Beware of Transactional Placement Agents……
Beware of Those Transactional Placement Agents & Open Your Heart Towards Working With Compassionate Ones!
A majority of our first time calls are from clients who are in a panic. The family member just left the doctor’s office or received a call from Adult Protective Services and was told their loved one can no longer live by themselves. Often faced with the anxiety of what to do, where to go, and how and where do I start. Rushing to find a solution, they head to the internet and type in: independent, assisted living communities, board and care/memory care and press enter.
Immediately a list of options pops up mentioning lots of larger corporate placement agency names. Clicking on one of those options you fill out the information requested and automatically your phone rings from an outsourced customer service agent. The agent interrogates you with questions about your loved one. Almost as if you are speaking to a robot. You answer these questions and then you are linked to a local placement specialist. Still going through all the raw emotions, you are connected with another individual who is plugging you for more information. Yet, during this process, no one seems to compassionately ask you, how are you doing?
Larger corporations don't deal with feelings, they take your data, process it, and then try to find a solution. This is a vulnerable time for you and your family. You NEED someone, who is there listening to what you want, knowing the personality of your family member from all your explanations, and whose holding your hand on the other line. Someone who is experienced in this area and is willing to meet you in person, tour with you, maybe drive you there, line up your tours, take care of the phone calls, ask the right questions, help you find more homes when you don't think you found the right one, work with your budget, negotiate rates and most of all is free. You need someone who is willing to pound the pavement, pick up the phone when you needed a moment to let it all out, and simply hold your hand through the process. Someone basically who is organized to help you navigate through this unchartered territory. A person to make this difficult path as easy and painless as possible. Enabling you to make a decision that both you and your family feel comfortable with.
Sometimes we are blindsided by the fact that when looking online these larger corporation placement agents have amazing reviews. What we don't realize is that most of these ratings are paid and perfectly optimized by online marketing experts. Their expertise is what introduced you and your search inquiry to the larger corporation in the first place. Online marketing experts are so knowledgeable that they manipulated the authenticity of compassion and made the experience of finding a home for your loved one to be a quick transaction. These placement agents working for this larger corporation are expecting to meet a quota each month. Just like a doctor with a medical group is urged to keep his patient visits to a 15-minute maximum and move onto the next patient. Your vulnerable experience in trying to find a home for your loved one is too, find a place and move it along type of transaction for the company. There is no compassion, handholding, empathy towards your situation. No one there to simply listen. But after all, they are free.
Why choose a Mom-and-Pop senior placement agent versus a larger corporate one? These placement agents have no quota to meet. Happy Heart Senior Living Advisors LLC, was founded by a stay-at-home Mom that who through her own personal experience with a loved one decided she could compassionately do this as a career. As she was coached by her mentor from another placement agency, she and her husband decided to start their own business.
As a senior living advisor, Nikki Lovejoy, prides herself on listening and compassionately placing her clients into the RIGHT home. An empathetic person herself, she finds that this has led to her success. She says, "It's not that hard if you just care." Lovejoy, is also very transparent with her clients, making abundantly clear that she has no handshake deals with any specific facilities and there are no larger payouts for placing her clients at certain facilities. She makes her placement based on the best interest of the family. Once you have decided and move your family member into a facility, that is the time at which the placement agent gets compensated
Most larger corporations are known for being rather greedy and demanding higher payouts and bonuses from certain facilities. The facilities do not care to work with placement agents from larger corporations simply due to their lack of compassion for their clients. They also do feel that the client experience is very transactional. Happy Heart Senior Living Advisors LLC, has no hand shake deals and just places based on the best interest for the family. Finding the right home is the priority at hand and that is what they do. If interested, please contact us at Happy Heart Senior Living Advisors, LLC or check out our website at
