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Whether you subscribe to the prospect-centered approach as the centerpiece of your sales and marketing philosophy or not, few could have predicted that the website chatbot would become such an important tool for the senior living digital marketer. Afterall, the thought of an emotionless, automated answering machine sounded like the opposite of how we should engage with senior living prospects. But like most ‘smart’ technological advancements, the chatbot has automated our interactions by chatting with us through a very conversational interface.

And that’s great for senior living marketing, because these bots are proving to be extremely successful at handling routine inquiries and advancing the prospect through the sales journey.

Here are six of the top reasons why you should be including chat bots as part of your marketing mix:

1. Chatbots are always available. If an adult child has time to do research at midnight or senior prospect wakes up early with some questions, a chatbot is always available on your website.
2. Chatbots can handle multiple customers at the same time. No one likes a busy signal or a voicemail. With a chatbot, a prospect will never have to wait for a salesperson to get off the phone or finish a tour to get basic questions answered.
3. Chatbots can collect and analyze data. Do you get a lot of inquiries Sunday afternoon? Is everyone looking for price? By analyzing the content of your inquiries (and when you get them!), you may have enough compelling data to adjust your tour hours, or add a pricing page to your website or develop more educational content to help seniors and/or their influencers with their research.
4. Chatbots can help you personalize your conversations with customers. If a prospect is only interested in assisted living, for example, questions and answers can be served to take then exclusively down the assisted living path!
5. Chatbots can answer routine questions to free up your sales team to connect with their quality leads. Do you get asked about pricing every day? Or what your pet policy is? Or if your community accepts Medicare? Chat bots help non-qualifiers self-select out and qualifiers to engage more deeply with your community.
6. Chatbots are becoming more mainstream, particularly out of necessity. Many service companies, from utilities to phone to banking have shifted to (AI)artificial intelligence chat bots to interact with their customers. Our audience is becoming more familiar and trusting of chat bots as a way of handling their personal business.

The Davis Community, a retirement community in Wilmington, North Carolina, found that adding a chatbot doubled the number of tours that were scheduled on the weekend. “The Chabot is available 24/7 and is able to answer many questions immediately from our website in real time, without customers having to wait for a return phone call,” said Julie Lewis, Sales & Marketing Director at The Davis Community. “It assists in filtering prospects and directing them to the appropriate service line (Skilled Nursing, Assisted Living, Memory Care, Independent Living) so we are able to be thoroughly prepared when reaching out to them.” The Davis Community received 60+ inquiries and scheduled 22 tours online in the first 90 days using their chatbot with very little human interaction according to analytics.

If the logistics of implementing a chat bot is daunting and holding you back from moving forward, then rest assured that the anxiety is far worse than the reality of launching a chat bot. By working with your webmaster or an agency partner like Solutions Advisors Group, you’ll quickly realize the process of onboarding this part-time salesperson is much more effortless than imagined. Contact us today to learn more!