Definition:

As it relates to Senior Living, Active Living or Master planned communities, Engagement Technologies are technical amenities that create an interactive relationship between you and your customers. Customers can include residents, staff, prospective residents, resident family members and others. Customers (users) benefit and the community benefits in return. 

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Features:

Community Engagement Technologies will depend on your communities needs and can include communication platforms,  dining reservation and ordering systems, online activity calendars, resident directories, automated concierge systems, community information access platforms, community service booking systems, wellness applications, educational and entertainment systems and dozens more features. Engagement Technologies can be accessed in a variety of ways, (Internet, mobile apps, voice command technologies, digital displays, kiosks and Cable TV channels) and customized to meet the needs of each user type and user groups withing each user type. (Residents: Independent Living, Assisted Living, Memory Care or Building A, Building B, etc.) (Staff: Administration, Marketing, Dining, Services, Activities, etc.)  

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Benefits:

For residents, Engagement Technologies offer convenience, socialization and other features that improve resident quality of life and satisfaction. Engagement Technologies reduce staff turnover by offering staff tools that increase job satisfaction and productivity. Engagement Technologies attract prospective residents and help transition prospects into residents. For Senior Living, better engaged resident families means more confident families and more referrals.

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Return:

Engagement Technologies have rapidly transitioned from amenities for exclusive communities to must have features all communities need to compete in their market. Simultaneously, Engagement Technologies have become less expensive as the demand continues to rise. While general benefits deliver intangible or difficult to measure ROI via staff time savings and increased community population, a few Engagement Technology companies also offer the ability for communities to receive a hard dollar ROI by allowing local business advertising on their platform that can offset the community monthly cost.

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Implementation:

Community Engagement Technology providers are catching up with implementation best practices used by healthcare, education and other industries. Start by implementing a few ubiquitous features that benefit all customers. Next build consensus for subsequent features and implement them gradually. This simple but effective implementation strategy improves usage over time, benefits and ROI while avoiding overwhelming your customers with too many features and options up front and at the risk of low usage. This strategy also saves money and takes the guesswork out deciding the features the community will benefit from using. Find company that adheres to contemporary implementation best practices.  

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Selection: 

In general terms there are two options available when answering the demand for Engagement Technologies. Select the Engagement Technology features you want from various providers, or find one provider with all the features you want. While the first option may offer more granular functionality, that functionality needs to be weighed against a company that offers all features and can leverage communication between features and a lower price. Consideration of customization is important as well, as the ability to integrate with other community system if necessary. The Resident Portal offers a third option; get best in class customized Engagement Technology features, implemented using best practices and at a cost any community can afford. 

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