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ChildcareCRM shares best practice on tour conversion as lockdowns end and enquiries pick up
Jason Roberts
Oct 19, 2021
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As both New South Wales and Victoria emerge from lockdown and parents turn their attention to 2022 early childhood education and care (ECEC) services across Australia are expecting an increase in enquiries and tours from prospective families. 
"There are many benefits when using an online tour scheduler. First is the reduced time your team must devote to this often-tedious part of the enrolment process," Mr Amoia said. " Our users love it because it helps them to eliminate the hassle of back-and-forth phone calls or emails and free up busy centre staff to work on other activities.
To support providers to make the most of these opportunities, ChildcareCRM, the leading ECEC lead management software provider, has released a useful guide to maximising tour conversion to support service leaders to optimise the tour process with a view to securing an enrolment every time.
“Tour management and conversion is a very important part of the overall lead management and nurturing process,” ChildcareCRM CEO Matt Amoia explained, “and after a year as challenging as 2021 it is essential that service leaders are fully informed and updated as to what best practice looks like as enquiries and by extension tours start to pick up again.
From schedule to booking - the complete tour conversion cycle in focus
“The tour conversion cycle begins when families book a tour at your centre, so it is really important to have efficient systems in place to make it as simple as possible for the actual appointment to be made.” Mr Amoia explained.
ChildcareCRM’s Parent-Scheduled Tours feature has been built to simplify the tour process and make scheduling easier for you, your families, and your staff. This feature acts as a customisable landing page that allows families to book tours right from your website, immediately notifying you when a new appointment has been made.
"There are many benefits when using an online tour scheduler. First is the reduced time your team must devote to this often-tedious part of the enrolment process," Mr Amoia said. " Our users love it because it helps them to eliminate the hassle of back-and-forth phone calls or emails and free up busy centre staff to work on other activities.Booking the tour, however, “is just the beginning of the process,” he explained. There are three other key areas to carefully manage and execute to maximise the chance of converting the tour into an enrolment.
Focus Area 1 - Preparing for tours
“Preparation, preparation, preparation. Laying the foundations ahead of the tour itself is essential if results are going to be good,” Mr Amoia said.
“By that we mean ensuring that team members are across tour schedules so they can prepare their rooms, be ready to welcome parents when they arrive and engage with them and their children as required.”
Focus Area 2 - Conducting the tour
“Tours should be conducted by service leaders or other senior members of the team and provide families with a strong sense of not just what the service does but how it does it,” he continued.
“Key areas to focus on are safety and health measures of the centre, introducing the educators and outlining their special qualities or areas of expertise, the programs and activities provided, what menus and meal types are on offer and whether the current children enrolled look happy and settled.”
“At the end of the day, families are evaluating whether the service is a safe and secure place to place their child, so engendering trust and competence is essential.”
Focus Area 3 - Converting the tour
“At the end of the tour follow up is absolutely critical. Make sure you have all the parents’ contact information and be sure to ask what method of contact they prefer,” Mr Amoia explained.
ChildcareCRM's two-way communication tools include personalisation keys that you can build into your email and text templates. This ensures that every email a parent receives feels unique to them and includes important details like their name, their child's name, classroom, or special care requirements.
"It's really a great way for busy directors to have peace of mind and know that they're building meaningful relationships with families, even while they're busy doing other tasks", Mr. Amoia explained.
“Having been the leading CRM partner in the ECEC space for well over a decade, we are confident that tour conversion success is a function of preparation, engagement and process that when all combined can boost conversion rates substantially,” Mr Amoia added.
ChildcareCRM’s platform contains a range of features that support enrolment success
The ChildcareCRM platform includes a number of useful features that can help service leaders manage the workflow around tours more efficiently than manual based systems and provide strong reporting functionality to gauge success and progress.
Whether it be a parent scheduled tour plug-in or automated notifications and reminders, the focus is making life easier for families and service leaders alike. With ChildcareCRM’s unique family hub feature configured to provide an easy enrolment journey tracking interface to help with nurturing a family all the way from initial enquiry to enrolment as smoothly as possible.
“Lead management is such an important skill to get right for service leaders,” Mr Amoia added. “It doesn't just secure enrolments, it also creates an opportunity for a family to develop a positive and warm expectation as to what placing their child at your centre will mean.”
“That's why we work so hard on our platform because we know what a difference it can make and always look forward to supporting our community and the broader sector at large whenever we can.”
Get more tips and insights about converting your tours by downloading ChildcareCRM's latest guide here.
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