No More Clunky Software - It's Time to Improve the User Experience
Save Staff Time and Improve the User Experience for Families with this Step-by-Step Guide to Childcare Technology
Table of contents
- The childcare industry is embracing a digital transformation.
- Childcare technology has been disjointed, dated, and center-led for too long.
- What if a different experience was possible?
- Grow enrollment and simplify operations with a unified childcare platform.
- Keep parents engaged and ready to re-enroll with a best-in-class childcare app.
- Simplify center operations to reduce staff turnover.
- Deliver a better childcare experience with LineLeader.
Your families and staff crave better experiences.
You do all you can to create a safe, high-quality, and developmentally appropriate space for young children to flourish. So why isn’t the same care and focus extended to the experience families have when using your apps and software?
The childcare industry is embracing a digital transformation.
An engaged family experience has a direct impact on enrollment, re-enrollment, and your bottom line.
From their very first Google search to the bittersweet day their child ages out of your program, modern parents and caregivers expect an exceptional childcare journey — and let’s not forget your staff.
With staff turnover at an all-time high, it’s time to do everything you can to make your childcare workers’ lives easier.
Today digital technology has transformed the user experience in every aspect of life — from the way we watch movies to the way we pay bills and even how we shop for groceries — yet the childcare industry still struggles with lost time and money due to slow, manual processes.
With faster follow-up to incoming inquiries, seamless digital enrollment, and one central system to make your staff’s lives easier, a better experience for families and team members is finally within reach.
Childcare technology has been disjointed, dated, and center-led for too long.
Most childcare businesses use multiple tools to manage their operations, with staff members logging in and out of up to six different systems each day.
The experience is both time-consuming and, well…clunky.
Time wasted hopping in and out of several fragmented systems leads to an increased cost of doing business and incorrect data, putting everyone — teachers, directors, and staff members — dangerously close to burnout.
- Staff members are trying to keep up with back-and-forth calls, texts, and emails, wasting precious time responding to incoming inquiries.
- They are forced to manually write daily reports and are left wondering if parents actually see and read them.
- Teachers and staff have to manage too many apps, emails, and devices just to get through the day.
Clunky software products have families working overtime too.
They’re juggling dozens of emails and parent portal logins just to accomplish simple tasks like checking in with teachers and paying for field trips.
Millennial and Gen Z parents know what they want, and it’s not more busy work.
Today’s families are looking for:
- Faster replies to their questions about enrollment, activities and curriculum.
- Personalized experiences with information that’s easy to find 24/7.
- A childcare app that’s just as easy to use as every other app on their mobile device.
Up-leveling your business processes from the era of faxes and paper checks is no longer an option — it’s a must.
What if a different experience was possible?
Just imagine how much more your business could deliver if:
- Enrollment and recurring tuition payments stayed high because they were parent initiated and easily done digitally.
- Parent data was stored in one place and easy for staff members to find.
- Parents and guardians could interact with a single app for all of their child’s day-to-day needs.
- Families could provide information once, in one platform.
With a unified childcare product, the experience instantly becomes easier for everyone.
Let’s take a closer look at how that would actually work in every part of your business from enrollment to operations.
Get the PDF to stay up to date on the latest industry news, trends and best practices for growing and managing your childcare business.
Grow enrollment and simplify operations with a unified childcare platform.
While some childcare software products offer customer relationship management (CRM) and others offer childcare management software (CMS), the ideal solution answers all your childcare business needs in an all-in-one platform.
A true one-stop shop for childcare should include a CRM, CMS, and family app. You and your staff can easily search, manage, and report on pre- and post-enrollment information — making the end-to-end experience better for everyone.
Manage leads in one place for a faster, better enrollment experience.
Did you know that each and every week 60% of childcare teams spend 7+ hours dealing with lead follow-up, marketing, and registration?
By automating these and other manual tasks, you could save up to 35 hours per month, per center while providing a better enrollment journey for the families interested in enrolling in your center. Then, view performance insight to implement a data-driven childcare enrollment process.
Capture leads from anywhere.
The traditional center-led practice of making parents wait for you while your team scrambles to track phone calls, emails, web inquiries, and social media messages on multiple post-its and notebooks is a recipe for lost revenue.
In fact, our research has found that 90% of childcare professionals don't respond to leads right away.
When families’ inquiries go unanswered, they move on to a center that takes fast action to get back to them.
With the LineLeader Enroll module, you can automatically capture incoming leads from your website, landing pages, phone calls, Facebook, and more — freeing your staff from endless follow-ups and forgotten appointments. Learn about the importance of leading with your web strategy.
And because 40% of Millennials prefer self-service over human contact with businesses, LineLeader even lets families schedule tours themselves, making the lead conversion process…
- Faster
- Easier
- Less tedious for everyone
Automate your marketing.
An all-in-one also helps you automate lead follow-up with hands-free marketing campaigns for every stage in the enrollment journey.
A perfect example is texting.
Reaching out via phone may seem like it makes a personal connection with families, but the truth is Millennial and Gen Z parents are less likely to answer your calls, listen to your voicemails, or even read your emails.
These parents are seven times more likely to respond to texts versus phone calls, making it their clear communication method of choice.
But that doesn’t mean that with automated text messaging, you lose all personalization.
With LineLeader Enroll, you can automate and personalize your text marketing campaigns to meet more families where they are and boost your enrollment rates.
No matter the family - customize their message with [Guardian First Name], [Guardian Last Name], [Location Name], and more to build better relationships from the get-go.
Simplify your registration process.
The average stack of paperwork is 13 pages at childcare centers. For busy families and staff, that’s about 12 too many.
On those pages, parents and guardians are asked to manually fill out their own names an average of nine different times.
With an enrollment process this clunky, is it any wonder that 25% of families take longer than one week to return paper-based enrollment forms?
With easy online enrollment, increasing registrations is easier than ever.
Keep parents engaged and ready to re-enroll with a best-in-class childcare app.
From calls to texting, in-person to online — the way we interact has changed. But has your family engagement strategy kept up?
As a childcare business, your ability to engage with your families determines your success. If you miss a chance to connect in the way they care about, you could end up with lost re-enrollments and revenue.
But with the right technology, family engagement doesn’t have to take hours out of your week.
Families can message teachers and staff, get all the updates they need, pay their bills on time, and confirm that they’ve seen all the necessary information about their child’s learning and activities. Learn how to enhance the parent experience with better communication and self-service.
With LineLeader’s Engage module, a one-stop shop family engagement app makes it easier than ever to keep parents and guardians in the loop:
- Streamline communication between families and staff with one place for messaging and announcements.
- Keep parents informed about their child's day with easy photo and video updates.
- Drop the pen-and-paper reports with digital daily reports on everything from nap time and food menus to key developmental milestones.
- Get instant feedback from parents by letting them respond and react to your newsfeed.
Everything families do in the app is automatically funneled through to the staff’s side of the platform. Teachers and team members never have to wonder if their hard work has been seen, appreciated, and reinforced at home.
Simplify center operations to reduce staff turnover.
The early 2020s have reinforced just how crucial the ECE sector is to the world at large.
At a time when we should be increasing our collective focus on quality care for children, a unified childcare platform can make that simpler than ever.
With one product and one login, your staff will have strong processes, accurate data, and a working experience they can feel good about.
LineLeader’s Manage module puts all your operational needs at your fingertips, in one central place:
- Automatically maintain classroom ratios, track child observations, and access student records in one click.
- Automate staff tasks so educators can focus on what matters most — the children in their care.
- Streamline your cash flow with easy tuition and fee collection.
- Make reporting a breeze to support easy data-driven decisions on where you can increase revenue.
With the right platform, you’ll be able to do all of this in more, within a fraction of the time.
Deliver a better childcare experience with LineLeader.
Your families and team members crave an experience that can keep up with their busy lifestyles while bringing a little more joy and connection into their day-to-day.
It’s time to ask, is your childcare software delivering that experience? Or is it merely “good enough”?
At LineLeader, we’re here to empower you to become the literal line leader in your area, delivering an unforgettable childcare experience that leaves a lasting impact on children, team members, and families.
With the right platform behind you, it’s easier than ever to bring that vision to life.
Want to check out LineLeader’s user experience for yourself?
Schedule a no-strings-attached demo with us today!
Get the PDF to stay up to date on the latest industry news, trends and best practices for growing and managing your childcare business.
Resources to help you run your childcare business.
Additional Resources
For more information on specific childcare resources regarding marketing tools, campaigns, tips, and best practices - see below.
1. Get 4 tips for data-driven childcare enrollment.
2. Learn about the importance of leading with your web strategy.
3. Discover how to accomplish more in less time (childcare experience platform - explained)!
4. See 3 ways to improve the parent experience with self-service.