Diving deep into the wants & needs of retirement-age users as they evaluate living in a Senior Community
StoryPoint Senior Living
With the size of the U.S. senior population expanding, and competitive pressures increasing, StoryPoint, one of the top 25 largest senior residence operators in the country, came to Sundberg-Ferar to collaborate on creating new and compelling service offerings to further differentiate themselves and become the preferred experience for current and future residents, and related stakeholders.
Market
Consumer Products
StoryPoint was looking to grow, not only in the number of their communities across the Midwest, but in the depth of their understanding of the motivations, beliefs, and values of their target residents.
SF leveraged their Genesis™ process to tackle this challenge with StoryPoint. This project involved an extensive research component that included numerous facility visits, staff interviews, and interviews with current and prospective Senior Living community residents in both individual in-home settings and Circle of Friends sessions. The team also held focus groups with Senior Living decision influencers and collaborative team workshops. This project resulted in the development of 11 compelling innovation themes, and 12 unique individual and couple-centric Personas, which StoryPoint immediately adopted in their sales and marketing strategies.
StoryPoint : Senior Living Research
Initially, StoryPoint approached SF to assist them in constructing a single persona, identifying the characteristics of the individual most likely to embrace independent living within their Senior Living communities. Through our collaborative qualitative investigations, we concluded that there is no single “target resident” persona, and that by better understanding the values, motivations, concerns, and desires of a wide spectrum of retirement-age persons, StoryPoint could utilize those insights in their sales and marketing efforts to appeal to a broad base of Seniors.
“At first, I kept to myself. I didn’t know where things were. But I am outgoing, and the people are so good here. I have my furniture, and I’ve planted a lot of flowers. So, it’s home now…my home, away from home.”
Senior Living Community Resident
Human Impact
Having constructed a comprehensive series of Prospective Resident Personas, SF worked with StoryPoint to tailor their approach to new residents and their family members, with the goal of attracting new residents by zeroing in on how to address each individual’s concerns and how to deliver on each resident’s desired services & experience.
Business Impact
This project led to successful business outcomes for StoryPoint, so much so that they again engaged SF to identify prospective resident attitudes and needs as it expanded into new geographic markets and explored new initiatives to bring together active retirees.
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