As senior living marketers, we rely on empathy to tell our unique brand story and connect with seniors and families at every stage in their journey. When a prospect arrives on your website, you want to give them a reason to return. By incorporating voice of the customer into your marketing materials, you turn residents into advocates and strengthen your brand messaging. Make your website more empathetic and effective by leveraging customer feedback to tell your story in a way that resonates.

What is Voice of Customer?

According to Qualtrics, “Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a term that describes your customer’s feedback about their experiences with and expectations for your products or services. It focuses on customer needs, expectations, understandings, and product improvement.” Capturing and acting on customer feedback helps you understand a prospect’s complex decision-making process. Gathering customer feedback helps you visualize the gap between their expectations from your brand and their experience.

Tactics for Generating Customer Feedback

Senior living brands have a variety of resources available for gathering customer feedback that can be used throughout marketing materials. Try the following tactics to generate customer feedback:

  1. Customer Interviews — Speaking to your residents directly works great for generating feedback and gaining insight into their point-of-view regarding your community. Resident interviews can be executed one-on-one or in a group setting. Interview tactics may include in-person conversations, phone calls, email, and surveys.
  2. Social Media — Using social media allows you to have two-way communication with your residents and their families. Tap into relevant ongoing conversations and connect by actively participating or quietly observing. Social media helps you have direct, real-time conversations with people that have loved ones living in your communities.
  3. Online Customer Reviews — Both positive and negative reviews can help you understand your residents and integrate their passions, concerns, and experiences into the Voice of the Customer for your brand. Online reviews have a large impact along the buyer’s journey with the majority of searchers consulting testimonials before making a purchase decision. Encourage the families of your residents to leave online reviews that speak to their experiences at your community and the emotion involved throughout the process.
  4. Focus Groups — Gather together a group of residents in a room and ask them to share their perceptions, beliefs, and opinions about your community. Encourage the participants to speak freely and talk openly with one another. This tactic helps you gain insight into resident needs, to test concepts, and get feedback that can be incorporated into the copy, photography, and flow of your website.

How to Incorporate Feedback for a More Empathetic Website

Make your brand story more effective by incorporating the voice of the customer into your website.

Copy

By integrating the voice of the customer into your website copy you can connect with users by inspiring an empathetic response. Use quotes from real reviews and feedback to bring in words that directly reflect the perceptions and experiences that potential residents and their families may expect. Using the feedback you gathered during the research process in writing the copy for your website allows you to speak to prospects with relevant content that connects with their expectations.

Photography

Photography inspires emotion that helps humanize the senior living experience. Use photography to enable feelings of intimacy that resonate with users. Your website should use photography to capture how it feels for a resident living within your walls. Analyze your resident feedback to discover the role empathy plays in the process of selecting a senior living community.

User Flow

Use your website to both capture voice of the customer data and to optimize the flow for increased conversions. Leverage data collection tools like heatmaps, scrolls, and visitor recordings to analyze behavior on your website. Understanding how your individuals flow through your website by using tracking tools and the information from your interviews, you can develop an optimized flow that incorporates the voice of your residents.

Tell Your Unique Brand Story

The customer should be top of mind when crafting your unique brand story. You have to listen to what residents are saying to you and about you. Get insight into the role empathy plays in prospect decision-making by analyzing customer feedback. No matter when a prospect finds your through the buyer’s journey, once they reach your website it should give them a reason to return. Use the voice of the customer throughout your website to connect with them and meet their expectations by evoking an empathetic response.

Download the new G5 ebook 20 Digital Touchpoints to learn more about how you can reach seniors and families throughout their buyer’s journey.