by Barbara Gerber | Assisted Living, Customer Service, HCAHPS and Patient Satisfaction, Healthcare/Hospitals/Clinics, Mystery Shopping, Mystery Shopping, Mystery Shopping, Nursing Homes, Patient Experience/Patient Satisfaction, Retirement Communities, Sales Effectiveness, Sales Effectiveness
Long gone are the days when nursing applicants were the only ones that needed to create favorable first impressions during interviews.
With demand for qualified nurses exceeding supply, the tables have turned. Nowadays, qualified nursing applicants have many options when choosing where they want to spend their working hours. So, in order to attract “the best of the best,” your nurse recruitment team and processes must also impress potential applicants.
As always, nursing applicants want information about the job, the pay, and the benefits. But today’s applicants are looking beyond facts and figures to find the “right fit” when evaluating job options. Believe it or not, their initial impressions about a potential employer are often influenced by simple, subtle details such as how a staff member handles their calls, how long they’re made to wait for a response, and how communication is handled before, during and after an interview.
At all times, staff convey important messages about your organization’s culture, operations, and attitudes toward employees, physicians, patients or residents. Positive messages can influence potential applicants to choose your organization over a competitor’s.
by Barbara Gerber | Assisted Living, Mystery Shopping, Retirement Communities, Sales Effectiveness
With today’s seniors finding it difficult to sell their homes at a profit—or at all—many have postponed the decision to move into a retirement or assisted living community. Yet there hasn’t been a corresponding reduction in retirement living options. When supply outpaces demand, prospective residents and their families can be choosier.
Anemic housing market fuels competition
With so much competition, every retirement and assisted living community must have energetic, enthusiastic, highly skilled, and well trained “sales” staff who can communicate carefully crafted messages about their facilities. They must also leave no stone unturned when prospecting, presenting, handling objections, and closing.
Chances are, you’ve spent considerable time implementing policies and procedures for hiring and training staff to do all of this and more. But once you’ve done your job, how can you be sure that your sales team is doing their job? Even with periodic or regular mystery shopping, you may not be aware of a serious sales or marketing problem until months go by and your sales staff miss their numbers. By that time you may have already have lost a significant number of prospects to your competition.