The Length of Our Sales Cycle
How long does it take for a typical lead to move-in? Obviously, this depends on each individual family’s unique situation. Some A Place for Mom referrals are in urgent need of care and need to move within a few days. A typical situation could be a senior who has experienced a health crisis. He or she would be sent to a skilled nursing facility or rehab to recover, and now may be in need of a long-term living solution due to the individual’s inability to fulfill activities of daily living precipitated by the health crisis.
Their family recognizes that their loved one could benefit from the care, enrichment and support of assisted living or a group home, which they need immediately. This referral is often considered an “A lead” or “hot lead” by industry professionals because of the families’ urgent need for long term care.
In addition to the prospective residents with a high need to move, there are, of course, those who are curious about the market and do extensive preliminary research. These seniors look at communities sometimes without even an intention to move for certain. Across various sales industries these prospects are called “tire kickers” or “window shoppers” and are classified as “cold leads” or “D leads” in our industry.
As Community Marketing Directors classify each prospect by “hot, warm, cold or A, B, C, D” in their Customer Relationship Management system (CRM), we thought it would be helpful to show data for average time to move-in separated by care type.
Care Type is Key to Interval Between Referral and Move-in
The number of days between referral and move-in, as you may expect, is highly dependent on care type. Care types that have a high level of care imply a high level of need for the prospective resident. Just like any industry, customers with a high level of need tend to buy more quickly than a prospective buyer that wants a product. Our data shows that our industry’s Sales Cycle isn’t different in this aspect. As level of care increases, the length of the sales process contracts drastically.
Here are the median move-in times for each care type:
- Skilled Nursing: 15 days
- Residential Care Home (Group Home): 18 days
- Memory Care: 27 days
- Assisted Living: 36 days
- Independent Living: 47 days
How This Data Could Be Helpful:
We realize this data is not a monumental breakthrough for our industry, but we do believe it can be helpful when working with A Place for Mom referrals. When an advisor sends a referral alert, they do their best to determine a level of care by listing basic activities of daily living under “Care Needs.”  Using the “Care Needs” section of the referral alert, a level of care can often be determined while the use of the above data may help your team prioritize follow-up.
Your organization may already know their average time between referral and move-in, perhaps even by referral source. We hope these industry benchmarks offer a deeper insight into the length of the sales cycle by care type from our referrals.
always good to know!