When parents reach out to enquire about your setting and to organise a nursery visit, an initial warm welcome can’t be underestimated.
You want your prospective parents to be wowed by your setting’s professionalism and simple enrolment process – because if your nursery doesn’t impress from the get-go, another local competitor will.
We look at how to transform your parent interest into enrolments with Blossom’s enquiry management feature.
Turning Enquiries into enrolments:
What are nursery enquiries?
A nursery enquiry is when a parent or carer reaches out to gather information to help them with their childcare choices.
From a parent perspective, they will want to know about your early years provision, your ethos, childcare packages (including if you offer funded places) and your availability.
In isolation, enquiries tell managers that a family is looking to enrol their child in a nursery. But successful nurseries know that the enquiry process is so much more than gathering names. It’s about the big picture of interest in your setting, and how you can use this data to maximise your nursery occupancy and therefore profitability.
When your enquiry process is effective, you will know:
- Top facilities parents are interested in
- Reasons for enquiries
- Where is best to advertise your nursery places
- Other nurseries that you are being considered against
- Trends of enquiries throughout the year
What is the best way to manage parent enquiries for nursery places?
In short, the best way to manage parent interest is to have a watertight enquiries process.
You may think, ‘easier said than done’, but you’d be pleasantly mistaken. Thankfully, to boss nursery enquiries, it all boils down to simplicity. Your process should be simple- from first touch to enrolment, there should be no lengthy processes to put parents off joining your nursery.
When you nail your parent enquiry process, it will look like this:
- Access to an in-depth overview of the enquiry process
- Summary of ongoing and completed parent viewings (including those who chose other nurseries)
- Easy interest application process for parents
- All contact information is stored in one place
- Immediate replies to parents following enquiries
- A professional first interaction with parents
- Consistent enquiry experience for every parent, every time
- Valuable data gives you direction for your marketing plans
6 ways to turn parent enquiries into enrolments with Blossom
1. Make parents feel valued
Just like any customer, parents like to feel valued. They appreciate the efforts you and your team make to help the enquiry process be straightforward and personalised where possible.
It can be easy to forget to call a prospective parent back at the end of a busy day — this can cause parents to lose interest and shift their attention to another setting where they feel valued.
If your process begins with a phone call to book a visit, the first meeting can feel impersonal if the only piece of information you hold is their name.
Nursery software with enquiry management features collects far more than basic contact information. As the parents fill in the online enquiry form, you will have access to information that can help to build strong home-nursery relationships from the very beginning:
- Preferred start date
- Number of sessions (which can give you an estimated value)
- Viewing date organisation
- Contact details
- The child’s name
- Information on the child (including any SEND, medical or dietary needs)
2. Have a simple nursery application process
When parents are looking at childcare choices, your setting is likely to be one in a list. Any time-consuming parts of the enquiry process can be a barrier to getting parents to choose your nursery.
Blossom’s enquiry process is simple. It doesn’t require the parents to be logged into the Blossom App, you just have a short contact form. This ‘nursery interest’ link can be shared on your website, across social media platforms and through communication channels like WhatsApp.
Parents can easily input their information online, removing the barriers of downloading, completing, and returning enquiry forms. Every prospective customer experiences the same professional, quick process every time.
3. Stay in the loop with all enquiries
Having several spreadsheets with enquiry information makes keeping track of enquiry statuses and progress challenging. Nursery managers and owners must have full visibility of the enquiry process, which is impossible to do using outdated methods like pen and paper.
Blossom allows you to stay in the loop with all enquiries, giving you total visibility of the whole enrolling pipeline. To make it even easier, you can filter the enquiry processes based on:
- The date enquiry was received
- Desired start date
- Viewing booking process
- Status of enquiry
- Session value (per month for the child)
As we know, if parents are reaching out to your nursery, they will be doing so to your competitors. Blossom’s in-app notification feature gives nursery managers and owners the heads-up as soon as a parent enquires. Meaning you can strike whilst the iron is hot and book a viewing walkaround as soon as practical.
4. Nurture your potential nursery customers
When you are nurturing your potential new customers and making them feel valued, your in-house communication must be strong. What we mean by this is ensuring no one falls through the cracks and misses a follow-up phone call or books last minute visit, and the team isn’t ready to show them around.
With Blossom, any activity with the prospective parents is logged in one place, helping all staff know when a phone call, email, or viewing is booked in (and with which staff member).
5. Simplify the nursery enrolment process
Parents make their childcare choice based on a number of factors. The ease of the starting process can impact their decision between your setting and another. Your nursery admissions and enrolment process should be no more than six steps (this is the perfect number of steps to get all the information you need).
Your nursery enrolment process should include:
- Contact information for the parents
- Family information
- All about me profile (online so it can grow with the child)
- Nursery-specific information like key workers and rooms they will be based within
- Medical or dietary information
- A final review of all information
Your parents have shared all the vital information you need to get started in six quick steps. Once they start, you can, of course, add to the information in the Child Profile.
Find out more about our Child Profile (all about me) that grows with the child.
6. Let your professionalism shine
The sixth and final step when ensuring your enquiries progress to enrolment is to ensure your processes show your professionalism.
Parents get confidence in your other processes and systems if your enquiry process is slick and professional. Waiting to hear back from a setting for several days can make parents question the organisation of the nursery.
Your setting is different from others for a reason – your wonderful staff, ethos, facilities, location, and provision are what make your setting unique. Software that allows for flexibility is important.
That’s why you can tailor the settings in the Blossom App for enquiries. For example, say you run an open day at your nursery and then receive a big influx of parent enquiries. You’ll need to know where they heard from you so you can replicate the process in the future to know if your open days are profitable and worthwhile for boosting occupancy.
So, if you’re looking to tighten up your enquiries process and get those bums on seats, Blossom can help! Our enquiry feature makes the process from first touch to enrolment simple and effective, leaving you with more time to wow parents with your outstanding EYFS provision.
Our demos are free and give you a run through all of Blossom’s all-in-one nursery management software features, including the enquiry management process.
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