ChildcareCRM shares top 4 lead management insights in latest annual customer survey report

ChildcareCRM, the leading early childhood education and care (ECEC) lead management software provider, has published its annual benchmarking report detailing key insights gathered from the analysis of data received from its 4,000 strong centre customer base. 

The report dubbed “Building Blocks for Success,” now in its seventh year, aims to identify and communicate statistically significant drivers of lead management and enrolment success to support the broader ECEC sector in building knowledge about this crucial area. 

“We are proud to have released our latest Building Blocks for Success report,” CEO Matt Amoia said, “which, as always, contains a wealth of valuable insight and information on best practice in lead management trends.”

“This year’s report reconfirmed a number of key principles in successful lead management practice as well as highlighting some important new and emerging trends which are likely to become key differentiators in the months and years ahead.”

The key findings in this year’s report are as follows:

1. A strong online presence is essential for generating new leads and opportunities 

In 2020 leads generated from online sources amounted to 53 per cent of the total, with phone leads continuing to fall, down to 22 per cent, and, unsurprisingly given COVID-19, walk in leads fell to just 9 per cent of the total. 

With online generated leads by far the most dominant source for ECEC services, ChildcareCRM recommends that in order to remain visible and relevant in the online marketplace services must have a considered and strong online presence including website, listings and social media channels. 

“COVID-19 acted as a real disrupter for many families,” Mr Amoia said, “It is therefore unsurprising to see web based leads being so dominant again. It’s crucial that services recognise this and ensure their web based platforms and marketing are strong.”

2. Completing tours promptly yields the best conversion probabilities

Although this is a well understood principle in ECEC lead management, what was striking this year was the significant increase in the percentage of services completing tours within 24 hours from receipt of the initial lead. 

Overall lead conversion rates are greatly improved by quick response and early booking of tours for families. 

“The big jump in quick tour booking is a significant development that likely signals that services increasingly recognise the importance of quick and efficient engagement and also possibly a greater proliferation of self-scheduled tour technology found on providers websites.”

To download report click here

3. Texting is by far the most efficient communication medium to reach parents

In this year’s report ChildcareCRM  found that text messaging has risen to be the key communication medium of choice, particularly for millennial families. 

Notably, the highest lead converters across the ChildcareCRM service network sent 3.8 times more individual text messages to families than the lowest performing service managers, and 6.3 times more group text messages.

“There is no doubt that today’s families respond best to text messaging,” Mr Amoia said, “and to see such clear differences between conversion statistics sends a very strong signal that lead management best practice is now shifting decidedly towards text messaging as the medium of choice.”

4. Lead management system integrations create opportunities to grow lead pipeline

As families and services call for greater connectivity between systems, a growing proportion of ChildcareCRM’s customer network are now seeking opportunities to integrate their lead management platform with other software solutions with a view to expanding lead pipelines but also making the parent journey more streamlined. 

Around 46 per cent of ChildcareCRM’s service network currently utilise lead generation integrations to increase the number of prospective families inquiring for care at their centre and also, through the integrations, save around 3.8 hours a day spent on data input and capture processes. 

“The trend towards deeper integrations at the front end (parent facing) and back end (manager facing) is really starting to pick up,” Mr Amoia noted. 

“The data signals that not only are lead acquisition funnels broadened, but the overall process is streamlined in such a way that both families and managers benefit. We expect this trend to continue.” 

This year’s report also includes some statistics on the impact of COVID-19 on enquiry and tour conversion rates which overall held up well recovering to similar levels as recorded the year before by around the second week of June.

To read this year’s report please click here.