Childcare Enrollment Made Easy: Guide to the Best Software for Multisite Orgs
Is your staff time-strapped and struggling to follow up? More than 1 in 4 childcare teams spend the equivalent of one day per week on lead follow-up — and they’re still not capturing all the available opportunities to grow revenue.
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Table of contents
- Preschool enrollment management software: the ROI of a streamlined process
- What questions should you ask when selecting a vendor?
- Customization and scalability
- Data security and compliance
- 5 Simple steps to choose the right enrollment software for your childcare business
- Cut down time and resources, level-up the brand experience
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Preschool enrollment management software: the ROI of a streamlined process
Digital. Responsive. Personalized. These aren’t just buzzwords. Families’ expectations are changing fast, and so is the process of enrolling them in your preschools, centers, or out-of-school (OST) time programs.
For actively scaling childcare businesses with leads coming in from multiple locations, the right enrollment software can deliver several key benefits. Let’s take a look:
- More Revenue Opportunities
- Faster Time to Registration
- Better Parent Experience
- Greater Scalability
- Stronger Competitive Edge
What questions should you ask when selecting a vendor?
When it comes to technology, there’s never a shortage of options. So how do you choose?
Depending on the size of your operations and your current enrollment goals, you’ll want to look for an enrollment management software that offers quick onboarding and user-friendly features that can be configured to meet your needs.
In this section, we’ll share key questions to help you narrow down your shortlist and choose the best enrollment software for your business.
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Data security and compliance
It goes without saying that your enrollment software must be secure and completely compliant with relevant regulations to help safeguard sensitive information about children and families.
Ask the vendor to clarify the following questions:
- How is sensitive data, such as personal information and payment details, secured within the software?
- Does the software comply with relevant data protection regulations, such as GDPR or HIPAA?
- What measures are in place to prevent unauthorized access to confidential information?
- How does the software handle data backups in case of system failures?
- Are there customizable user permissions to ensure the right staff has access to the right information?
- How can we manage and delegate permission preferences within the platform?
- How can we streamline permissions across multiple locations?
- Can we create, manage, and update user permissions in bulk?
Strong data encryption, compliance certifications, and robust access controls are a must. The right software provider will run regular security updates and data backups to ensure security and compliance.
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5 simple steps to choose the right enrollment software for your childcare business
When it comes to features and functionalities, we’re a world away from the pen and paper systems of the past. So how do you know which features and use cases to prioritize?
Here are five straightforward steps to help you pinpoint the best enrollment management tool for you.
1. Clarify your needs
Before you do anything else, take a minute to jot down the key changes you’re hoping to make in your enrollment process. Do you need to ramp up enrollments? Optimize classroom rations? Save staff time?
The right enrollment software will tick multiple boxes, but if you’ve already got a “north star” goal or vision in mind, this can be a great way to filter through your options.
Julie Roy is a former multi-site owner, ECE exit strategist, and business consultant. But during her time as a childcare owner, she went from 300 to 1,000 students almost overnight. Growth was the goal, and she had knocked it out of the part. But there wasn’t enough time to create the systems she needed in order to scale faster.
“In the first month, we realized we weren’t tracking anything, we weren't tracking KPIs for enrollment, we weren't tracking how many people were coming in, papers were getting lost. We had all these directors taking calls. There was no consistency, no phone script,” says Julie.
For her, the guiding star for streamlining the enrollment process wasn’t just revenue. It was also about scalability. “We scaled from 0 to 10 schools in just three years,” says Julie.
4. Appoint an implementer
Even the most user-friendly software out there will take some time to learn. Whether you’re a national franchise with a dedicated VP of Enrollment overseeing 30 centers or an owner rapidly scaling from five centers to 10, it’s important to designate one member of the leadership team who is entirely dedicated to learning, onboarding, and optimizing the new system.
Ask this person to spend 3 to 5 days updating your workflows, scripts, and email templates, and getting to know the new system before introducing it to the rest of the team.
Work with your vendor’s account manager to establish a structured training plan and encourage your implementor to become the key advocate for the software within your organization. As you roll out the new system, this person should also establish a process for sharing knowledge, promoting adoption, and capturing feedback from staff.
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Cut down time and resources, level-up the brand experience
Implementing a new enrollment software system can be transformative. Not just for your revenue, but also the experience you offer parents and staff.
To modernize the enrollment journey and continue to scale the business profitably, focus on finding a preschool enrollment software that gives you time-saving automations, but never at the expense of brand experience.
From capturing leads to simplifying billing, LineLeader helps streamline operations and increase enrollments across multiple center locations. Take the first step towards a seamless enrollment journey. Request your personalized demo today.
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