With more and more older adults and their families conducting research about senior living communities online, at least one tech company is using data to help find better matches between prospective residents and providers.
That means making sure there is quality information out there for families who are going through the residency search process independently, said Arthur Bretschneider, CEO for Seniorly, which has developed an online senior living marketplace.
“The baby boomers searching now are more tech savvy,” Bretschneider told the McKnight’s Tech Daily Monday. “But it’s still hard to explain the nuances of senior care. Are they looking for assisted living? Memory care? A high-end property or one more budget conscious? We’re after the ‘holy grail’ of making a great match.”
Seniorly is developing algorithms to help generate community recommendations for older adults who are searching, Bretschneider said. That culminated in an AI-backed pricing estimator that Seniorly recently launched.
“Senior living is very focused on filling up beds ‘this month,’” Bretschneider said. “The problem is people are researching a lot earlier. And they expect to be able to find more information when they are searching.”
Customers and families who spend more time researching have a higher “lifetime value,” for communities, Bretschneider said, noting that this cohort also is willing to pay more in rent.
Operators also are becoming more aware of this changing dynamic, Bretschneider said, and some senior living communities are now collecting data they believe could be relevant for prospective residents and their families.
Seniorly has been conducting studies and creating “sentiment analyses,” creating ratings related to a community’s engagement programs, dining options and quality of care, Bretschneider said.
In addition to those concerns, older adults also are prioritizing having the latest communication options, such as Zoom or video conferencing, he added.
When Seniorly began more than a decade ago, it did so with a more “localized” approach, Bretschneider said, but the company since has built out into a more modern real-estate style marketplace.
In the past, 80% of resident leads often were driven by working with advisers, but more tech-savvy older baby boomers ready for senior living are searching online themselves, Bretschneider said.
Although Seniorly still works with hundreds of local advisers, Bretschneider noted, at present, there is approximately a 50/50 split between those using outside advising and those going it alone.
One thing senior living operators can do to showcase their value is to highlight the visual components of their site, Bretschneider said.
To that end, some communities now offer virtual reality tours on their websites, such as Shell Point in Fort Myers, FL, and Salmon Health and Retirement in Medway, MA.
