Creating A FollowUp System For Childcare Clients

I’ve got a question for you. Are you a childcare business owner, and you’re frustrated with the fact that you have clients who call or even come in for a tour, but they don’t enroll right away and you never hear back from them?

 

If so, I can rationalize with your concern because that’s one of the biggest concerns that I have seen childcare business owners face in their business. You do all the work of getting the client to come in, tour your facility, and then when they come in, they don’t enroll or you never hear back from them. You’re wondering, was this just a game, or was this just someone trying to get your information and knowledge?

Today I want to encourage your heart and mind on the ten major reasons you should follow up with your clients to help you avoid never hearing from them again. I know for me personally in my childcare business that I have done several strategies to ensure that I build my business based on client retention and client contact, and I utilize my client retention and client contact process with the parent review guides.

My parent review guides are systems that I thought of creating to help me set myself apart from others and to deliver a cutting-edge follow up program that really shifts my business.

Following up with your clients based on a system is just as important as servicing the current clients that you have in your childcare business. Because I was able to build a team with my Akeba Academy and The Rock brand, my team had certain duties. One of their duties was to process the parent review guides. I would go days, weeks, and months of having review guides come across my desk from parents who toured my facilities, and it was one of the best ways that I could use to have my clients become aware of who I was, what it is that I did, what I offered, and my staff members to keep up with who walked through the door. I believe tracking is one of my keys that has made me greatly successful because I understood the key to tracking and documenting information.

The parent review guides are my systems that I use because it’s just as important to follow up with a potential client as it is to service your current clients. The reason why I created my follow up system is because we have several ways of getting clients to come to our program, to find out about our program, and to do business with us.

One of the strategies that we use in my program is to try us free and see the difference.

What that service does is it offers parents the opportunity to try us between the hours of 8am and 11am, and during those hours we get a chance to get to know the student, and the student gets a chance to be in our environment at no cost to the parents. Some parents will utilize our services and enroll right away, and some parents will utilize the service and maybe think different about us. But there was one thing that kept me building my enrollment during times when parents didn’t choose us, and that was having the parent review guide.

Most of the time when clients don’t choose your business, there are other factors in place that causes them to choose your competitor – maybe it was price, location, environment, and just how they felt, the feeling that they received. Over time, all of those different outward reasons for enrolling their child will soon pass away.

Eventually, the childcare business that they chose, their rates may increase or they might experience a lack in service and quality because their rates are so low.

Number two, the location may become irrelevant if they have a job change or they move, so marketing to them even though they  may have chosen the competitor based on location doesn’t mean it’s over for you.

 

These are just a few ways to think about why following up with those clients is so important and how it’s so beneficial.

Here are some reasons why followups are important when dealing with customers.

Number one: Customer expectation being meet, which provide them with more reasons to get your services. When you are willing to deal with fulfilling their concerns and what they need, they’ll have more reasons to sign up for your program.

Number two: Customers stick to your business for a longer period of time, as you are always available. That’s right, one of the strategies that I implemented in my business was utilizing my parent review guides as a callback system. I would call back, ask how they enjoyed the tour, ask how they enjoyed the first day, and find out what they enjoyed about our program. Even after their enrollment, I will wait three days to make sure that they are enjoying themselves and do a followup call. Most followups are remembered by your customers, and they value that.

Number three: Your followup is a synonym for customer service. It is a high possibility that your brand might spread among other people without you even knowing. Hint – easy marketing. That’s right. Can you imagine moms having a conversation with their daycare provider is  on the other line just to follow up and see how things are going?

Number four: Followups make your customers feel special, and therefore increases your reliability. This is something that we want for parents to know and trust – that they can trust that we will be there for them.

Number five: Followups always give customers a chance to be heard and engage effectively. When you call your parents, be sure to have your questions ready for what you want to note or survey from their feedback. That’s one of the things that I did. We have a followup system survey. This survey is what we ask clients about our program so that we’ll be sure to meet their expectations.

Number six: Followups can be a great source to ask customers what they expect. Yes, we talked about this. Surveys are key to knowing where your business is and what you’ll need to improve in your business.

Number seven: Customers usually want a medium to get in touch with the company. Therefore, the followup system enhances this communication. Nowadays, everything is done by artificial intelligence, emails, Facebook and social media, so to have a live person call to check up on you is important. A followup call is always required after conducting a marketing campaign to the people who called to inquire; they just might be a lead. If you have a free day, which is a marketing campaign, or if you have a free open house, which is a marketing campaign, you definitely want to have a system in place to attract those callers and visitors for followup.

Number nine: Existing customers receiving followups are more likely to go for your new services and to refer others to you, so be sure to use some type of system to track your clients, to know who came in that day, what their experience was, what they want from your business, and how to followup with them with your different channels of online marketing and resources.

Alright, you guys can get you own pack of followup cards, and use them in your business as well, by going to the link. Click here.