71. Blue Fingerprint- Customization Without the Chaos- Simplifying Renovations and New Builds in senior living

In this episode of Raising Tech, host Amber Bardon sits down with Suzanne Allen, Managing Partner at Blue Fingerprint, to talk about how their platform is making life easier for senior living communities. Suzanne shares how Blue Fingerprint started as a simple tool to track resident choices, like countertops and flooring, and has grown into a cloud-based system that keeps everyone – from residents to staff and builders – on the same page. It's a game-changer for simplifying the customization process and helps communities run smoother, while giving residents more confidence in their new home.

Find more about Blue Fingerprint on their website.

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Transcript

Amber Bardon: [00:00:00] Welcome to raising tech podcast. I'm your host, Amber Bardon. And today's episode features Suzanne Allen, who's the managing partner at Blue Fingerprint. So almost every single time I go on site to a client, I'm always telling them about Blue Fingerprint. I think it's such a great product and I think it has such an impact on improving processes for sites.

So I'm so excited to talk to you today to Suzanne, learn more about Blue Fingerprint. So welcome to the show. 

Suzanne Allen: Hey, thank you so much, Amber, for having me. And I'm excited to talk about a topic that rarely gets much attention, but it's so critical when it comes to either an operating campus or new development.

So I'm excited to be here today. Thank you. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah, definitely. You've definitely got this niche on solving a very specific problem and making it a lot more seamless and easy for senior living organizations. So tell us what it is. Tell us about it. First of all, a little bit more about [00:01:00] yourself and your journey.

And then tell us more about Blue Fingerprint. 

Suzanne Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. So 

I'm Suzanne Allen. 

I a managing partner here at Blue Fingerprint have been working in senior living since 2005. So really my experience began on the construction side, working for a national general contractor who at the time in early 2000s, they were focused on building a lot of greenfield.

what we called CCRC's life plan communities back in the day. And really what that organization developed was an in house tool to manage options and upgrades. So anytime a resident was Provided the choice to choose cabinetry, countertops or flooring. They took a very manual spreadsheet model and developed a platform.

So I joined that group in 2005 to really help project manage some of [00:02:00] those clients that were utilizing the tool. Since that time, we had the opportunity to purchase the intellectual property and create a standalone organization where today we work with providers, contractors, architects, developers across the country still very focused in senior living.

We're passionate about helping our clients. We like the industry and we feel like we have a good understanding of all parties involved in the and really the development building process as well as in managing options and upgrades.

Amber Bardon: So tell me a little bit more about the specific problem that Blue Fingerprint helps solve. And can you walk us through a little bit more about the functionality of the system?

Suzanne Allen: When we think about new construction in particular, and for a new community, a new campus, for example, that is offering options and upgrades are what we term as personalizations [00:03:00] today. I think about managing multiple units, having to manage multiple items in a very specific amount of time.

Contractor is on board and they say we need all of the selections for the first floor by X date. So it's really documenting and then tracking that information and data through its life cycle and the life cycle really is similar to conduit right between sales marketing and the resident and then it flows that communication to the builder and the subcontractor.

Moving coordinator, for example, meets with a future resident and presents a menu of selection offerings. That moving coordinator documents within the Blue Fingerprint platform. All of those choices also identifies any custom requests or items not on the menu. And then that information is [00:04:00] stored really in real time.

Available 24 7 for the team to access, right? So it's hosted in the cloud. So everybody can look at that information once that unit is complete. Then again, notifications are sent off to the builder so that they know that complete inventory list of everything that they need to procure for the finishes in that unit.

Amber Bardon: So just to compare, how would that work without something like Blue Fingerprint? So what is the time saving and what's the efficiency here? 

This 

Suzanne Allen: method, truly our biggest competition today is truly Excel because a lot of folks will manage this manually on paper. That process truly is only as organized as the person who owns it.

I'm sure if you gave me your spreadsheet, one of your spreadsheets that you use, Amber, I would be like, blown up. What does this all mean? So what we see in the industry is sometimes there's staff turnover. So I have to relearn [00:05:00] this process all over again in order to pick up the ball and continue with them.

With the process of meeting with these residents and selecting so really it's. It's an organizational tool designed to keep everybody on the same page, right? The other challenge with a manual process is version control, right? Did I remember to send that latest version off to my project manager?

Did I document what unit 101 wanted in their sunroom? It's the place everybody can look to really see the information. It's also a product that provides documentation to the resident so that they can sign off on. And new construction in particular, they don't move in for sometimes 18, 24, 36 months from when the process begins.

So they're going to hang on to that documentation and what we call a personalization summary up until the day they move in. And they're going to check their list on. [00:06:00] Okay, these are the cabinets. These are the countertops. This is the flooring I selected. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah, I'm also thinking it's a better look for the people meeting with the residents to be able to do this all electronically. I think every time I go to a doctor's office and I still have to sign things on paper, I'm always thinking like, why are they not more technically advanced?

I think that there's an advantage there to be able to do things right on the spot and right in the moment without having to go back and check on things. I'm sure that can add time into the process by being more efficient upfront that way. 

Suzanne Allen: Even our clients have came back to us and said, you know what it does, Suzanne, is it helps build confidence with our residents, right?

They're seeing us documented there. We're capturing that information rather than maybe taking a clipboard and a sheet of paper or a notebook, or even a Word document to capture it all. It does help build that confidence. Not just that they made the right choice to make that decision, Move into the community, but the right choice and interesting their future with that organization.

Amber Bardon: Yeah, absolutely. [00:07:00] And in today's world, where this industry is just growing and growing, and there's so many options to choose from, and a lot of the community websites look the same that personalization is so important. And we're starting to see a lot more of our clients want to be able to offer that as differentiator.

So can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the industry in terms of trends and personalization and why that's important? 

Suzanne Allen: Oh, sure. We all want the ability to personalize and companies like Amazon, stitch fix, blue apron. They're all feeding off of that, right? We identify what our personal shopping preferences are and how often do we look on Amazon?

But that says, Hey, we think you'll like this product. So what we know about today's precedent and we're talking about baby boomers coming into the mix now, right? They're influenced a lot of by what they experienced their tech savvy. They're using Amazon Prime. They're ordering their products [00:08:00] digitally, but also we're seeing shows like HGTV and other design type shows that are very popular in today's market.

So when you're seeing all of these trends and styles and renovating your home or designing your future home and space. That's really the expectation today. I think what organizations need to evaluate is. Is how much do you offer? Because we get to a place where it's that paradox of choice.

We all want choice, but when we're presented with too much choice, it's overwhelming, right? Go Google faucet and Amazon and you'll get 375 different options of a faucet. If we can help companies narrow down that menu to make it the right fit for them, 80 percent of their clients will choose off that menu.

I can almost bet. 20 percent is truly those that want what they want and they will customize. But if we can help manage the [00:09:00] majority I think it, it makes it operationally even easier for the ops team to support and provide maintenance to those products as well. 

Amber Bardon: Are you seeing anything really unique or different when it comes to personalization or customization?

Any tips or trends happening? I've heard about, and we all know about the common ones about paint and cabinets and things like that, but I've heard about moving walls. And is there anything like that you can share with us? 

Suzanne Allen: Yeah, I think when we look at trends and evaluate, we've been around for almost 23 years now.

So when we do a look back and say, what's important to seniors, right? A functionality is still really important because they want to envision doing what they love in this next home that they're gonna occupy. But what a trend that we are seeing is more and more people are choosing to consult or do some type of work once they move into a retirement community.

So technology is extremely important as you guys [00:10:00] know, right? So having the ability to even add extra outlets, ensuring that the connection or the connectivity to their den, which is not going to be their office has appropriate bandwidth so that they can, use still different programs or streaming, different things like that.

But also items still like adding lighting or creating unique space for what's important for them, whether that be in a wine fridge or extra storage.

Amber Bardon: What do you see are some of the challenges with More communities trying to do more with customization and personalization. Is there ever a point where it goes too far? 

Suzanne Allen: Yeah, I think it sets a precedence, right? So in about 2010 when the recession hit, communities had to offer whatever they could to get people to move in, right?

So there were all kinds of incentives and one incentive was truly Customize the space and it's on us, right? [00:11:00] So here, fast forward almost 15 years. We're in a place where the buzzword and senior living is how do we standardize? How do we maximize and create efficiency? And so trying to reign that back in is a challenge, right?

But I think the first step in doing it is to actually take their current process. Here's what I would invite any community to do and communities that we work with. One thing is we'll invite them to a process mapping session, right? This is specific for a renovation or a unit turn, walk me through every step every person has to take in order from sales, right?

We sell the unit, we have someone who wants to move in to the time they move in, whether that be 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120, walk me through all of those steps. And then from there, we can identify here's a big gap of time where, we're waiting for this.

What if we [00:12:00] try this approach? So we identify those inefficiencies and then try and introduce whether it be a Blue Fingerprint or some other method or process to improve it. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah, 

that makes 

sense. What would a community need to know or do to prepare for implementing something like blue finger print?

What does that process look like for onboarding? 

Suzanne Allen: Oh, I think the 

1st step is communication. So our leaders today and senior living understand the importance of how we need to maximize how we have better buying power. We only have 4 carpets to choose from versus 40 right? Our suppliers may give us a better price if we can maximize some of that.

Purchasing on scale but, really, I think it's the communication from leadership to the actual boots on the ground to say why is this important? Because I think what we find here at Blue Fingerprint is leadership understands that [00:13:00] boots on the ground are just so busy trying to get through each day.

With the task they're responsible to perform. So to stop pause. Hey, we have a new implementation. We all know it's some work to get that set up. So I think if the communication is still up front, we provide a nice demonstration for the entire team so that everybody understands what we're into and then clear established goals, right?

What are we trying to achieve here? Is it reducing the number of days it takes for a renovation from 90 to 70, right? So it's determining that path, I think first through a communication plan to the entire team. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah, I think that's good advice for any implementation for sure.

Yeah. Suzanne, is there anything we haven't talked about yet that you want to share and make sure our audience is aware of? 

Suzanne Allen: I think the biggest thingIs listen to your resident, some communities who are approaching a new development we work with a lot [00:14:00] of development teams and marketing teams and your residents are your best source of information. During those early sales conversations, or even events where communities might sponsor a coffee top or a cocktail hour to come in and look at what the future might look like.

Community or expansion may look like they're your best source of information on what they might expect in their homes and units, right? If it's a clientele that when I started 15 years ago it oftentimes when folks move to a new senior living community, it was almost a step up, right?

Because they hadn't really renovated their homes yet. Back in that time. They were moving into something fresh and new. Today's residents have either moved, downsized, Renovated their homes. So they have some expectations like they don't expect plastic laminate countertops anymore, right? They expect solid surface.

Many of them have quartz in their [00:15:00] home. They manage to expect that. Listen to those residents find out what they're passionate about, what's important for them in their home. And then, if it can be accommodated, then talk to your development team, talk to your contractor about how can we provide this within the construction schedule.

Amber Bardon: Suzanne, thank you so much for joining me today. It's really great to chat with you again. And I am excited for all of our listeners to learn more about Blue Fingerprint because I think it is such a great product.

So where can our listeners find you if they want to learn more? Yeah, thanks so much, Amber. You can find us by visiting our website at bluefingerprint. com. You can connect with me, Suzanne Allen, on LinkedIn.

Thank you so much. Thank you. 

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As always, thank you for listening.