Lcs, Arbor Company, Heritage Communities ‘buckle Down’ To Drive Move-ins

Senior living sales and marketing leaders are confronting the “double-edged sword” of artificial intelligence (AI) while also harnessing technology in new ways to meet key goals, including driving independent living occupancy and winning residents who might otherwise remain in their current homes.

These were among the key takeaways that executives with LCS, The Arbor Company and Heritage Communities shared last week at the Senior Housing News Sales and Marketing Conference in Bonita Springs, Florida.

The lack of new development has led to less competition in the market, but to seize the opportunity, sales and marketing teams are going to have to become more effective at their techniques and figure out how AI can be used to “truly apply” to the sales process, said Lacy Jungman, chief marketing officer with Heritage Communities. Omaha, Nebraska-based Heritage operates communities across Nebraska, Iowa, Arizona and Texas.

“I think there’s really great opportunity for us … But the challenge is going to be really refining our processes and really understanding what data is telling us so that we can become more efficient and more effective,” Jungman said.

Kelley Skarp, senior vice president of sales and marketing for The Arbor Company, and Rick Westermann, chief marketing officer at LCS, said now is the time to meet customers where they are and try new technology processes to find what truly works for difficult markets.

Buckling down and back to basics

At the same time that new technologies and approaches are needed to reach the coming wave of consumers, Jungman, Skarp and Westermann also spoke to the importance of buckling down and focusing on getting the basics right.

Sales teams following up with prospects is “going to be king,” according to Jungman.

“I think follow up has to have a really strong cadence. We give up, oftentimes too early,” she said, noting that this issue extends across the industry and is not exclusive to Heritage.

Skarp agreed that following up is going to be a key to thriving throughout this year and added lead capture is going to be equally important. Based in Atlanta, Arbor Company operates communities across 11 states.

Other basics that sales teams can focus on involve the discovery stage, during which teams can become trusted advisors for prospective residents, and aiming for re-tours, which often have a high conversion rate.

“If that first tour experience and that discovery and building that bond isn’t there out the gate, you probably won’t get a chance for the follow up, because they’re not going to answer the phone when you call, or they’re not going to respond to your email,” Skarp said.

Emphasizing some of these basics can also be a great opportunity to implement technological approaches to the sales process, Westermann said. The way LCS does so is through tracking resident experience surveys that are often sent out following an initial tour or visit to a community, with an average of three completed per month per community.

From there, Westermann said, executive directors and sales teams can access the organization’s analytics dashboard, which tracks the trend data from surveys, and see where there are active opportunities for improvement and where there are gaps in the sales process.

Des Moines, Iowa-based LCS is one of the largest senior living companies in the United States, with an operating arm that manages more than 30,000 units.

The year ahead

Panelists also offered their thoughts on how senior living can win back the losses seen in the independent living sector from the Covid pandemic, with strategies ranging from focusing and selling the lifestyle associated with IL to shifting marketing efforts to involve the prospective resident themselves rather than an emphasis on the adult children.

Westermann said the independent living side of LCS grew the fastest out of its offerings over the past year, and what has worked is “becoming a better storyteller.”

“There’s power in stories. They make us think about the world a little bit differently,” Westermann said. “We have an opportunity to get to know this person and … bring to life why it’s worth making that change from their home today to our community.”

Saying that the industry is going to have to “crack the nut” of getting customers to choose senior living over remaining in their current homes, Skarp noted technology can be a double-edged sword. She cited examples of customers using AI such as ChatGPT to get answers on how to care for an older adult in the home.

On the technology front, Westermann said 2025 can be the year for sales and marketing teams to truly integrate technology into the sales process, including through customer relationship management systems (CRMs) and lead scoring through machine learning models. LCS has been in the process of piloting texting programs directly out of Salesforce and utilizing AI to find the best way to see when a lead is on the rise.

“I think we’re at that precipice of a lot of great stuff happening in our demographics and technology,” Westermann said. “How do we all as leaders in this space get to tackle those opportunities to help people live better in our communities?”

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