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CASE STUDIES: |
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1. Assisted Living & Retirement Community – Differentiating
their Product – Retirement Vertical (Timeframe: 1.5 years ago)
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Problem #1: Baby boomers are faced with the increasingly difficult
challenge of managing their personal finances, struggling to pay for the rising
costs of their children’s college educations as well as paying for their aging parent’s
skyrocketing health-care costs and living arrangements. America’s fastest growing
demographic is the 65+ yrs and older segment. As a result, assisted living &
retirement communities are growing at an exponential rate to handle this rapidly
growing demographic. With increased facilities comes increased competition and increasing
pressure for publicly traded retirement communities to demonstrate incremental
revenue growth and beds full.
Problem #2:Individuals who live in many of the assisted living and retirement communities
have family members who are located in areas that require long distance calls. Many
of these individuals living at the facilities are on very limited fixed incomes
and are extremely cognizant of the per minute charges they accrue when calling their
family members. As a result, many of these individuals will not call and connect
with their families for fear of accruing high per minute charges from the large
phone companies and/or the local phone monopoly.
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Action Taken: |
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Understanding this unique dynamic, Voice Runner approached one of the
nation’s largest health-care providers and discussed creative ways in which to differentiate
them self from the competition. Voice Runner proposed to the administrators a unique
idea at the time – the facility would fully pay for each individual’s entire phone
& internet service, and Voice Runner would be the master provider for such services
at a discounted rate. Voice Runner provided a solution and cost-justified financial
model demonstrating that by offering free “unlimited” local and long distance service
and “unlimited” wireless internet usage, the facility would gain a distinct marketing
edge over its competition and provide a desired amenity of free phone and internet
usage, an unheard of amenity unique to their facility.
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Result:
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Because the retirement community was able to offer a master service offering
unlimited phones & internet, the community was able to receive significant savings
through volume discounted pricing, as opposed to the high price for individual phone
& internet service.
- Voice Runner completely re-wired the existing 3-story facility with (8) eight
miles worth
of new wiring and cabling.
- Voice Runner provided well over 30 secure “wi-fi” hotspots within the community.
- Voice Runner had a dedicated staff member help transition and train each individual’s
desktops and laptops to ensure proper connectivity to the “wi-fi” internet. Individuals
in their 70’s, 80’s and 90’s were now surfing the internet on wireless internet
connections, streaming videos and downloading pictures of loved-ones over their
wireless connections!
- Individuals at the retirement community were no longer afraid to use their
telephones and began calling their loved-ones more frequently.
- Countless stories have been told how the spirits of these individuals improved,
their morale improved and those recovering from illness and surgeries improved their
recovery times by simply being able to talk with their families for any length of
time they wanted. No longer were the worries of cost and long distance usage.
- Individuals learned new computer skills and the brave new world of the internet.
- The retirement community filled their beds, has a waiting list and now shows
a significant return on their phone and internet investment (ROI), thanks to this
innovative solution and the vision of their retirement Administrator.
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