Key ECEC enrolment trends revealed in ChildcareCRM annual benchmark report

ChildcareCRM, the dedicated early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector customer relationship management system provider, has released its sixth annual benchmark report that seeks to identify and report on key trends in lead management performance across its customer base of over 350 providers and 2,700 locations across Australia and the United States.

 

The analysis conducted is designed to provide insights into how sector trends are evolving year on year and to enable service providers to have a benchmark to which they can compare their own performance. 

 

The period covered in this report was 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2019. 

 

The key findings in this year’s report include:

 

• More leads originating from Web based sources – Overall web leads accounted for 54 per cent of leads in FY 2019 compared to 48 per cent in FY 2018. The increase was at the expense of phone leads which fell to 25 per cent of total leads.

 

• The quicker tours are scheduled the better conversion results – Those locations that scheduled 85 per cent or more of their tours within 24 hours of receiving the booking had a materially higher conversion to enrolment than those locations that didn’t.

 

• Enrolments rates were higher at locations with centralised or dedicated enrolment teams – Providers with these enrolment functions saw an average increase of 8.15 per cent in new lead to enrolment conversion rates.

 

• Enrolment rates at larger organisations tended to be better than smaller ones – This trend is most likely a function of larger organisations having dedicated or centralised enrolment teams and contributes to around a 10 per cent better overall performance.

 

Other notable observations in this year’s report include average customer engagement (touch) points for each lead in the current and previous years, with dedicated or centralised enrolment systems on average having more touch points than centre based enrolment systems, and that overall numbers of opportunities in Australia and the United States were lower in FY2019 compared to FY2018. 

 

The report also noted that providers that applied a more systematic and consistent approach to customer relationship and lead management yielded overall better conversion results.