Understanding the overall local competitive landscape and who your key competitors are is more critical than ever in helping your sales and marketing professionals unique position your product in the market area.
Although the economic climate still is creating challenges for significant new development, new senior living products are being introduced in many markets, and existing operators have continued to reposition and optimize their existing product and service offerings. Some operators are developing regional operations to consolidate resources and reduce operating costs. You need current local market knowledge to understand and stay on top of all of those changes.
Mystery shops can help you collect information to identify and better understand key competitors. Shops are most cost-effectively conducted by telephone and can obtain basic information such as pricing, occupancy, services, amenities and marketing materials. An in-person, on-site mystery shop, however, also can provide important qualitative intelligence, such as what prospects are actually seeing, experiencing and being told about the community they are visiting as well as other area communities. Many operators will have their own communities mystery-shopped to evaluate and sharpen their internal sales and marketing processes…