How to Build a Bank of Positive Reviews

An accessible bank of positive reviews acts as social proof for your brand by letting prospective residents and their families know about the best-in-class care and experiences your residence has provided to others. Positive testimonials create valuable, scalable touchpoints to nurture a sense of trust in those seeking care providers like you. 

Additionally, reviews from satisfied residents, their loved ones, and other senior living professionals also work to help support a healthy SEO strategy, making your residence even easier to find on search engines like Google. 

With 23% of senior living sales coming directly from online sources (Creating Results, 2018), boosting your online visibility and perceived trustworthiness can provide a serious benefit to your business’ overall success.  

The value of reviews is indisputable, but how might you encourage people to write them? Below, we’ve outlined 10 key tips and strategies to help you increase the number of reviews left for your residence. 

1. Just Ask: Research shows that more than half (53%) of clients are ‘likely’ or ‘highly likely’ to leave a review when asked by a staff member (BrightLocal, 2022).  

2. Ask at the Right Time: Tee up the conversation for success by asking for a review after a positive placement experience, exciting event, or at a regularly scheduled interval. Asking for reviews unexpectedly or after negative experiences can result in no review at all, or worse—a negative one.  

3. Personalize the Ask: First and foremost, reviews are a reflection of your relationship with your clients—treat them as such! Rather than sending out a generic email, taking the time to personalize greetings or going above and beyond with a phone call can drastically improve the chances of your resident or their loved one saying, “yes!”.  

4. Explain the Importance of Reviews: You and your team don’t need to be excessively granular or technical here, but letting your residents know just how much sharing their experiences can help others looking for care can incentivize them to leave a review. In addition, this conversation creates an opportunity for your current residents to feel like valued contributors to the growth of your senior community.  

5. Offer an Incentive: This tactic may work better for your professional network rather than for seniors or their loved ones. Consider offering your senior care partners incentives like links to blog articles they’ve published, or a shout out on your residence’s website or social media in exchange for a review. 

6. Create a Culture of Reviewing: You and your marketing and sales departments may not have very much contact with your existing residents after move-in day—but that’s certainly not a cause for worry. Every member of your care staff can be trained to recognize who and when to ask for reviews.  

7. Make Reviewing Accessible: Once someone has agreed to leave a review of your residence, it’s important to make the task as easy to complete as possible. Consider having direct links to review sites like your Google listing or caredupon.ca present in your email signature, on your website and on your other social media profiles. Going a step further, placing a QR code on your residence’s business cards and brochures can reduce the friction for potential reviewers even more. 

8. Follow Up: It’s no secret— people are busy! Even the most agreeable would-be reviewers could use a little nudge from time to time. Do note that this isn’t an invitation to hound seniors, their loved ones, or other care professionals who responded positively to your request. If it’s been a few weeks or months, gently reminding them of the value reviews bring to your residence can help bring your residence back to the top of their mind.  

9. Respond to Reviews: Congratulations, the reviews are rolling in! 89% of consumers say they would be ‘fairly’ or ‘highly’ likely to use a business that responds to all reviews, positive and negative (BrightLocal, 2022), make your residence one of them. Click here to learn how to build a framework to respond to each review your residence gets. 

10. Measure Your Success: Every business is unique. With so many platforms hosting reviews, it’s important to analyze which ones are most effective at displaying and capturing insights. Information like where prospective residents found you online, what they’ve found out about your residence, and why they’ve chosen to reach out, is invaluable. Having these insights allows you to focus your digital marketing efforts on your highest performing review platforms. 

It’s likely that your residence already has profiles on a variety of different platforms—many of which host reviews. These can be places like your Facebook Page, Google Listing or another third-party site like Yelp or Cared Upon.  

Reviews posted to your Google listing or Facebook pages may help future residents or their loved ones discover you but may not inspire a very strong sense of trust in your brand. 93% of consumers on Facebook and 90% on Google have indicated that they're at least 'a little’ suspicious of the honesty of the reviews (Brightlocal, 2022).  

Using a vetted third-party review platform can help your residence attract more of your ideal clients by supporting your business’ credibility online.  

Platforms like Cared Upon have been specifically tailored for prospective residents, their families, and senior care professionals, and have already established trust as a client-focused digital information hub. Cared Upon offers care providers the unique opportunity to:  

• View and respond directly to authentic, vetted reviews before they’re posted 
• Customize your residence’s listing with your best photos and videos to encourage reviewing 

Repurpose Positive Reviews 

Maximize the impact of the positive reviews your residence has received by sharing them across your digital landscape in places like:  

• Your website and social media channels 
• Your residence’s newsletter  
• Bulletin boards throughout your care home  
• Branded print material like informational brochures or booklets 
• The materials you provide to other senior living professionals 

Expanding the reach of your reviews helps you attract new business and outshine your competition, while also helping you become more discoverable online. Since reviews are user-generated, they’re seen by search engines as relevant high-value content, helping your business rank higher in search results. Learn more about SEO for Senior Living here.  

Use Critical Reviews to Improve Your Services 

On occasion, your senior living residence may receive a handful of negative reviews. While they can seem hurtful or frustrating at the time, it’s important to realize just how valuable these critical reviews are.  

Capturing, saving and analyzing these reviews helps you identify recurring specific patterns or recurring issues that lead to these reviews being posted. From here, you’ll be able to base the decisions you make for your business on real client feedback. 

Show your reviewers that you’re listening to their feedback and taking it to heart. Improving aspects of your senior living residence that have received negative reviews, and celebrating aspects that receive positive feedback helps improve your residence overall, and your clients’ satisfaction