Efficiency and organisation are the secret ingredients to running a successful childcare organisation.
But let's face it – manual tasks and endless follow-ups with leads can drain your staff’s time and energy. That's where workflow automation comes to the rescue, offering a plethora of benefits and value that can streamline your childcare business operations.
With automated workflows, your Marketing and Enrolment staff can effortlessly guide families through each stage of the enrolment journey, ensuring your team never misses an opportunity – nearly hands-free.
Save time, energy, and eliminate stress for everyone. 😌
Table of Contents
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Workflow Automations are the Sidekick Marketing Leaders Have Always Needed.
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Transform Your Childcare Marketing with Robust Automated Parent Communications.
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Enhanced Workflow Automation is a Game-Changer for Childcare Marketing Leaders.
Manual Lead Follow-Up is Holding You & Your Team Back.
Manually following up with leads can be a tedious (and messy) process. Without an organised way to track which leads are coming in, who’s been followed up on, and who’s registering for care, you won’t have a complete view of which marketing initiatives are producing enrolments, re-enrolments, or which are leaving you with lost opportunities.
Following up with families by hand wastes your staff’s time as they’re forced to track down email enquiries, Facebook Messages, and cross-reference spreadsheets anytime you need to report on forecasted enrolment revenue or identify your top lead sources.
If you're new to LineLeader, schedule a demo to see workflow automation in action. ✅
Common Problems with Manual Follow-Up Processes
Here are a few common challenges you might relate to as a Marketing leader at a multi-site childcare organisation:
1) Lost Enrolment Opportunities
No one is sure whether a lead was followed up on or not and families slip through the cracks. Unfortunately, this results in missed enrolment opportunities and lost revenue. Following up manually increases the chances of your staff:
- Forgetting or delaying crucial communication
- Letting families slip through the cracks
- Not noticing when revenue is walking out the door
- Feeling overwhelmed and burnt out by manual tasks
- Having no time to develop a cohesive enrolment strategy
2) Time Drain for Childcare Staff
Tracking communication with leads by hand is costing your staff 7+ hours a week (according to nearly 3,500 ECE professionals who responded to our 2023 industry survey).
Keeping track of your staff’s speed to follow-up with leads is taking your focus from other critical aspects of campaign planning and program marketing.
But giving your staff a tool that they can use to monitor all incoming leads in one place, refine messaging, and optimise customer touchpoints will allow you to focus on higher-level strategies and help your staff to execute them in a scalable way.
Workflow Automations are the Sidekick Marketing Leaders Have Always Needed.
Workflow automation is the helping hand that will have all the other department heads singing your praises...
Your staff members can effortlessly automate communications to families based on unique characteristics like care needs, locations of interest, special program requirements, and more – all at various stages throughout their enrollment journey.
Example of Custom Workflow Automation for Multi-Site Childcare Operators
For example, a new parent lead for your toddler program could get an automated email as soon as they message you on FB whereas a new parent lead for your Summer Holiday Program could get a text message as soon as they leave you a voicemail.
And because Summer Holiday Program registration may close faster and enrolment is much more urgent, the Centre Director might get a task placed on their to-do list to call that parent lead the next day, if they haven’t responded to the text yet.
Workflow Automations are customisable for multi-site operators, like yourself, so you can loop in as many different communication touch points as you’d like to ensure your enrollment journey is hyper-unique to you and your brand.
Example workflow in LineLeader Enroll with 'Doesn't Equal' Automation Logic
Transform Your Childcare Marketing with Robust Automated Parent Communications.
In the above examples, it’s clear that workflow automations do a great job of sending emails, texts, and creating follow-up tasks based on what categories a parent falls into. But what about the categories they don’t fall into?
Sometimes you might want to send an email to all leads who:
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Failed to show up for their tour appointment
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You called but couldn't reach
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Have a child who withdrew for reasons other than having aged out
At LineLeader, this is what we call the "Doesn't Equal" logic. This logic is an exclusionary automation rule created by your staff and set by you. It helps ensure the right follow-up messages are sent to the right families.
Based on your preferences and marketing goals, the “Doesn’t Equal” logic can trigger a series of emails, texts, phone calls, and more (or exclude a subset of recipients!)--all designed to help nurture families so they can advance to the next stage in your unique enrolment journey.
Examples of "Doesn't Equal" logic in standard enrolment workflows:
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When a prospective family doesn't show up for their walk-in, meeting, or centre tour, your staff can be assigned a task to call them, or the system can automatically send a text with a link to the digital tour calendar. It’s completely up to your business’s unique needs!
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When you call someone and leave a voicemail, you can automatically schedule a follow-up call and/or automatically send them a text or email asking them to call you.
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If a parent hasn't submitted their online registration forms by the deadline, the system can send notifications to both the parent and your staff, ensuring compliance and efficient record-keeping.
Enhanced Workflow Automation is a Game-Changer for Childcare Marketing Leaders.
Workflow automation helps optimise your childcare organisation’s marketing and enrolment processes, save valuable time, and improve communication with families. Plus, you can ensure that no opportunity is lost, ultimately increasing enrolment rates and boosting revenue.
But not every childcare lead management solution has the robust automation and customisable workflows your center needs to ensure your communications stand out from your competition.
LineLeader by ChildcareCRM offers the only full-featured CRM for childcare, with ‘Doesn't Equal” logic and much more for multi-site operators to scale their marketing efforts and grow their business year over year.
Not a User Yet?
Schedule a demo to see LineLeader Enroll in action.
Already using LineLeader’s workflow automation tools?
Contact your customer success advocate for additional support or click here to read about how to further use workflow automation logic to your advantage.
