Building Brand Loyalty: 5 Data-Backed Ways to Win Parent Trust
In childcare, certain turnover rates come with the job. Families come, children age out. And if you’re lucky, they re-enroll each and every year in between. We’re taking a closer look at the role of brand loyalty in the childcare industry and sharing tips for how to use your data to deepen your relationships with parents and boost your re-enrollment rates.
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5 data-driven ways to build greater trust with families
Data isn’t just a bunch of numbers. It’s a powerful tool for building stronger relationships.
"Whether it's on the financial side, the compliance side, or the operational side, data has become king," said Lynn Wenger, EVP Strategic Initiatives for 1Place Childcare, in a recent LineLeader webinar.
Experts like Lynn believe it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing roles like data analyst and business intelligence expert as a core part of every childcare team.
But until then, how can you use the data you already have to improve your relationships with families? Here are five practical ways to get started.
1. Transition from center-led to parent-led enrollment
The Challenge: Bottlenecks can hurt your business — especially, if they delay the conversion from inquiry to waitlisted or registered. Modern parents don’t trust siloed, slapdash communication. They expect fast, personalized experiences and centers that give that to them are much more likely to convert.
The Solution: Over 50% of childcare organizations have multiple team members interacting with families from the very start of their enrollment journey. With a number of different cooks in the kitchen, it’s easy for things to get messy.
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2. Personalize the experience
The Challenge: For a generation of clients who grew up with tailored Spotify lists, 5-star-rated Uber drivers and themed AirBnbs, offering a personalized experience is everything. But maintaining a consistent brand image across multiple locations isn’t easy.
The Solution: Companies that demonstrate brand consistency across channels see an average growth of 33%. Set your brand apart from the childcare orgs with fragmented communication by streamlining your branding across center locations.
Here are some strategies you can implement:
- Review your marketing templates. Update your marketing templates every six months to ensure consistent messaging, no matter which location a prospective family connects with.
- Centralize your branding. Store your branding elements, including logo variations, marketing collateral, color palettes and more, in a central place where both center and corporate teams can find them.
- Customize your communication. Tailor parent emails and texts with the appropriate branding for each center to deliver a personalized experience, while upholding the overarching franchise messaging.
- Use a branded childcare app. Invest in a bespoke childcare app fully customized with your unique branding.
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3. Strengthen family communications
The Challenge: 80% of today’s parents see speed, convenience, knowledgeable help, and friendly service as essential for a positive experience. But achieving quality communication across dozens or even hundreds of teams, staff members, and personalities is easier said than done.
The Solution: Remember, your families are your clients. And your clients have lifetime value that goes far beyond securing the initial registration. For stronger relationships between families and centers, follow the data. Similar to your first step of automating the enrollment funnel, you can look for gaps and bottlenecks in your family communication post-enrollment to pinpoint new opportunities for parent engagement.
4. Streamline compliance reporting
The Challenge: When it comes to trusting an organization with their child’s safety, families want bulletproof evidence they’re making the right choice. After the “twin shocks” of the Global Recession and the Global Pandemic, 7 in 10 Gen Z consumers say safety and security are the top priority. The challenge is to incorporate these elements into your brand.
The Solution: When it comes to signaling trust, quality, and reliability, you can't beat strong standards and guidelines. Even if prospective parents don’t know with 100% certainty what the FDA or ISO are, they know subconsciously that these stamps of approval are a sign of a high-quality product. This principle can also be applied to the childcare industry.
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5. Take the stress out of billing
The Challenge: Millennial and Gen Z parents are the subscriber generations. Rather than making a series of one-time purchases, they exist in a world of automated, effortless payments. And see everything else as unnecessary stress.
The Solution: Make your billing and payments processes as simple as a Netflix subscription.
Here are some steps to help keep payments and billing simple for parents:
- Make it easy to charge for additional programs. Make sure your registration and payment process enables easy monthly charges for regular programs and session-based charges for camps and other add-on activities.
- Let parents update as needed. Families should be able to update their street address, billing information, and modify their child's schedule without having to email or call a staff member. Get rid of the clunky Google Docs and paper-based forms, and provide a parent-friendly online registration portal that is accessible at any time.
- Digitize your billing process. Your team should be able to add families as needed using digital tools that simplify the process of adding and paying for programs, as well as completing all necessary forms quickly.
If you have multiple sites with numerous auxiliary programs, relying on a central two-person team for all things billing can quickly become overwhelming. Implement advanced roles and permissions so that your site staff doesn't have to manage everything on their own.
Once your billing and payments system is streamlined, you use your data pinpoint and eliminate any issues that could be hurting your cash flow.
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