How to Choose the Best Family Engagement Tool for Your Business

Family (engagement) is everything.

Today’s families are feeling the pressure.

According to a recent survey from the American Psychological Association, a troubling 70% of parents reported extreme stress regarding their children’s academic, social, and emotional development. Because as any parent or primary caregiver can tell you, there is no job in the world that matters more than raising a happy, healthy human.

Finding the right childcare community is among the first crucial steps in that journey — but it certainly doesn’t end there.

From selecting a high-quality childcare center to staying on top of key developmental milestones, an engaged early learning experience is central to the well-being of each and every family with young children at home.

The challenges of family engagement

Why are so many family engagement apps clunky and difficult to use?

If you’re here, you probably already know the right family engagement software is critical to the success of your business. But while many platforms can handle basic tasks like automating daily reports and payments, few were built with the staff and family experience in mind.

Today, we're going to leave our bias at the door and help you make the best choice for your center with this comprehensive (and mostly objective 😉) guide to choosing a childcare experience platform that puts family experience at the forefront.

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What is family engagement in early childhood education?

Family engagement is all about actively leading parents and families through their child’s early learning experiences.

By embracing proactive communication and collaboration between families and providers, guardians and educators can create a supportive learning environment both at home and in the center.

But the benefits don’t stop there. With strong family engagement, you can expect:

Improved student outcomes
Stronger family-educator and educator-child relationships
Decreased behavioral issues
Better social-emotional development
Increased family buy-in
Greater family retention and re-enrollment rates

Unfortunately, many of today’s family engagement apps are inconvenient, time-consuming, and easy for parents to give up on.

If you want to elevate your family engagement strategy and increase re-enrollments and referrals for your center, you’ll need a tool that feels just as organic as the many other apps used every day by modern parents.

From engagement to experience: Why the right early education software is a must for every center

Can you remember the last time you went a day without checking your messages, chatting with a friend, or making a quick payment via one of the many apps on your phone?

Neither can we. With the rise in Millennial and Gen Z parents, a tech-enabled childcare center is no longer an option — it's a must. Early education software gives parents the choice to self-serve.

Yet for many centers, family engagement remains complicated and center-led.

And that’s a problem because, for the past 20 years, the companies that adopted a technology-driven customer experience have been those that have come out ahead.

Unfortunately, the family experience at many centers still leaves a lot to be desired.

Often, the parent logs into a portal (in some cases, more than one), where they manually upload documentation and read upcoming announcements about their child’s activities. With no transparency into their child’s daily learning experiences, parents and families are left to guess — and stress — about how their young children are spending their time while they’re away at work all day.

When families are met with antiquated systems from their childcare provider, staying engaged becomes a chore. And the same is true for your team members who are often tasked with wrangling more than six back-office systems.

In an increasingly competitive market, the family experience is critical to your success. By adopting a unified childcare platform that delivers the user experience families expect, you can position your business to attract, retain and engage happy families far into the future. The right family engagement platform can improve your childcare experience.

Challenges for modern families

What challenges do you face in childcare?

Making up more than 80% of today’s parents to children under the age of 12, Millennial and Gen Z consumers crave simple, intuitive customer experiences.

From the first Google search for a childcare center to their child’s preschool graduation, families are seeking exceptional digital experiences along their early learning journey.

But the challenges families encounter often don’t live up to their expectations, including:

Slow to no response to inquiries
Wasted time with back-and-forth emails and calls
No follow-up after initial outreach
Time-consuming and lengthy enrollment paperwork
Limited or no ongoing communication once enrolled
Multiple log-ins and messaging centers to get the information they need

Challenges for childcare providers

Like the families they serve, a growing number of your team members are also tech natives — they crave real-time communication and support.

Teachers already have a hard job, but with dated software products they have to juggle additional difficulties like:

Manually replying to every new inquiry
Wasted time with back-and-forth emails and calls
Busy to-do lists without enough time to complete them
Time-consuming, repetitive, and manual processes for paperwork and reporting
No simple and easy way to communicate with families in real-time

How can the right family engagement platform improve your childcare experience?

Ultimately, disjointed systems distract your families and team members from what matters most: creating the best environment for young children.

With the right tool, you can transform manual tasks into a streamlined childcare experience that builds confidence, trust, and loyalty with modern families.

Imagine handling all of the below tasks from one platform, in a matter of minutes (not hours):

Scheduling tours
Sharing and receiving enrollment forms
Tracking enrollment fees
Checking children in and out
Sending and receiving real-time developmental, activity, and nutrition updates
Sharing updates on a child’s curriculum and development

Enable families and staff to self-serve anytime, anywhere and you’re building a bridge to an elevated family experience. The most successful centers do this digitally, using one unified platform.

Essential features of a unified childcare experience platform

From the moment a student starts at a new center to the moment they re-enroll for the following year, utilizing one unified platform puts the family experience at the heart of your business.

With the right childcare experience tool, your staff and families have one login for everything they need. Families will be able to access daily reports digitally, see key moments in real-time, and easily communicate with educators.

But not all platforms offer a modern and unified user experience. Here are the core features, functions, and capabilities to look for to deliver an exceptional family experience from day one.

Integrated emails and texts

What’s better than searching through email chains and old text messages for information?

Just about anything. The right childcare experience product eliminates clunky communication methods with integrated email and text. With a secure messaging center in the same app where parents already interact with your center every day, you’ll have no problem keeping families and team members on the same page. See free text templates to engage families.

For a truly seamless process, look for a product where communication is built in automatically from the first day a family inquires about your center.

For example, LineLeader’s Enroll module guides families with automated follow-up communications from the moment they reach out. From there, LineLeader’s Engage module provides multiple forms of outreach and unlimited messaging — including those treasured photos and videos — from the same dedicated parent app your families already know and love.

Goodbye tedious email chains, hello intuitive messaging!

User-friendly app for families

Today’s families expect a seamless user experience from their technology — which is why the right parent app can go a long way in differentiating your childcare brand.

Look for a parent app that is fully integrated with your CRM and childcare management system as well as fully optimized for Android and iOS.

When it comes to user experience, a childcare app with a clean layout is a must for ease of use (and reducing questions for your staff). Remember, you’re leading a team of educators — not tech support. Families should be able to instantly understand how to communicate with your center, where to access the updates they need, and how to view important information about their child’s day without having to run all their queries through your staff.

With a unified system, every action families take inside the app is visible to your team — no additional apps, processes, or screen-switching is required. It’s all on one platform. You can even track employee and engagement metrics from a single screen.

No-stress billing

Millennial and Gen Z parents use Venmo, Zelle, and other cash apps on a daily. For them, checkbooks are a thing of the past.

The billing at your ECE center should meet families where they’re at. Look for a childcare experience platform that enables guardians to pay through the same app where they receive all the other announcements and updates from your center.

With LineLeader’s Engage module, there's just one invoice, one billing cycle, and one place for payments. No re-authentication or re-login is required to take care of simple financial matters. Families can manage their payment methods and invoices and even set up autopay all in one seamless system. Get more information on how to improve cash flow for your childcare business.

Connect with families in real time

When children are dropped off at your center, it doesn’t mean it’s time to disconnect. In fact, this is a prime opportunity to engage working families.

To do it right, use a childcare experience platform that enables your staff to update parents easily and securely by sharing videos and photos featuring key moments throughout the day. From nap time and sleep checks to tracking health issues and developmental updates, the right app helps parents stay connected to their child's experience at your center.

In LineLeader’s Engage module, moments help families and team members keep a united front in caring for young children.

Structured like a social media feed, parents can easily engage with each update and even share Moments natively via their own email, text, or WhatsApp so that grandma and grandpa can share at the moment too. All this and more can be accomplished with a family app!

Here are just some of the moments to choose from:

Comment Moment: Share a quick note with parents or post a photo to a child’s timeline.
Food Moment: Log when a child last ate, including how much was consumed (you can even connect your menus!).
Health Check Moment: Perform a health check when a child arrives at the center. Screen for symptoms of colds, flu, or COVID-19, and keep track of symptom timings.
Activity Moment: Record when a child takes part in key activities, share photos and track how they engaged with other children.
Supplies Moment: Notify parents when their child needs to bring extra supplies, or give them a heads up when their child is low on certain supplies.

In LineLeader’s Engage module, there’s a moment to cover every common childcare scenario, including: Learning, Ouch, Incident, Illness, Behavior, Potty, Sleep, Medical, Safety, and Mood moments.

Moments are not only a great way to boost parent-center connection, but they also allow multisite directors to see what’s working well (or not so well) across each location with a simple, visual report function. To learn more, get a deep dive into the essential features of an all-in-one childcare solution.

Easy-to-use announcements center

No one likes crowding around a bulletin board or downloading clunky attachments.

With a centralized announcements center, you can instantly share important information with the click of a button. Your announcements can be sent to everyone in your center or segmented into specific groups.

Utilize this feature to keep families (and staff) informed on important updates, such as:

Your school is closed — Happy Veterans Day!
It’s picture day — Don’t forget to brush your teeth!
You have a staff meeting — Arrive at 7:30 am for our staff meeting (bagels included!)

When you post an announcement using LineLeader’s Engage module, it will automatically appear in the ‘Now’ feed of a user’s Activity area, making it feel comfortable and familiar for your families to view and access.

Informed arrival with contactless check-in

For busy families, few things are more stressful than late mornings.

With family experience features like contactless check-in, childcare providers can reduce the chaos and keep families focused on setting students up for a fantastic day. With a touch of the app, families can instantly let centers know they’re on the move with an estimated time of arrival.

For example, a parent can send a quick message to let the team know that “Skylar is on the way to school, arriving at 8:05 am.”

Transitions are crucial for a great day of learning. With Express Drive-Up, your childcare staff is empowered to:

See who is on their way to school that day
Identify how many students will be arriving at the same time
Modify plans, schedules, or meals as needed
Easily check in students on the app to smoothly begin the day
Greet stressed-out parents with a smile

Whether they’re on time, late, or absent, communicating with your center has never been easier for enrolled families.

LineLeader Engage: One platform. One login. One seamless family experience.

A stellar family experience can't happen on outdated software.

LineLeader is the first and only unified platform that delivers full-featured customer relationship management (CRM) software, a parent engagement app, and childcare management software (CMS) — together in one solution.

With unified data, staff members can find any information they need on any family in their community with a simple search and no switching between systems.

And with an intuitive and easy-to-use parent app, families can get a front-row seat to their child’s development and build a stronger connection with childcare providers. No need to dig through cluttered emails or miss out on special moments.

Because the future of childcare is about people, not tech. With a streamlined system for family-center interaction, you can elevate your childcare business from one that prioritizes family engagement to one that delivers an unforgettable experience for everyone involved.

Additional Content Resources

For more information on specific childcare resources regarding marketing tools, campaigns, tips, and best practices - see below.

1. Learn more about what is family engagement in early childhood education.

2. See why the right early education software is a must for every center.

3. Check out parent survey questions to collect honest feedback about your enrollment experience.

4. Discover how to make your daycare parent portal #parentapproved.

5. Take a glance at your ultimate guide to preschool classroom management.

6. See the solution to this burning question: What challenges do you face in childcare?

7. Download free text templates to engage families throughout enrollment.

8. How in the world can a childcare app benefit your business?

9. See the importance of a family app to connect parents, educators, and staff.

10. Understand the power of using the right family engagement platform to empower your business.

11. Dive into the essential features of an all-in-one childcare solution.

12. Discover 3 reasons why you should track employee and engagement metrics.

13. Learn how to improve cash flow for your childcare business.

How to Choose the Best Family Engagement Tool for Your Childcare Business

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