A good senior living sales-to-operations handoff passes along eight things: every promise made during the sale, who the resident is as a person, each family contact and their role, the real move-in date and its constraints, worries the family raised, which documents are collected or missing, dietary needs and routine, and how the family wants to receive updates. Capture them in writing, in one shared place, within a day or two of the deposit.
By the time a family places a deposit, the salesperson usually knows them better than anyone else in the building. That knowledge is the community's head start. When the handoff is a quick conversation in the hallway, most of it stays with sales, and the family has to start over with every department.
The 8 details
What was promised on the tour
What gets lost: A specific apartment view, a pet, a favorite chair that will fit, a standing hair appointment. The family remembers every promise; operations never heard them.
What to do: List every promise in the handoff, word for word, with the department that has to keep it.
Who the resident is, not just their care level
What gets lost: Career, hobbies, faith, the name they like to be called, what a good morning looks like.
What to do: Write a short personal profile, and share it with life enrichment, dining and the staff who will meet them first.
Who in the family to call, and about what
What gets lost: Several adult children, one power of attorney, one person who actually answers the phone.
What to do: Record each family contact with their role: decision-maker, billing, day-to-day updates.
The real move-in date and its constraints
What gets lost: The house closing, the movers' window, a hospital discharge date, out-of-town family flying in.
What to do: Confirm the target date and anything it depends on, so operations can plan backward from it.
Worries the family raised during the sale
What gets lost: Nervousness about medications, a fall last year, a parent who does not want to move. Sales handled it in conversation; nobody else knows.
What to do: Note each concern and who will follow up on it in the first week.
Documents already collected, and what is still missing
What gets lost: Some paperwork came in during the sale, some did not, and the business office starts from scratch.
What to do: Hand over a document checklist that shows what is on file and what is outstanding.
Dietary needs and daily routine
What gets lost: Allergies, a diabetic diet, the habit of an early breakfast or a late dinner.
What to do: Pass dietary needs to dining and nursing the same week, not on move-in day.
How the family prefers to hear from you
What gets lost: Some families want a call, some a text, some a weekly email. Getting it wrong feels like silence.
What to do: Record their preferred channel and how often they want updates, and stick to it for the first 30 days.
The family should never have to repeat themselves. If they tell sales something once, every department that needs it should already know.
How to run the handoff
- Do it within a day or two of the deposit, while details are fresh.
- Keep it short: a 15-minute conversation between sales and the move-in owner, backed by a written summary.
- Write it where every department can see it, not in the CRM notes only sales reads.
- Keep sales involved through move-in day. A familiar face on move-in day reassures the family that the promises carried over.
ResiOnboarding sits right at this point, between the CRM that closes the sale and the EHR that manages care. The handoff becomes the start of a shared move-in plan that every department works from. See the product overview, or read the 30-day move-in countdown that follows the handoff.
Continue reading
11 Move-In Mistakes
The small things that quietly cost communities residents.
The 30-Day Move-In Countdown
25 tasks every department owns before move-in day.
Mapping the Resident Journey
Owners and hand-offs from inquiry to day 90.
Senior Living Onboarding Software
What move-in coordination software does for operators.
Every new resident gets one first impression. Make it the one your team intended.
ResiOnboarding puts every task, owner and due date for a move-in on one shared plan, from deposit through day 90. Start with a pilot at one community: your team runs your next move-ins on it, and you decide based on what you see.