New Group of Leading Assisted Living Operators Sign Agreements with Caring.com For National Buying of Internet Leads

San Mateo, CA; July 22, 2013 — Building upon the early success of its new toll-free referral help line and previously announced agreements with America’s largest assisted living providers, Caring.com today announced that more of the nation’s leading senior housing operators — including Sunrise Senior Living, Senior Lifestyle Corp., Elmcroft Senior Living, Legend Senior Living, Holiday Retirement, and Vintage Senior Living — have recently chosen Caring.com as a referral agency for national buying of Internet leads for families seeking housing and care for their elderly loved ones.

With a burgeoning U.S. senior housing market and 30-50% of the industry’s leads coming from the Internet, the country’s top senior living providers have chosen Caring.com to increase visibility of their senior living communities, optimize inquiry-to-visit rates, and leverage Caring.com’s resources to better nurture leads from the moment the search begins, through the research and decision-making phases, all the way to community selection and move-in.

“We’ve been a subscription client of Caring.com for over a year and have gotten lots of inquiries, but are excited now to move to the referrals program because their family advisors will screen out job seekers, or people who are financially unqualified, or those who don’t answer their phones, and will make sure we only receive real potential residents from our Internet inquiries,” said Melissa Owens, director of sales and marketing at Elmcroft Senior Living.

“We like the Caring.com referral model where their advisors get families excited about moving to a senior community, but don’t try to sell them any specific one,” said Marla Lopeman, SVP of Sales and Marketing at Legend Senior Living. “Families sometimes get confused if they hear one thing from a referral agency and a different thing from the community salesperson. I prefer that our sales people are the first point of contact for the details of our product and services. After all no one knows our product better and no one can sell with the passion that our own sales people have for the Legend product.”

Caring.com is the leading senior care website for family caregivers in the United States, and the Web’s #1 source of senior care reviews — with nearly two million visitors to the website monthly, more than 37,000 senior care reviews posted in its Senior Care Directory, and thousands more added each month. The Caring.com directory helps families find and contact local assisted living providers, and also read what other consumers have said about the senior care providers they’re considering.

In Q4-2012, Caring.com expanded its services by launching a toll-free senior housing referral line. Operating seven days a week, Caring.com’s family advisors explain different types of senior living options, help identify local senior communities matched to the prospective resident’s needs and preferences, schedule tours, share and encourage consumer reviews, and answer a range of senior living questions. Many of the family advisors have previously worked in the senior living industry, and/or have experience as professional caregivers. In their role at Caring.com, they continue to be advocates for the elderly population, and are currently:

  • Phone screening about 15,000 leads per month;
  • Scheduling 550-700 tours of senior living communities per week; and
  • Referring nearly 4000 prospective residents per week to local senior living communities that are the best potential fit.

Additionally, the program has supported consumer education about a wide range of senior housing topics — including community options available with pros/cons of each, costs of services available, what to look for while touring communities, how to pay, planning for move-in, and more. Over one million educational messages have been sent through the program to date.

“We’ve worked diligently to earn the trust of family caregivers — remaining true to our social mission of delivering objective information, while also delivering high quality referrals to our customers,” says Andy Cohen, co-founder and CEO of Caring.com. “We’re pleased to welcome our newest partners, who’ve recognized the value of collaborating with the leading caregiving site in the U.S. Relationships like these help Caring.com best serve families seeking senior housing and also better enable us to continue providing senior care resources to boomer family caregivers free of charge. We’re excited about the rapid momentum of the senior housing referral program, and look forward to developing these partnerships and expanding the program to more operators in the coming months.”

More information for senior living providers interested in partnering with Caring.com is available here: https://www.caring.com/get-listed.

 Consumers can begin their search for senior housing on Caring.com here: https://www.caring.com/local or by calling: (866) 824-8174.