When your inquiry to move-in ratio dips, you know that declining occupancy is not far behind.
To improve your metrics—and increase your revenue—you may focus on updating your community or improving your touring strategy.
However, your inquiry to move-in rate may suffer from practices that occur much earlier in your sales process.
While it’s important your community shows well to prospects, how your sales team receives call-ins can significantly affect your inquiry to move-in ratio.
Properly managing inquiry calls is a critical strategy that can help you improve your metrics and drive move-ins. Here are a few techniques your sales team can use to leverage your community’s initial contact with leads.
Respond Immediately to Inquiries
How quickly your sales team responds to incoming calls will impact your inquiry to move-in ratio.
According to Aspect, phone or voice is the most frustrating of customer service channels. The research, which involved over 1,000 participants, found that 32% of individuals viewed voice communication in this negative light.
The application is obvious for senior living communities.
When leads call in, more than likely, they’re making an emotionally charged decision for their mom, dad, or loved one. The last thing you want is to create frustration by failing to respond in a timely matter when they contact your community.
Here are a few questions you need to consider for your senior living operation:
- How many times does your phone ring before your front desk answers?
- How available are your sales counselors for receiving transferred calls?
- If your sales team misses a call, do they promptly call the prospect back?
Emotionally Connect with Prospects
Another key to leveraging incoming calls for your inquiry to move-in ratio is developing an emotional connection with prospects.
One concrete way your sales team can accomplish this is to express empathy during conversations with leads. This involves…
- Asking questions about your future resident if the caller is an adult child.
- Making remarks that show concern or understanding for your lead’s situation.
- Using a caring and kind tone of voice.
Your sales team can also show empathy by demonstrating how your community can meet the needs of prospects.
Instead of giving a laundry list of what your community provides, ensure your team connects your service offerings with the questions, concerns, and needs of your leads.
The result is a prospect-centered approach to providing information on your senior living community during inquiry calls.
Clearly Offer a Tour
Any senior care community understands that offering tours during call-ins is critical for increasing the inquiry to move-in ratio.
However, your sales team may ask for appointments in a way that harms your metrics.
Too many times, a senior living sales team won’t connect tours to prospects’ wants and needs. Instead of making the tour a logical extension of the entire sales conversation, the offer is abrupt and disconnected. Teams can also offer a tour at a distant time in the vague future.
Both are mistakes, and both can harm occupancy.
Ideally, your sales team should provide a few possible times your prospect can schedule an appointment, ensuring they present the tour as another way to help prospects make the best decision for their aging loved ones.
Managing inquiry calls is a simple way to improve your inquiry to move-in ratio.
However, it can be a daunting task if your community isn’t equipped to follow best practices for senior living sales.
Sales training and coaching helps executive directors, sales directors, sales counselors, and other community team members to implement solid systems, proven to increase metrics and occupancy.
Help your sales team manage inquiry calls, tours, and more in a way that improves your inquiry to move-in ratio. Secure sales training for your community.
