Child care centers provide specialized care to young children usually in the age group of 0 – 5. Today you can find them in large numbers in almost every major city in Australia.
These child care centers are spacious, have their own grounds and use a Childcare CRM. Child care centers have kept pace with the development of technology and with a childcare CRM they are able to attract families, increase enrollment and retention & stand out from the pack.
Does a child care centre need a childcare CRM?
A simple answer to this question is yes. A childcare CRM functions as an all purpose software that enables child care centers to carry out their routine operations and day-to-day activities very efficiently. Among other things, a childcare CRM enables child care centers to do online enrolment of children, bookings, invoicing and payment collection as well as following up on leads.
Looking at the hectic lifestyle of both parents and educators and the way technology has woven itself into our daily lives, it is unthinkable to carry out routine work without a childcare CRM.
Advantages of a childcare CRM
A childcare CRM offers numerous benefits and if you happen to either own a child care center yourself, or happen to work there as an educator or in an administrative capacity, then below are some of the benefits that you can easily realize:
- Makes marketing more effective
You can easily reach out to the parents whose details are listed in your CRM. You can send them personalized messaging, share with them your monthly/ quarterly newsletters and keep them informed about important dates/ events through routine notifications.
If you are promoting an event, or want to make an announcement about new facilities, or improved features, then you can easily do it with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Improves communication between parents and educators
With a childcare CRM parents and educators are able to communicate seamlessly over multiple channels such as phone, email, text message, and in person. Educators get a birds-eye view about a family on a single page and hence have all relevant data available with them when they are engaging with the parents.
- Saves time of educators and keeps them organized
A childcare CRM makes work efficient and eliminates duplication of effort. For example, educators are able to accept online bookings and enter them first time into the CRM rather than writing them on a piece of paper first, and then entering them at a later date into the CRM. The same applies to online waitlists & enrolments.
- Ease of invoicing
All confirmed bookings done online can be synced with daily rolls of children and related invoices. When due, invoices are generated with a few clicks of the mouse and are sent directly to the parents.
- Facilitates creation of digital portfolios
Educators can document the activities and observations of children and compile them into a portfolio. This portfolio when presented to parents is fondly cherished by them because it contains the precious childhood moments of their children.
- Improves success rate of inquiry to enrollment
This is a major advantage of a childcare CRM. Educators are able to capture the leads that are generated through incoming calls, emails, web enquiries, or walk-ins. All these leads get consolidated into a database and based on their attributes follow-up action is planned.
Follow-up action could be either a guided-tour of the child care center, or just a face-to-face meeting, or an extended phone call. Sometimes email communications also generates good results.
Educators are no longer required to maintain paper based notes, or reminders of parents that they need to call and can track the progress of their leads from inquiry to enrollment.
Never miss a lead and grow your business with a Childcare CRM
A child care center offers an excellent option to working parents who due to work constraints or due to other reasons cannot be with their children and are searching for the right center where they can enroll their child – a center where they feel that their child will be looked after and tended to properly.
For a child care center it is this segment of parents that constitute the perfect target group to reach out to and cater to and with a childcare CRM they have with them a perfect too to nurture their leads, grow their engagement with parents and enroll them.
- Build a pipeline of leads
You are able to enter all your leads into your CRM and review them at a glance. This allows you to see the status of each lead and plan the next steps to take the lead forward.
If you operate multiple centers, then you can also get a center-wise, or a region-wise view of all the leads. In case any corrective action needs to be done then you quickly collaborate with the teams in those regions and work out a plan.
- Send targeted emails to your leads
With a childcare CRM you are able to store all the details of your leads and this allows you to send emails to them efficiently either for a single center or your entire organization.
If you have created any digital flyers offline, then you can attach them to your email and send them out. You can also send a URL of your center in your email, so that parents can click on the URL and view your website.
- Take quick action on your leads
Experts say that the time you take to act on your leads is directly proportionate to the enrollments you are able to achieve.
Most parents take prompt decisions, and so if you are late in responding to an enquiry then they may lose interest and go to another child care center. With a childcare CRM you are able to assign a priority to the lead and invite them over to take a tour of your center.
Conclusion
A childcare CRM is a must-have in case you are managing one or more child care centers. Talk to an expert today to schedule a demo, or to get more information, or answers to your questions.
