Jeff Altschul, Director of Sales at Arbor Terrace Highland Park, discusses why it's so important for seniors to receive dignified care by someone they can trust, and shares tips for caregivers on how to ask the right questions.
- Hello everyone, and welcome into Senior Living Live, my name is Melissa. As always, I hope you are having a fabulous day today. While making that jump into senior living or trying to find a place that can provide additional care for you or your loved ones can be an extremely stressful time. You have a lot of questions and you just want someone to give it to you straight when it comes to the answers. At the end of the day, everyone deserves responsible, compassionate, and dignified care provided by somebody that they trust. That's why our topic today, trust and transparency in senior living is so important. And joining me to discuss it all is Jeff Altschul, he is the Director of Sales and Marketing at Arbor Terrace, Highland Park in Illinois. Jeff, how are you doing today?
- Thank you, Melissa, I'm doing well. A little chilly outside, about 12 degrees, but as we say in Chicago, the weather will change in a half hour or so. It'll be 20 degrees in an hour or so, so.
- Of course. Yes, we get a lot of crazy weather in the south too, and I'm happy to say we're a lot milder than you are here in Chicago. Jeff, I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today, and this is a wonderful topic that I think you were the perfect person to help us sort of dive into. So first and foremost, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do day to day with the Arbor company.
- Sure, thank you, and thanks again for having me, Melissa. I am the Sales and Marketing Director here at Arbor Terrace in Highland Park. I'm a Chicago kid, I grew up in a town just outside of Chicago called Skokie, went to Columbia College and studied journalism, which I know we'll kind of talk about it. And you know, senior living came into my life professionally, I would say about 12 years ago, I started working at a community in the area and I'll have to say, I get to be myself every day and working in senior living, it's really a purposeful opportunity, as you said to help families during a time where they need someone, Melissa, that they can trust. And that's so, so important. And so throughout my day here at Arbor Terrace, or sometimes even the evenings as my colleagues will attest to, I'm here, championing trust, championing goodwill, championing relief that Arbor Terrace in Highland Park provides families in the area for the difficulties that they're experiencing for their loved one.
- Yeah. And when it comes back to your journalism background, and we'll discuss that more with the questions coming up, but it's all about the who, what, when, where, why and how. And you've seemed to take all of those things and really try to find the answers to those which goes back to trust, because it's hard to trust somebody when they don't know anything about you, right? And so when you get all the answers to those questions, then you can do a better job in providing the person the service that they need at the level that they need. And so we'll talk about that as we move along here. So as we said, trust is important in senior living, people wanna know they'll be taken care of, their family member will be taken care of, they'll be happy and safe. So the word trust can mean many things to many different people, but what does it mean to you specifically and the staff there and the staff in general for the Arbor company?
- Well, I think again, what we're selling here is, yes, we have a nice community, we have a nice place to live, but why should the family choose us over another community? And it comes down to us, us as leaders, even us as frontline staff and the families have to trust that we are the right community, the right people to take care of their loved one. And really a way of doing that initially is being curious. And this is where the journalism part comes in. You know, the who, what, where, when and why. Melissa, the more we ask questions, open-ended questions to find out about our prospects, as well as their families. I know if someone is asking me questions in the right circumstances, it's because they're curious, they wanna know more, tell me more. And I think so often whether it's in senior living or any other selling environment, because at the end of the day, yes, we are selling what we offer here to prospects. It often can get very transactional. You know, here's the item.
- Hmm.
- Here's the product. Do you like it? Let's go, let's sign the deal and move forward. It doesn't happen like that in senior living. It's a purchase that families have never made before with, and it comes with a lot of anxiety and a lot of trepidation for both them, as well as for the loved one. The more we can ask questions, the more we are curious to find out about them, I think that's the stepping stone, that's the pillar and building the trust. And the more they trust, the more they'll tell you. In any good salesperson or even any good news reporter will tell you that the more someone tells you, the better your story will be, and the stronger that the Arbor Terrace Highland Park story can be, the more convincing we will be to the prospects as they navigate their choices. And gosh knows, there's a community almost on every street corner. So I think that's where it comes from, being curious.
- Yeah, and as you said, it can't be transactional, but it doesn't mean that it isn't in some places. So you have to do the work, right. And I think that the Arbor company can certainly say that all of their communities, the work is there and people are, the staff members, just like you are trying to, and get the who, what, when, where why to get those answers so that they can help you in the best way with all the information they're armed with that they can. So I love that answer so much. So now we look at tips, right? So when people watch these, they're looking for information, maybe they're trying to find a place for their loved ones. So what sort of tips can you give individuals in senior living, or maybe who are looking for senior living to help them get that transparency they need in order to feel like that they can truly trust the community they're living in?
- I would tell them to be curious. Curious beyond what the brochure looks like, curious beyond what the cookies might smell like in the front lobby. Get beyond that. Be curious, just like we're curious on our side, ask questions. You wanna meet the key players, who's gonna be taking care of mom or dad, ask for a meeting. We're very, we just had a visit with a family as we're courting them to our community, and they're basically interviewing us, right? So I had, our department had on a Zoom call for that family, allowing them to be curious about what solutions we offer for their mother. So I think the tip that I would give is as a family navigates the different options, don't just stop at the lobby and look around and say, oh, this place is great, I'll move in. First impressions are important, but it's the people Melissa that make the difference. So ask to meet the different team leaders, if say for instance a physical therapy is very important for mom or dad on this next step. Ask, they have a sit down with the physical therapist. You'll get to meet them. So ask, be curious. I have families that come in with a laundry list of questions and I love it. I welcome that because again, it shows they're interested. And when a customer comes to us with a laundry list of questions, that's a good sign.
- Mm-hmm. Yeah, and so you mentioned that Zoom call. And so this kind of goes into the next question, right, and we talk about word of mouth, which is huge in senior living, people have friends, they have other family members and when they move into a community or they perhaps will move into a community if it's been recommended by a friend or a family, but if somebody is looking at communities and they have zero ties to that community, no friends, no family, a tour can help, right. But what else can help? So give us some examples. You mention Zoom, that's one other option with, of course the coronavirus still raging as it is. So what are some options for people who don't have any ties or that word of mouth to trust?
- Yeah. I like to use the word experience in place of the word tour. You know, you go and tour a museum, but you're not gonna go live in the museum. Right, so I would ask families to request an experience. In other words, a day in a life. I know with COVID it put some restrictions on what we could do here at the community to offer that experience, but there's no reason why a team member, a director can't invite a prospect to come in and have a conversation with a current family, or maybe introduce an adult child who's looking at your community with an adult child who moved their loved one into the community, because while they might be strangers by name, the experience that their families are going through is similar. You know, mom or dad, they just fell or they're no longer safe in their house, so all of a sudden the strangers, there's just a strong commonality here. So it's not that much of a stretch to bridge that gap and introduce someone who may not have any ties personally to the community, but they do really in terms of the life experience, the very delicate life experience that they're going through right now, finding a safe solution for their loved one.
- Sure. And then finally, how do you, I mean, we're talking about, your community specifically, but it is sort of what Arbor does, if we could clone you a million times over, that would be great, but we do have obviously different personalities and your personality is with that journalistic background. But what are some tips that when it comes to transparency that can help people narrow down those senior living choices, right? I mean, when it comes to pricing, people have certain questions and they all seem to have the same certain questions. What are those and how do you help them get those answers?
- Yeah, well, the transparency is huge, especially over the last two years where families weren't able to come in physically to the building. So one of the things that we did, a lot of senior living professionals started championing was the use of video and showcasing what's going on in the community to prospects that maybe were afraid, and for good reason maybe not to come into the community for an actual tour. So kind of pulling up the curtain a little bit on our community and using video to do so has been very helpful and also goes a long way and building that trust, let them see what's going on here. Pricing, you know, that's always been a question and going back and forth to senior living operators and owners put pricing online. And a lot of the consumers, they were upset because they felt that there wasn't enough pricing online, and you had to call the community and go through a whole spiel on the phone before you can get the pricing. You know, the thing about pricing and here at Arbor, we are very transparent, I'm very open in sharing pricing with someone, but a key thing for a customer to remember is that you're shopping for something, it's not a commodity and it's hard to compare prices when they're all, there are a lot of apples and oranges, very few apple and apple, every community is priced differently. And really until you get a chance to meet the staff, can you really put value on what that community offers? So again, no problem sharing cost, but we also wanna take the time to learn about what the issues are for mom and dad. What peace of mind you're seeking and then respectfully sharing, you know, cost, because I think it gives the customer a better understanding and appreciation of what those numbers mean 'cause otherwise the numbers are, it's expensive. Senior living is often in many, many cases expensive. But the more we can take the time again to build that trust, I think will help in adding to the value for the families.
- Yeah. The trust is it's just something that when it's there, you can't put a monetary value on it. It's everything. And especially if you are looking for a place for a loved one and you can't be nearby, boy, you know, being able to go to sleep at night and knowing that your loved one's gonna be well taken care of is worth its weight in gold. So I'm so glad we had this conversation. This is an excellent topic to discuss. And it's one that I think people automatically just assume will be there and then they go shopping and realize it's kind of not there. And so we have not had this discussion discussed on Senior Living Live. So I'm so glad that you were able to take the time to have that conversation with us. Jeff Altschul, thank you so much.
- My pleasure, Melissa. Thank you, thanks for the opportunity, and I look forward to being with you again soon.
- Yeah, thank you. Now, if you enjoyed this interview with Jeff, please feel free to check out the rest of our video content over at www.seniorlivinglive.com. There you can find all of our videos, all about senior living available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We always thank you so much for being a part of Senior Living Live. Have a great day everybody.