Make It Yours: The Undeniable Perks of a Configurable Multi-site Childcare Platform

Childcare software: configurable vs. out-of-the-box platforms

Out-of-the-box platforms cater to multiple industries, often with predefined settings that cannot be easily changed or manipulated. Configurable software solutions are different in that they have a smaller, more targeted user base and can be tailored to meet organization-specific needs, without the help of expensive software developers.

With the size of the CRM market expected to reach $55 billion, and less than 40% of CRMs achieving full-scale adoption in a company, it’s critical to pinpoint the signals from the noise and choose a platform that can be configured to meet your needs.

Out-of-the-box platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot offer a variety of features, but at their core, they are designed to be generalist solutions in a large-scale multi-industry environment. Often, there is an equally large and complex process behind these tools — one that has emerged after decades of doing business a certain way.

While both types of platforms provide quick onboarding, low development costs and user-friendly features, only configurable solutions are designed to scale according to your unique needs.

Because the software is designed to meet mass market requirements, it can be difficult for big box platforms to create truly tailored workflows that align with your unique enrollment process.

A configurable childcare platform is often more intuitive because it understands the logic behind your child records and can reduce common system errors like duplicate records and inaccurate reporting.

No matter which type of platform you choose, your technology should support and adapt to your business model. Not the other way around.

Why your childcare platform must be fine-tuned to your needs

Childcare enterprises are undergoing digital transformation at a unique moment in history.

With childcare costs on the rise, families have become extremely discerning about where they choose to enroll. Childcare workers are also becoming more selective, with teachers and staff leaving the industry in droves for roles that offer higher pay with less overtime.

To succeed in the future of childcare, you need digital tools that increase engagement among both families and staff.

With a configurable childcare system you can:

Grow enrollment and improve family engagement
Maintain consistently high standards throughout the organization
Simplify center management at the organizational level
Automate reports, digitize daily practices, and communicate easily
Deliver a modern childcare experience for families and staff

Personalized digital experiences are now the rule — not the exception. Here’s how LineLeader’s configurable platform helps you deliver.

How LineLeader helps enterprise leaders personalize the childcare experience

Improving performance at one center is hard enough. Scaling a modern and highly personalized childcare experience across dozens, or even hundreds, of centers is another story entirely.

LineLeader helps enterprise leaders bridge the gap between corporate and individual locations with a suite of configurable features for every step of the childcare journey.

Grow enrollment across the organization

Let’s start at the beginning with a closer look at the top 10 features you’ll need to successfully scale your enrollments across multiple locations.

(550 x 800 px) (800 x 500 px) (800 x 550 px) (1)

Inquiry Forms

You may be getting dozens or even hundreds of new inquiries every month from your website. But where are those new leads going?

If you’re like most childcare organizations, they probably end up in someone’s email inbox and are left awaiting a reply for several hours or even days (and some may fall through the cracks altogether).

Over time, disorganized lead distribution can contribute to lost or overlooked data and countless hours wasted searching multiple platforms for the right family info.

With LineLeader’s web forms, you don’t have to overhaul your current web forms or worry about losing leads when sending data from existing forms into your childcare CRM platform. All family data is captured and organized in one central hub for fast, automated follow up.

Logical Landing Pages

The days of parents accidentally selecting the wrong center location are gone.

Instead of scrolling through all your locations just to find the closest center to their home or work (then inevitably accidentally choosing one that’s out of their way each morning), parents can easily inquire for the center that best suits their lifestyle and location.

The LineLeader Enroll system will intelligently reduce the number of locations families can select from when filling out a landing page form, based on address, city, state and zip code. If a specific zip code is entered, the location list will show only the locations nearest to that zip code, ordered by proximity.

Custom Fields & Pick Lists

Custom Fields in LineLeader Enroll let you create unlimited fields and drop-down lists within family and child records, allowing centers to track specific information at the family level, such as preferred methods of contact, as well as at the individual child level.

Custom Fields can be configured as open text fields, single-select or multi-select lists, and set as required or optional. Pick Lists allow you to go a step further by adding additional information to a section of a form and get deeper insight into what is and isn’t working in your enrollment funnel.

For example, adding information on lead source can help simplify attribution, maximize your total marketing spend and improve your reporting.

Location Groups

Need to send group email or text messages to your families?

Personalization is key. But making lists and organizing information across multiple center locations requires time that your team members just don’t have.

With Location Groups, you can organize your centers based on unique criteria, allowing you and your staff to send group messages across centers based on shared characteristics.

By creating custom Location Groups, you also:

reduce the time spent on manual data entry (both at the center and corporate level)
enhance communication between centers
make it easier to run key reports

Configurable Tour Availability

Nothing can derail a family’s experience faster than showing up for a tour, only to discover the Director isn’t even available to show them around.

With configurable tour parameters, VPs of Enrollment or Operations can enable Directors to set accurate tour availability for their centers.

Doodle Bugs! Children’s Learning Academy uses LineLeader’s Parent-Scheduled Tours feature to let families schedule tours directly from their website. Their administrators set their tour availability in LineLeader. Admins control exactly when tours are made available, including tour duration, lead time and buffers, and what communications are sent to staff and leads when.

Then, parents choose their tour date and time from the calendar on the Doodle Bugs! Website. Families receive an instant confirmation of their tour appointment along with automatic email and text reminders about their upcoming tour.

“Since using [Enroll], we've seen an increase in conversion rates from lead to enrollment and our waitlists are steadily filling up again. Best of all, parents love the fast responses they get from us, and we love how easy it is to get in touch with families.”

Tracy Touris, Customer Relations Specialist at Doodle Bugs! Children's Learning Academy

Enrollment Teams

No more forgotten follow-ups or long callback times. Eliminate the back and forth and accelerate your response times by managing enrollment for all center locations in one central Enrollment Team.

Within minutes, new leads are automatically routed to central enrollment specialists who can quickly assess family needs and schedule tours.

Enrollment specialists can easily access details for each location, such as ratings and operating hours, and search for centers that match each family's specific care needs. Center directors are automatically notified about scheduled tours to ensure that no one misses a beat.

Custom Workflow Automation

Childcare enterprises like New Horizon Academy are improving enrollment conversion rates to nearly 40% with the power of marketing and enrollment automation.

Custom Workflow Automations allow you to customize communication with families based on unique characteristics like care needs, locations of interest, and special program requirements.

You can automatically schedule a follow-up call, send a text message, or set up a task for staff depending on the individual lead's needs. With the right automations in place, you can ensure your enrollment journey is unique to your brand and leaves a lasting impression on families

Drip Campaigns

Drip texts or emails can keep you top-of-mind in a competitive market. But planning effective drip campaigns takes time and energy, often resulting in messages that feel rushed or generic.

LineLeader’s Drip Campaigns empower your teams to build multi-step campaigns based on how parents actually interact with the content you share.

For example, high-intent leads who open and click your content can trigger a task that assigns a staff member to follow up by phone. If a parent or guardian doesn't open the email, the system can be set to automatically send a text within 3 days.

With a configurable platform fueling your enrollment marketing, you can easily launch personalized, behavior-based marketing campaigns at scale.

Multicenter Branding

With a configurable platform, each email and text can be customized with the appropriate branding, no matter how many center locations you have in your network.

Organizations like New Horizons Academy use LineLeader to automate a branded experience for inquiring families and increase their conversion rate from inquiry to waitlisted/registered to almost 40%.

Multicenter Branding not only saves your team numerous hours on personalization, it also ensures consistent and tailored messaging across all interactions. You can save and store professional branding elements like logos and colors to maintain a professional image across multiple locations or brands.

Custom Enrollment Dashboards

Custom enrollment dashboards give you key information on multiple locations or childcare brands in a single glance.

Create and customize unlimited dashboards based on custom fields and drop-down lists within your family and child records. Now you can track and manage the enrollment information you need.

Design your future with LineLeader

From buying groceries to paying your electric bill, every major industry has undergone digital transformation. Now it’s the childcare industry’s turn.

But it's not enough to go digital for digital’s sake. You need a platform that can adapt and evolve as you do.

LineLeader’s configurable platform helps you deliver a modern childcare experience your families and staff will love, while reducing costly errors and driving increased efficiency across the entire enterprise.

But don’t take our work for it. Sign up for your free personalized demo today and find out why the leading childcare brands choose LineLeader.

More resources to help you run your childcare business.

childcare crm, childcare software, childcare technology, enrollment operations, enrollment software

Education

5 Signs It’s Time for a Childcare CRM

November 20, 2024

As an owner or operator of a child care organization, you know how crucial your relationships with parents can be in relation to your success. The idea of managing your relationships may not be a new...

Enrollment

How to Build High-Impact Centralized Enrollment Teams: A Note From Our CEO

November 19, 2024

We know that many operators have experienced enrollment challenges recently, with 68% of our 2025 benchmark survey respondents reporting that their occupancy is 70% or lower. At LineLeader, our...

Childcare staff, Family retention, Beth Cannon, Childcare Tours, Childcare Operations

Enrollment

3 Areas to Invest: Attract Quality Families and Staff

November 15, 2024

In the competitive landscape of childcare, establishing strong connections between staff and families is crucial for long-term success. Recently, we held a webinar featuring early childhood education...

Visit our Blog