addresses, and contact information. But senior living sales are typically more complex than that. Managing a large number of leads and transactions that may take some time to nurture and close, such as when clients are moving to a senior living community, requires specialized tools.

Unless connected with an integration, a CRM cannot track interactions that take place outside of its system. So teams should stick to using the CRM, preferably the same way, for all organization and communications. When a CRM platform is fully integrated into a company’s workflow and best practices it can use its collected data to provide a host of benefits, like:

• Dramatically increasing speed-to-lead and lead-to-sale 
• Showing sales teams which leads are most engaged and likely to become customers, and which need more attention 
• Prompting timely interactions to maximize lead interest and retention 

In our era of Big Data, CRM software also tracks information of all sorts for use in data mining and analytics. This allows senior living sales teams to drill down on patterns and predict future trends to refine their best practices and further increase sales.  

Why Do You Need a CRM for Your Senior Living Community?

If all of these features sound perfect for senior living sales, that’s because they are. Senior living sales teams have a great deal of information to track and the right assisted living CRM handles all the legwork. A good CRM even helps choose the best time to keep up communications with a prospect, taking some of the strategizing and scheduling off a sales team’s plate. But more than anything, senior housing CRM makes it easy to keep the sales process personalized and effective.  

Sales is all about connection and no senior living sales team can prosper without an individual relationship with prospective residents and their families. As early as the first encounter, sales personnel should establish a strong connection with leads and show interest, empathy, and a desire to help. The right senior living CRM software is designed to facilitate this personal approach, allowing sales teams to customize every interaction to suit the needs of each prospective resident.  

Without a CRM solution designed for senior living, sales teams simply lack the data and analytical muscle to provide this level of personalization. Because CRM software tracks dynamic data like engagement with emails, websites, texts, and more, sales personnel can gauge the prospect’s interest in and awareness of a senior living community and its amenities.  

The inquiry process also allows a CRM platform to discover a lead’s background, such as, religious beliefs, career, and interests, and provides a whole host of biographical information with which to help forge a personal connection with the staff and other residents.

Just knowing what prompted a search for assisted living can provide an excellent icebreaker, and CRM software is a great way to get this information. 

Senior housing communities without access to this information will simply fall behind those who use CRM. Knowing what each prospect wants, as well as when to contact them, creates a personal connection and maximizes engagement. Because CRM platforms store their data in one central location, any staff member is just as equipped as any other to maintain the relationship, offer property tours, or create a personal relationship of their own with prospects. Profiles are automatically updated, making it effortless to keep up with each customer’s evolving needs and interests.  

Features of a Senior Living CRM

CRM software for senior living facilitates personal relationships between sales staff and prospects, while also drastically reducing the time and effort sales professionals spend on tracking each lead. Ideally, this creates a positive feedback loop where more time and better information leads to stronger relationships and increased occupancy.  

Here are the key features included in Aline’s CRM software platform:  

Shared Prospect Profiles

Eliminating duplicate files for leads lets teams work together from a single customer profile. Sales teams share the same information for all prospects, including how leads have engaged with websites, emails, and communities overall. Seamless cooperation smooths and speeds the sales process, and helps provide the best customer experience once prospects become residents.

Alerts and Dashboards

Assisted living CRM automates daily follow-up tasks and reminders to maintain engagement with prospects and keep the sales process moving. Teams remain focused on promising leads at every stage of the sales process. Auto-updating performance dashboards  track progress so staff can adjust strategies in real time.

Senior Living Suite System Integration

Good property management software is just as important as a CRM platform. The right CRM platform integrates with property management software to automatically update data across both systems. Linked systems allow staff to monitor prospect and resident preferences, create smooth lead-to-resident transitions, and monitor health, treatment, family, and social activity across all software.

Lead Attribution

Leverage every dollar spent on marketing by tracking the results of all outreach and engagement programs. CRM software connects to all referral networks to monitor website leads, consumer inquiries, and third-party referrals. Tracking each lead back to its source helps discover which methods are working and those that need to be adjusted, as well as perfecting marketing efforts across multiple properties.

Competitive Advantages

Senior living CRM platforms can track and organize offerings from competing senior living businesses, listing prices, programs, packages, and more. Sales teams can learn what they’re doing better than the competition, and find out where they can improve, while a system that updates automatically provides up-to-the-minute performance comparisons.  When choosing a CRM, it is vital to avoid retrofitted or outdated CRMs designed for senior-living-adjacent industries like multifamily housing or real estate. Instead, a dedicated senior living CRM platform that supports the unique senior living sales process will eliminate gaps and workarounds and facilitate a positive experience for prospects and staff.

Key Benefits of Senior Housing CRM Software

With these features accounted for, it is vital to understand exactly how CRM software benefits assisted living businesses. At its core, a CRM platform streamlines the customer journey from the first sales interaction through move-in. By collecting key prospect information and keeping dynamic records of all preferences and interactions, senior living CRM software ensures no potential resident is left behind, maximizing both sales and individual attention.

Here are just a few ways CRM for senior living from Aline can help a senior living center’s sales team do its best work:

Lead Capture and Response

Without fresh sales leads an assisted living business cannot attract new residents and loses out on both cash flow and a strong social dynamic. By populating sales personnel schedules with strategically timed interactions based on data and engagement, CRM platforms can maximize response time and lead turnover. Aline CRM software tracks prospect engagement with email and messaging servers as well as senior living center websites and external sites like Caring.com, removing duplicate leads and analyzing performance metrics, saving significantly on time and money.

Lead Nurturing

Senior housing CRM collects data that sales teams can use to customize every prospect’s experience. Aline CRM’s platform lets teams communicate with prospects through their channel of choice, including services like Twilio and Outlook. A single unified interface for all channels makes it easy to keep tabs on the sales process for each prospect without hopping between apps. By tracking and logging interactions, the CRM software builds a profile of each potential resident to personalize interactions from lead to move-in and beyond.

Email Marketing

Email marketing campaigns are key to connecting with prospects. Linking email and CRM platforms makes communications smoother and faster while harvesting vital data on individual prospects and the consumer base at large. Sending open house invitations, special offers, or tour follow-up surveys to one contact or many becomes easy. Aline’s CRM tools automatically record activity and engagement data to save time and gain fresh insights.

Care and Resource Planning

Aline’s assisted living CRM solutions shares a single database, so changes made on one platform automatically and immediately appear on all the others. This keeps everyone on the same page by noting important events like promising leads and helping staff react in a timely and effective manner. It also ensures that data about medications and health or social needs are not lost between transitions from sales to residency. 

Tips for Choosing a CRM for Senior Living

A senior living CRM is the best way to bring communication, marketing, data analytics, and team coordination all into one convenient and easy-to-use system. This software offers easy lead generation, a faster lead-to-sale process, and a smooth transition from sale to residency. Premium assisted living CRM, like that offered by Aline, takes the indispensable customer relationship to the next level, allowing all team members to work together to create a trusting and personal rapport with each potential resident. This relationship follows each individual through their senior housing journey and makes sure seniors have the best possible assisted living experience, surrounded by friends, family, and staff who understand their needs. 

To learn more about how Aline can help your senior living community achieve an even higher level of performance get a free demo.