A hugely important part of managing a residential care home or similar setting is welcoming visitors who are looking for somewhere for their loved one, or for themselves to live and receive care. This is vital marketing, and a successful ‘show round’ can make all the difference between someone signing on the dotted line or choosing to look elsewhere.
While it is often the responsibility of the care home manager, or their deputy, to show visitors round, the task can fall to other members of staff as well. No matter whose turn it is to oversee the tour, there are a number of things they can do to help make the experience more enjoyable and less stressful for everyone involved. Here are five ideas to get you started.
Choose your player
We all bring different strengths to our work, and a savvy manager will know who the best person in their team is to carry out tours and show-rounds. Effective personality traits include being confident, friendly and personable, happy to chat and answer questions and present the positive side of life in the care home. They should be able to answer questions – think about providing training so they are knowledgeable of as many aspects of the care home as possible. Choose several people to train up for this task, as you may need to cover holidays, sickness or simply times when one person might be too busy attending to something elsewhere in the home to fit in a show-round as well.
Provide the right resources
As well as providing training, you can support those staff charged with showing visitors round in performing this task efficiently by providing as many resources as possible. Write out a set of FAQs with answers to popular questions included for staff to read and memorise. Provide a list of do’s and don’t’s, so staff feel comfortable working within set boundaries and know what to say during the tour – and which type of comments to avoid. Always ensure the safety of your staff and never have one person do a visitor tour while they are alone in the building. Some staff may like to have a few practice runs with their colleagues acting as visitors to give extra confidence for tackling the real thing.
Communication and organisation
Keeping track of the admin around visitor tours and show-rounds will help you run a more efficient operation. As soon as a tour is booked, put it into your diary and share the date and time with your team via Care Vision. Make sure the person who will be leading the tour is scheduled to be in work on the date and time it is booked for.
Don’t forget that many visitors come to look round at the weekend, so factor this in when planning your rotas on Care Vision. Make sure you have the paperwork handy, such as promotional brochures, financial details and registrations forms. That way, there will be no delays if your visitors like what they see and want to sign up straight away.
Have a Plan B
Even with the most organised plan in the world, things can crop up that disrupt appointments and change the plans around a visitor show-round. The staff member could call in sick, the care home might need to close or the weather might stop the visitor from being able to come as planned. In instances like these, make sure you have plenty of information available in different formats Keep your website up to date with information about facilities, services, programming, prices, availability etc. That way, people can still get a lot of information that they require without needing to come to see you on site. Think about maintaining a social media presence too, for updates, snippets of news and to give a flavour of care home life.
Warts and all
Don’t be afraid to show your care home as it really is. While you clearly don’t want everything to be in total chaos, don’t tidy up too much, or prompt staff or residents on what to say when they meet the visitors. If you are proud of your care setting, you should be able to trust that other people will see its value too, without you having to do a lot of window dressing or slick PR patter. People tend to prefer an authentic visit that shows them what will happen in reality when they or their loved one moves in and becomes part of the care home community.