What Can Senior Living Providers Learn From Restaurants?
Restaurants have known FOR YEARS that to have a successful restaurant you should also have a catering service. People get a taste of your food, they enjoy it and then they come to your establishment. Now, restaurants have gone even further to “micro” deliveries with UberEats, etc. Restaurants that create these larger client nurturing and client serving systems have a higher likelihood of surviving and thriving. Could you imagine a family-style restaurant that didn’t deliver today? You can’t imagine it, I can’t imagine it. Those that have decided to stay out of this mode of service are probably on their way out.
Standardized In-home Service Models
In the same way, the HomeCare Advocacy Network is bringing standardized in-home service models to an industry that has largely NOT gone outside of their own four walls. Senior living has existed in an attraction-based model for years. Cast the net and get someone interested in a move who is at or over retirement age, get them to agree to come to an open house or an on-site visit, and 50% of the time that person will sign up for, buy into or move to your community. That has been the model very generally speaking, but, that model is changing rapidly along with consumer behaviors. The pandemic of 2020 has pushed us to re-consider operating models throughout aging services and the pace of change is ramping up.
How Real People Find Care
Seniors and their families begin the process of deciding on care or that they need to investigate care options long before senior living and their current attraction model kicks in. Typically a “decision-maker” is looking for some “catering” first, long before they are going to decide to go to the“restaurant” to eat. Mom or dad decide first to try some of the food at home before any commitment is made. However, in this analogy, all of the “food” is currently being delivered and produced by competitors of the “restaurant”.To say it more plainly, it’s like a restaurant that produces great food that people most likely would enjoy but they have decided to not participate. It’s the equivalent of saying, “Nope, sorry, to eat here you MUST come here. We don’t cater or deliver. When you are ready to commit to the only restaurant you will ever eat at again, you should really just come to our restaurant ONLY”. I don’t know about you, but that isn’t the way I EVER make a decision and yet this is generally how seniors are forced to operate when considering potentially, one of the biggest decisions they have ever made.
At the HomeCare Advocacy Network, we exist to provide a standard model for senior living to successfully operate in the SERVICES side of aging services. We are excited about helping senior living add Companionship, Personal Care, and Dementia Care Services, delivered in the homes of seniors everywhere, on and off-campus. These services are also provided on-campus. The move to blend Senior Services into Senior Living is afoot. Get on board here!
