Selling-to-Seniors

Key Word: selling-to-seniors

The Monthly Report on the Mature Market

INDUSTRY NEWS

The brainchild of Barbara Mascio, Senior Approved is designed to help seniors and their adult children sift through the vast array of services for older adults to find just those offering true excellence.

Senior Approved Services helps businesses survey a representative sample of their current and past older customers to determine level of satisfaction with the product or service offered.

Selling-to-Seniors?
Companies earning a 90% or higher customer-satisfaction rating are eligible to receive the Senior Approved certification.

The company is planning to certify a range of businesses nationwide-from healthcare and senior-housing options to handyman services, elder-law attorneys, financial planners and even maid and lawn services and auto mechanics.

We are able to legally endorse companies without fear of being sued because we determine excellence based not on our own opinion or the government’s opinion, but on the opinion of people who have actually use the service, Mascio explains.

Companies earning the certification can display the Senior Approved logo, which includes a toll-free telephone number. Seniors, can call to get verification of the designation and learn more about what it means.

When the senior or family member calls the toll-free number, a Senior Approved Services community liaison explains how the business in question contracted with this independent-survey service to earn certification based on the opinions of actual clients, Mascio tells, STS.

Selling-to-Seniors?
Moreover, the liaison highlights key features and benefits the company offers and assures the potential client the firm in question is an excellent choice. The entire service is free to seniors.

We don’t quote the exact percentage of survey results because this is not a comparative survey, Mascio says. We believe that any company earning a 90% or higher rating is excellent, and clients should choose which one is best for them based on the services they provide, not whether they can in first, second or third.

Seniors and adult caregivers who have used the service find it valuable for many reasons, Mascio says.

What the consumer wants, according to our research, is some method to ascertain which company will in fact provide an excellent quality service, she tells us. The consumer of eldercare resources wants one contact person, one source to locate any and all services needed now or in the future, and they want this service to advocate for the senior, not the eldercare business. This is exactly what we have developed.

Selling-to-Seniors?
To become certified, business first must meet basic criteria. To qualify, they must have been operating for a least three years, have no lawsuits pending against them pertaining to quality of care of poor service and have no current pending violation against them pertaining to quality of care. If the service is a facility, Senior Approved staff must tour the building, as well.

Senior Approved Services then sends the business a survey packet, which includes a cover letter for survey participant explaining the purpose of the survey-showcasing the value of the company’s effort to earn certification and assuring them no information will be revealed in the survey process. In addition, customers get the survey itself, tailored to the type of business, and a postage-paid return envelope.

The individual company then mails the letters and surveys to a randomly selected representative sample of their current and past customers-usually about 50% of their client base, Mascio says.

Businesses do not give client’s names and addresses to us, so the process is compliant with privacy laws and regulations, she explains. The outside envelope has the business’ own name and logo on it, but the survey responses are mailed directly to Senior Approved. Mascio says the surveys typically receive a 90% return ration-significantly higher than most direct-mail pieces.

Results of the survey then are compiled into a report and present to the business. Companies pay for the survey process itself, not for referrals or potential clients, Mascio emphasizes.

Selling-to-Seniors?
Senior Approved Services now is providing the service at cost to help build its database of certified businesses.

Nine out of 10 callers to our service are adult children who searched on the Web for eldercare services and came across our Web site, Mascio says.

Among the companies already certified are the Scooter Store, Rescue Alert, and Great Lakes Medical Supply

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