The importance of making the nursery registration experience easy and straightforward for families should not be underestimated. When parents have a positive, initial experience it gets everything off on the right foot – and the nursery can expect to receive good reviews from happy customers, who will recommend it to others. But when that experience is less good, it can result in a poor reputation for your provision, and scare off potential families with negative reviews.
To guarantee that everything gets off to a flying start, LineLeader has come up with five helpful takeaways from its 2023 Benchmark Report to enable all settings to make enrolment stress free for families.
LineLeader is a one-stop platform, where every childcare business can optimise their family experience with just one industry leading platform. With one login, you can capture leads, manage family details, automate communications to your families and receive data-driven and accurate reports to create smart business decisions.
Every year LineLeader releases a benchmark report that is written by childcare experts about the current trends they are seeing in the market from a Family’s and Staff’s perspective. This report aims to support all childcare businesses around the world to improve their current parent family experience and engage in new trends that the demographic is connecting to. The report also includes real data from current customers of LineLeader, that are used to come up with the five top tips below.
Five top tips:
1. 70 per cent of your revenue could be walking out the door
Retaining families is essential to the success of your business. But less than 30 per cent of families re-register for care, meaning 70 per cent of your revenue could be walking out the door each year.
To combat this, periodically check in with families who have become disengaged. Send them emails and texts, highlighting:
- any changes you've made to your program
- updates to the grounds or facility
- new practitioners and staff
- nursery news and events they may have missed
2. More than 50 per cent of childcare professionals are spending ten-plus hours every week on manual tasks
Sixty five per cent of early education professionals say hiring and retention are important for their business goals. But 60 per cent of daycare businesses spend seven or more hours per week bogged down by manual processes.
It's time to prioritise saving your staff's time and your bottom line.
Give your team the tools they need and help them save valuable time by replacing manual paper sheets and processes with modern digital tools that do the grunt work for them.
3. 90 per cent of childcare professionals leave leads hanging
Lead response time is the largest driver of conversions. But 90 per cent of childcare professionals don't respond to leads right away.
The solution is simple: automate your follow-up and leave no family behind.
By centralising and automating your family lead capture process, you can organise all your leads in one place and send automated follow-up communications whether they come from phone calls, Facebook messages and ads, online directories, or your website.
4. 64 per cent of Gen Z consumers want a personalised experience
Personalisation helps build trust and loyalty between you and your families, leading to more positive reviews and word-of-mouth marketing for your business. This adds up to increased occupancy.
To get started, invest in modern technology that automates repetitive tasks and makes information more accessible.
Second, train your staff on the importance of providing a personalised experience to families.
And lastly, make sure your communication with families is clear and concise – with content that's tailored to each family's unique care needs or concerns.
5. 40 per cent of Millennials prefer options to self-serve
When staff are responsible for manually scheduling viewings, handling registration packets, checking students in and out, and managing family bills, they can quickly become bogged down in administrative tasks.
This leaves less time for them to focus on providing quality care to your families.
Self-service helps to improve the parent experience, reduce missed opportunities, and streamline communication between daycare providers and families.
Download the 2023 Benchmark Report.
Download the full benchmark report for more information and to review how top-performing nursery settings are growing occupancy, engaging families, retaining staff, and more.