The best way to secure new enrollments is by having more one on one conversations with prospective parents in order to build a relationship with them. How much time are you, or your administrators, spending on tasks that aren’t supporting that mission?
For most schools, the process starts with a parent filling out a form on their website. You receive an email about the form, and then the game of phone tag begins.
This is the first place where a prospect may fall between the cracks. You know parents are shopping around – a delay at this stage of the process could cost you a new student before they even get a chance to see how great your school is!
When you’re finally able to get on the phone with the prospect, you spend a large part of the conversation scheduling an appointment time and collection information about their child. You give them information about how the tour process works and tell them what to expect.
That is all administrative work. It’s time you could have spend talking with them about why they’re interested in Montessori. What challenges are they experiencing? What are they excited about? Are they a good fit for your school?
Do you send a reminder before their appointment? “No shows” are a complaint we’ve heard from every single school we’ve talked to. More administrative work that isn’t focused on relationship building.
Imagine a different scenario. A parent visits your website looking to schedule a tour. Instead of filling out a form, they see your real-time availability and can schedule a time to visit. No email or phone tag, no coordinating schedules. Just pick an available time slot, and answer any critical questions during the booking process.
After they book a tour, they immediately receive an email from you thanking them for booking a tour. This email contains all of the special instructions you give parents for what to expect on their tour date.
You now have a schedule tour with the administrative work taken care of and it hasn’t cost you a minute of your time, or time from your staff. Now you can call the parent to tell them how excited you are to welcome them to your school.
Instead of using this phone call to do administrative work and collect details, you can use this phone call to begin building a relationship with the parent.
The day before the scheduled tour, another email is sent automatically to remind the parent of their tour. More administrative work taken off your plate so your team can focus on what is most important.
Will automating administrative tasks make interactions with parents feel impersonal? Its actually the opposite! You should still take the time to make personal contact with these families. But now, instead of using it for administrative purposes, you use the time for relationship building purposes.
If you’d like to learn how you can automate your administrative processes to free your administrative team to build more relationships, contact us for a free consultation.