From 30% Occupancy to 100% with a Waitlist

A Different Kind of CRM

Continuum CRM changes the way you'll view customer relationship management tools in Senior Living. It goes beyond activity tracking for the Marketing & Sales department. It helps sales people manage relationships and marketers track campaigns. For managers and corporate team leaders, it’s a powerful data-driven machine capable of providing insights to achieve better budgeting and strategic measures.

From 30% Occupancy to 100% with a Waitlist

Peter Torrens has been in the industry for about 15 years, having gotten his start in multi-family housing before moving into senior care. Today, Peter is owner and operator of V-Esprit, a 100-unit independent living community in Aurora, Colorado. He turned a struggling community with 30% occupancy into one at full capacity, with a waitlist! How did he do it?

The concept for V-Esprit was born out of Peter’s realization that there was an important gap to be filled in the local community. It was the need for a new kind of community that would take the best from active adult living and combine it with some more traditional elements of senior living. So, he and his builder/developer partner, Chris Owens, began looking around for a property.

The first challenge to turn their “ugly duckling” into a “swan” was to turn around occupancy.

They found what they were looking for in an older 100-unit community in Aurora, Colorado about an hour from Peter’s home. At that point, the community was about 50% full, although by the time they took it over, even more residents had moved out and occupancy had dwindled to about 30%.

The community was what Peter refers to as somewhat of an “ugly duckling”, in varying stages of disrepair. Peter and Chris got to work to turn their ugly duckling into the swan they envisioned. That meant a physical renovation as well as mapping out a new plan to optimize the quality of life for residents.

But looming alongside all this was the challenge of tackling the low occupancy issue. That meant getting the word out to let people know V-Esprit existed. The name was a new one and at that point nobody knew who they were.

Was there a CRM that was flexible, robust and user friendly enough to tackle a tough job?

Peter knew that he needed to put together a solid, integrated marketing and sales plan to build awareness and ensure that they were optimizing the handling of leads. To achieve that, he wanted a strong and flexible CRM to sit at the center of the marketing and sales efforts and to enable them to ramp up quickly.

He had worked with CRMs before, one homegrown system and another through his previous work in a senior living community. His goal was to find something flexible, easy to use and with a support team that was responsive to the needs of his new and growing community.

Continuum CRM stood out for several reasons.

Peter found what he was looking for in Continuum CRM. Several things stood out to Peter:

  • Easily customizable. This was high on the list for a dynamic community with lots of marketing and sales tactics geared towards their particular clientele.
  • A tickler system. This enables them to set up reminders for weeks downstream. It is impossible to ignore as the tickler flashes up on screen.
  • The ability to execute e-blasts right from system. It even pairs up with their Outlook. “I’ve gotten some really good results using that capability,” Peter says.
  • Web leads automatically feed into the system. New inquiries from their website, provide basic info and it shows up automatically in Continuum CRM as a new lead. No manual entry required.
  • A user-friendly interface. This was key and it has saved Peter and the team time and effort, not having to click through multiple screens to get to what he needs.
  • A Highly responsive support team. The team at Continuum CRM was instrumental in supporting Peter’s needs and meeting the unique challenges of a fledgling community.

The results speak volumes about Peter’s talent and the tools he used to turn V-Esprit into a swan.

All of Peter’s hard work has paid off. Today, V-Esprit is at 100% occupancy with a waiting list that holds steady at around 15-20.

Peter gives a lot of credit to the ability of the Continuum CRM platform. “One of the reasons we’re so successful is because of our CRM. It’s very useful; a vital tool and definitely part of the engine that drives my sales and marketing. I’m appreciative that we have it.”

Give us a call at 800-570-6030 and see how Continuum CRM can improve your sales and marketing effectiveness without breaking the bank. Or, feel free to visit our website www.continuumcrm.com to learn more.


Lynn Madderra

Lynn brings more than 20 years of experience in business process consultation, project management and data analysis. For over a decade, she has been focused on the CRM space. Lynn strives to ensure that all customers are successful in implementing, using, and realizing the ongoing benefits of their CRM investments.