Article
1,800 Providers, 112,000 Interviews, Zero Written Surveys
Activated Insights assesses 1,800 senior care providers and 112,000 customer interviews a year, and it does not send a single written survey. Every one is a phone call. While the rest of the industry chases digital response rates toward zero, one of the largest CX measurement programs in senior care went the other direction on purpose.
- Published
- January 31, 2025
- Updated
- June 18, 2026
- Reading time
- 8 min
2026 updated analysis
What changed since the original article
This page keeps the original Transformidy article as the canonical record and leads with the current interpretation, source notes, and Revenue Unknown framing.
The Scale of the Program
Activated Insights runs one of the larger standing customer experience assessment programs in senior care. The organization assesses 1,800 care providers through approximately 112,000 customer interviews conducted every year, and only providers in the 85th percentile or higher receive its Customer Experience Award. In 2026, that threshold produced hundreds of recognized communities across independent living and assisted living, a meaningful minority of the total providers assessed.
The scale alone would make this a program worth noting. What makes it worth studying is the mechanism underneath the scale: every one of those 112,000 interviews happens by phone, with trained interviewers calling each customer directly rather than sending a written or digital survey.
Customer phone interviews conducted per year across 1,800 assessed providers
Only providers scoring in the 85th percentile or higher receive the Customer Experience Award.
The Methodology Is the Point
Nearly every industry currently measuring customer experience has moved toward digital surveys because they are cheap to deploy at scale: an email link, an in-app prompt, a QR code on a receipt. That shift made sense when digital response rates were healthy. It makes considerably less sense now, at exactly the moment those response rates are collapsing under the weight of survey volume that has grown faster than customer patience.
A phone interview costs more to conduct than a survey email, by a wide margin, per completed response. What it buys in exchange is a response that does not depend on a customer choosing, unprompted, to open a message and complete a form during whatever moment they happen to see it. The interviewer initiates the contact, asks the question directly, and captures the answer in real time. There is no abandonment step, because there is no self-service step to abandon.
This is not a universal argument for phone interviews over digital surveys in every context; the economics genuinely differ by industry, sample size, and how reachable a given customer base is by phone. It is an argument that the channel decision deserves to be treated as a real tradeoff between cost and data quality, rather than a default made once and never revisited as digital response rates continued to erode around it.
Self-Service Digital Survey vs. Interviewer-Led Phone Collection
One depends on the customer initiating a step. The other does not.
Digital survey: customer must notice, open, and complete a form unprompted, with each step losing respondents. Phone interview: an interviewer initiates contact directly and captures the response in the same conversation, removing the self-service steps where digital response typically fails.
A cheaper survey channel is not a savings if the customer never completes it. It is just a more affordable way to collect nothing.
The Leadership Move
The structural choice is whether feedback-channel selection is revisited as a deliberate, ongoing tradeoff between cost and data quality, or left as a default decision made once and never reconsidered as digital response conditions changed around it.
- Ownership
CX and insights leadership own the channel decision directly, distinct from whoever owns the survey platform vendor relationship. When channel choice defaults to whatever the existing survey tool supports, the decision is effectively made by procurement history rather than by a deliberate read of current completion rates.
- Tradeoff
Higher-touch collection methods, phone interviews being the clearest example, cost significantly more per completed response than digital surveys. The return is a response rate and data depth that does not depend on customer-initiated action, a tradeoff worth pricing explicitly against the true cost of a digital program whose completion rate has quietly fallen far below what it was when the channel was first adopted.
- Human consequence
Customers who never open a survey link do not register as dissatisfied; they simply register as silent, and their experience, good or bad, disappears from the data entirely. A live interviewer captures the customer who would have ignored an email, including the ones with something specific and useful to say that a form's structure might never have surfaced.
Next Move
If your primary feedback channel is a digital survey: Pull your actual completion rate for the last full quarter and compare it honestly against what it was two or three years ago. If the decline is significant, treat channel redesign, not incentive tweaks or shorter surveys, as the first option worth costing out.
If you are weighing a higher-cost, higher-touch collection method: Model the tradeoff against your current digital completion rate specifically, not against an assumed high response rate from when the program launched. Activated Insights' 112,000-interview scale is evidence that phone-based collection is operationally viable well beyond a boutique or pilot size.
FAQ
How does Activated Insights collect its customer experience data?
Entirely by phone. Rather than sending written or digital surveys, the organization makes personal phone calls to interview each customer directly, with interviewers recording satisfaction scores and transcribing comments in real time. The program assesses 1,800 care providers through roughly 112,000 customer interviews conducted every year.
How selective is the Activated Insights Customer Experience Award?
Only providers scoring in the 85th percentile or higher, based on their phone-interview results, receive the award. Out of 1,800 assessed providers, that threshold means the large majority do not qualify in any given year.
Why does a phone-based methodology matter given how CX data is usually collected?
Because most customer experience measurement has moved toward lower-friction digital surveys precisely as response rates on those surveys have collapsed industry-wide. A phone interview costs more per response to conduct, but it does not depend on a customer choosing to open an email or complete a form, which is the exact point where digital survey response has been failing.
Does this methodology generalize to other industries?
Not without adjustment. Phone interviews are viable at this scale in senior care partly because the customer base and family decision-makers are reachable by phone and the sample per provider is manageable. The transferable lesson is not the specific channel; it is the willingness to choose a higher-cost, higher-completion method over a cheaper one that is quietly producing less usable data.
Sources & References
Original article archive
Original article published January 31, 2025: "Activated Insights Wins Great Experience Award Jan 2025". Preserved here for provenance, historical context, and citation continuity.
Activated Insights, a leading provider of training, recruitment, retention, experience management, and recognition tools for long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) organizations, has been selected as the winner of the Transformidy's Great Experience Award for January 2025. The company's innovative approach to recognizing excellence in senior care through has set a new standard for the industry, positively impacting both care providers and seniors across the United States.
More on Activated Insights
Activated Insights was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Rexburg, Idaho, with additional offices in Tampa, Florida and Salt Lake City, Utah.
The company enables LTPAC providers to optimize interactions with employees and clients through comprehensive capabilities in:
- Recruitment
- Training
- Retention
- Experience management
Their mission is to support LTPAC providers with mission-critical applications to improve outcomes for all stakeholders in the care continuum through webinars, consulting, and training.
Activated Insights Customer Experience Awards™
Activated Insights' Customer Experience Award™ program stands out for its comprehensive and data-driven approach to evaluating and improving senior care services. The award recognizes agencies that consistently rank within the top 15% of care providers nationwide, based on a variety of metrics including employee feedback, client satisfaction, and overall care quality.
What sets this program apart is its rigorous evaluation process, which involves in-depth feedback from residents, patients, and their families through monthly telephone interviews. These interviews include open-ended questions and ratings across multiple categories, providing a holistic view of the care experience.
The award categories are tailored to different types of healthcare facilities, ensuring that each sector's unique challenges and opportunities are addressed.
Skilled Nursing Facility Awards
For skilled nursing facilities, the awards focus on crucial aspects of patient care and comfort, including:
- Overall Satisfaction
- Nursing Care
- Dining Service and Food Quality
- Cleanliness
- Individual Needs
- Communication
- Treatment/Dignity
- Professional Therapy Services
- Overall Safety
These categories encourage facilities to maintain high standards across all aspects of patient care, from medical services to daily living experiences.
Assisted/Independent Living Community Awards
The awards for assisted and independent living communities emphasize:
- Personal Care
- Dining Experience
- Cleanliness
- Communication
- Activities
- Move-in Process
- Security and Safety
By recognizing excellence in these areas, Activated Insights motivates communities to create environments that promote both independence and quality of life for residents.
Home Health and Hospice Agency Awards
For home health and hospice agencies, the awards focus on:
- Care of Patients
- Communication
- Staff Knowledge and Accessibility
- Promptness of Visits
- Pain/Symptom Management
- Family Needs
These categories push agencies to provide compassionate, responsive, and comprehensive care in patients' homes.
“At Activated Insights, our mission is to help care providers enhance their services by leveraging data and feedback to drive positive change,” says Bud Meadows, Chief Executive Officer of Activated Insights. “We’re proud to celebrate those providers who are leading the way in exceptional service and employee engagement. The Customer Experience Award recognizes organizations that go above and beyond to ensure that both residents and their families receive the best possible care and are truly setting the bar for quality care in the industry.”
Impact on Healthcare CX
The impact of Activated Insights' program extends far beyond mere recognition. By providing detailed feedback to care providers, the company enables organizations to refine their services continually, ensuring they meet the highest standards of care. This approach has led to tangible improvements in service quality across the industry, directly benefiting seniors and their families.
Fostering a Culture of Excellence
The Customer Experience Award™ program has successfully created a culture of excellence within the long-term and post-acute care sector. By highlighting top performers, Activated Insights has established a benchmark for quality care, encouraging other providers to elevate their standards and practices4.This ripple effect has led to widespread improvements across the industry, with more organizations investing in staff training, technology, and patient-centered care models. The result is a higher overall standard of care for seniors across the country, contributing to better health outcomes and improved quality of life for this vulnerable population.
Quantifiable Impact on Community and Revenue
The impact of Activated Insights' program extends beyond individual care providers to benefit the broader community. By improving the quality of senior care, the program has helped reduce the burden on families and local healthcare systems. This has led to decreased hospital readmission rates and improved overall health outcomes for seniors.
From a revenue perspective, care providers recognized by the Customer Experience Award™ have reported significant benefits. The award serves as a powerful marketing tool, attracting more clients and increasing occupancy rates. Additionally, the improved care quality has led to higher customer satisfaction and retention rates, directly impacting the bottom line of these organizations.
Innovation in Data Collection and Analysis
Activated Insights' approach to data collection and analysis represents a significant innovation in the field of customer experience measurement. By conducting monthly telephone interviews with open-ended questions, the company captures nuanced feedback that might be missed by traditional survey methods. This rich, qualitative data is then combined with quantitative metrics to provide a comprehensive view of the care experience.
The company's use of this data to drive continuous improvement sets it apart from traditional award programs. Rather than simply recognizing past achievements, Activated Insights' program actively contributes to ongoing enhancements in care quality, creating a virtuous cycle of improvement across the industry4.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Senior Care
As we move further into 2025, the impact of Activated Insights' Customer Experience Award™ program is expected to grow. The company's data-driven approach aligns perfectly with the increasing focus on personalization and quality in healthcare. By continuing to refine its methodology and expand its reach, Activated Insights is poised to play a crucial role in shaping the future of senior care which make it a worthy winner of the Transformidy's Great Experience Award for January 2025.
Key Takeaways
Activated Insights' award program drives CX improvements in healthcare by:
- Setting Benchmarks: The awards establish clear standards for excellence, encouraging providers to aim higher in their service quality.
- Continuous Feedback: Monthly telephone interviews with open-ended questions allow for nuanced feedback, helping providers refine their services continuously.
- Data-Driven Improvements: The comprehensive scoring system across multiple categories provides actionable insights for providers to enhance specific aspects of their care.
- Recognition of Excellence: By highlighting top performers, the awards create a culture of excellence in the industry, motivating others to improve their standards.
- Patient-Centered Focus: The award categories are designed to address all aspects of the patient experience, from medical care to emotional well-being and dignity.
- Industry-Wide Impact: As more providers strive to meet the award criteria, the overall quality of care in the industry improves, benefiting patients across the board.
- Transparency and Trust: The awards provide a reliable measure of quality for patients and families, helping them make informed decisions about care providers.
Great Experience AwardTM
Transformidy’s Great Experience AwardTM is presented monthly and showcases excellence in experience strategy design or execution. Companies are welcomed to submit entrants with support like demos, pictures, videos, press release or description (no bigger than 5Mb in size), for this monthly award with experience ideas, innovations, or initiatives curated for customers, employees, or stakeholders.
Transformidy will evaluate all entrants and will make the final decision on the winner based on factors including but not limited to how the experience(s) transform or improve the way the company engages, acquires, supports, or maintains its customers, employees, or stakeholders. The experience(s) for consideration can be physical, online, or virtual.
How Can Transformidy Help?
Transformidy is available to assist in helping you understand trust and assess how your company’s experience strategy’s effectiveness in generating engagement, satisfaction, and business growth.
Contact us or set up a 30 minute complimentary consultation for more information on our services, insights, or showcases. We look forward to hearing from you.
FAQ
How does Activated Insights collect its customer experience data?
Entirely by phone. Rather than sending written or digital surveys, the organization makes personal phone calls to interview each customer directly, with interviewers recording satisfaction scores and transcribing comments in real time. The program assesses 1,800 care providers through roughly 112,000 customer interviews conducted every year.
How selective is the Activated Insights Customer Experience Award?
Only providers scoring in the 85th percentile or higher, based on their phone-interview results, receive the award. Out of 1,800 assessed providers, that threshold means the large majority do not qualify in any given year.
Why does a phone-based methodology matter given how CX data is usually collected?
Because most customer experience measurement has moved toward lower-friction digital surveys precisely as response rates on those surveys have collapsed industry-wide. A phone interview costs more per response to conduct, but it does not depend on a customer choosing to open an email or complete a form, which is the exact point where digital survey response has been failing.
Does this methodology generalize to other industries?
Not without adjustment. Phone interviews are viable at this scale in senior care partly because the customer base and family decision-makers are reachable by phone and the sample per provider is manageable. The transferable lesson is not the specific channel; it is the willingness to choose a higher-cost, higher-completion method over a cheaper one that is quietly producing less usable data.
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