Fair Play OOSH is a provider of out of school hours care (OSHC) with a difference. Operating across 11 centres in the Newcastle, Port Stephens and Hunter regions of New South Wales, Rebecca Phillips and her husband, Pete, have been helping families in the region for around six years.
Their philosophy is simple – a total commitment to customer service, while ensuring their staff are number one.
“Pete and I don’t have qualifications in childcare, but we do have high values, passion and drive to ensure we never over-promise and under-deliver with our staff, little OOSHIES, families and community. We often joke and say we have a ‘masters in life skills’. I always say this – and it’s not just a selling point for anyone to use our service or to come on board as a staff member,” says Rebecca (Bec).
“We’re known in the industry for delivering excellent programming, and our communities know we’re driven by quality, not quantity.”
What makes Fair Play OOSH unique is their focus on providing children with lifetime memories while ensuring money is never a barrier for families. But their biggest difference is their focus on wellbeing for families that are struggling with various issues.
“I wanted us to be a hub for the community,” said Bec. “So we work with local family support teams, the schools, community groups, and governing bodies to ensure we’re giving all families in our community the opportunity to attend a quality driven OOSH.
“We’ll work with children that have below 50% attendance rate. We’ll go to their home, pick them up in the morning and bring them back to OOSH. We’ll top up their lunch box, braid or de-nit their hair, give them brekkie, change their shoes if they need it – whatever’s going to make them go to school feeling more included.”
And they’re seeing wonderful results. Over the last five years school attendance rates have increased from as low as 20% up to 90%.
“And that doesn’t just get them to school, but gives inclusion, a sense of belonging and self-love. We’re changing and planting seeds, and also keeping families together.”
As their business has grown over time, Bec and Pete were looking for ways to automate processes, without compromising on customer service. Their current childcare management system wasn’t user friendly and they wanted to use more online documents.
Having experienced Ezidebit’s payments in a previous debit system, Bec was looking for an integrated solution that included Ezidebit’s powerful payments solutions and support.
“We missed Ezidebit when we were forced to go over to a new debit system. We missed their awesome customer service and went looking for a new software platform. We went with Kinder m8 due to their personal contact and ‘no problem’ attitude.”
Kinder m8 is a premium all-in-one digital childcare management platform that simplifies the daily workload of childcare operators. This includes online enrolments, bookings, invoicing and payment collection. Their payments product, KinderPay, is supported by Ezidebit’s stable, secure, and easy-to-use automated payments system.
When shopping around for a new provider, Bec had only one requirement.
“Our number one question to new platform providers was: tell me about your customer service team. With customer service, comes success. As long as you’ve got a masters in life skills and customer service anything is possible.
“That’s what we found with Kinder m8. When we need something from them, they hear us loud and clear and they deliver.”
Customer service is just as important to Kinder m8, which is the reason for such a successful three-way partnership between Fair Play OOSH, Kinder m8 and Ezidebit.
Three years on into the partnership, Bec is still happy with the decision to move to Kinder m8 and Ezidebit. She describes the implementation as “seamless”, as they just needed to sign off on documents then the rest was taken care of from the back end. All along the journey Kinder m8 and Ezidebit kept their client updated and provided whatever support they needed.
Bec says automation features like SMS or email reminders are a new best friend. Online reporting and management has made Fair Play OOSH more sustainable and gives Bec, Pete and their 82 team members extra time to achieve more for the children in their care.
“I’m no longer chasing families with paperwork to sign their kid in or out because it’s all online. And it’s all on one platform. Keeping it all together is a bonus.”
“Whether you’re a working family, wellbeing family or anyone else, we understand you want value for money and quality. And we were looking for customer service. Pricing was not a high priority. I’d be happy to pay more if it meant better customer service but I don’t need to because the customer service we’re getting is on point.”