At our 18th sales and marketing roundtable, communities contributed ideas and talked about changes on their campuses. This week, Adam Grafton, vice president of culinary for Morrison Living, shared his tips for elevating environments while keeping communities safe.
Here are some tips from Adam’s discussion:
He and other Morrison Living employees live by this motto: “Through compassion and dedication, creating an equitable approach to memorable experiences.”
Elevating Experiences in the Next Normal
- Assure Safety
- It’s obviously more important than ever
- How are we communicating this to current and future residents?
- Deliver Care
- Care of associates and residents
- Focus on wellness
- Take Action
- Look at opportunities to create innovation now and for the future
Culinary
Take Action:
- Wellness
- Set snack time with fun vibes (music and dancing)—all while social distancing
- Flexibility
- Residents have been introduced to different styles of service and food
and will want flexibility moving forward
Consider creating a marketplace for groceries for purchase or delivery
- Cognitive health
- Superfoods—virtual demonstrations through community channel (e.g., health benefits of citrus)
Technology
Take Action:
- Wellness
- Equitable food solutions
- iPads with menus
- Self-order kiosks
- Residents able to view nutritionals
- Technology connects directly with POS at community
- Flexibility
- Cognitive health
Innovation
Take Action:
- Independence
- Variety and flexibility
- Takeout becomes more important, as well as other styles of service
- Heavy on tech side with automated machines
- Takeout lockers
- Automated salad makers
- Automated barista coffee machine
- Virtual teaching kitchens
- Robots to help assist with service
- Experience
- Socialization
Training + Engagement:
Take Action:
- Retention
- Let residents know that you’re thinking about them during this time with a takeout/delivery menu
- Alcoholic/nonalcoholic drink kits to coincide with current events (e.g.,mint juleps for Kentucky Derby—which will be held on Saturday, September 5, this year)
- Note that takeout items must be carefully selected as not everything will travel well
- Safety
- Pride of ownership
Additional discussion:
- Social distancing
- Distancing of tables
- Encourage reservations and staggered seating times vs. everyone attending at 4:30 p.m.
- Dining rooms won’t be filled since there will be so many different types of services (market cafe, takeout, sit-down dining, etc.)
- Staying 6 feet apart will be the new norm
- Signage
- Essential signs (floor/reminder to stay 6 feet apart)
- General signage that assures residents, staff and visitors of the extra precautions your community is taking to keep them safe (washing hands/hand sinks)
- Dining updates
- We’ve reopened our dining rooms, but only at 25% capacity. They are being used at all hours (7 a.m.–7 p.m. for bistro and 5–8 p.m. for fine dining)
- Our bistro is open with limited service times
Join the next sales & marketing roundtable on July 30!
- Please join our next roundtable discussion on Thursday, July 30, at noon ET.
Mark Ingram from SenioROI will join us to share his thoughts on direct marketing and list procurement in the time of COVID-19.
For log-in information, contact DDunham@VarsityBranding.com
