Protecting Your Reputation
For most senior living communities, their reputation precedes them, be that a good or a bad thing. However, prospective residents may not always have the same image that you’ve worked hard to achieve.
While your own actions and your marketing outreach certainly have a positive impact on the reputation your community enjoys, there are other factors that can work to damage it. When major national media outlets started running stories concerning the bankruptcy of Erickson Retirement Communities, CCRCs across the country began hearing questions about their own financial stability. Recent congressional hearings on consumer protections for CCRC residents have had a similar result.
While these and other situations may have an effect on your community’s reputation, they also present opportunities, if approached the right way. You have a chance to educate prospective consumers, and the media, about your business model, your organizational strength and the benefits living at your community provide residents.
GlynnDevins is hosting a webinar at 11 a.m. to noon CDT on Wednesday, August 11, entitled “Reputation Management: We didn’t do anything wrong!” The presentation, featuring a former TV and former newspaper reporter, will discuss reputation management for senior living communities, as well as current news topics likely to skew impressions, such as tax-exempt status for not-for-profit CCRCs, congressional review of CCRC contracts and disputes with various unions.
Register now for this free webinar from GlynnDevins, the leading senior living marketing agency.
It’s important to note, too, that the use of social media gives communities new opportunities to establish their reputation in new ways. The old strategy was to keep criticisms as secret as possible; in the social media era, criticism is more public than ever, and a company’s reputation is affected by how forthrightly they deal with it.
I will really be looking forward to that webinar on Wednesday (does that make it a Wedinar?)
One of the postive aspects of the recent congressional hearing on CCRCs is that it gives us at Rose Villa a chance to bring up our 50th Anniversary this year, and point out that we’ve been around for 50 years because we have such a safe and reliable business model. It’s a teriffic opportunity to discuss our years of dependable service, without coming off as “old.”