What to do when there’s a lot of parent inquiries coming in but there’s no vacancy in your center or daycare?
Adding them to a waiting list seems a simple enough solution. However, if not done the right way, you may lose the chance of enrolling those parent leads in the future.
Right now, childcare providers all over the country are experiencing a high demand for their childcare services like no other. As lockdown measures are slowly eased, vaccinations rise, and workplaces begin to open up again, parents are struggling to find a center or daycare that still has a slot open for their children.
While childcare providers like you may be overwhelmed with the number of parent inquiries and long waitlist that just keep growing by the minute, there’s a way to manage all of them. Keep parents updated with their waitlist status without you having to spend hours, if not days poring over the list.
How can a child care provider handle their daycare waitlist smartly and efficiently?
Here are 3 tips on how to do it with less work, and get better results.
1. Your waitlist form must have the right fields to be able to sort through them smartly.
Most waitlists would have the usual fields like parent’s name, child, age, and program they’re interested in. However, childcare providers must also consider other factors in the future in order to choose the right parent to contact should a slot open up.
Child care waitlist fields
Consider adding fields in your child care waitlist form like:
Days, shift or hour the child needs care for
Not all parents have the same work hours so some children may only need childcare for part of the day. Having this flexibility also allows the center to accommodate more children who need care according to their available schedule.
Child’s birthday
It’s not enough to only know the child’s age especially if you have varying programs that cater to children of different age groups.
Since you do not have an exact idea of which slot will open when, a child may be too old when they finally qualify for a program they waitlisted for.
Having the child’s birthday allows you not only to make sure you invite them to enroll for the right program for their age but it also allows you to greet them on their birthday even if they’re still just on your waitlist.
This thoughtful gesture helps you build rapport with the parent and child and builds up your character as a child care provider and business.
Care request preferences
While they may seem insignificant when the demand is high, meeting as many preferences can help you still be the preferred provider by a parent when you finally have a slot open for them.
Lastly, it would make it a thousand times easier if the details in their parent inquiries get stored in one single place like a smart CRM where you can easily sort and manage leads.
2. Let parents update their waitlist preferences.
Aside from having those fields in your waitlist form, it would also be a great help if you could have parents update their waitlist information from time to time.
This helps you clean the waitlist, know whether they’d still like to be notified and considered when a slot opens up in the future or if they already have found another provider for their child.
For these cases, Vacancy.care’s 24/7Family Portal would help you a lot in effortlessly managing your waitlist without you having to manually comb through the growing waitlist, cleaning your waitlist data before finally sorting it out according to recent availability.
By the time you’re done doing it manually, you may just find out you’ve already lost the parent to your competitor and you would have also wasted your time and effort.
3. Automate your waitlist management.
Lose no time in managing your waitlist and finding the best candidates for your open slot with the help of a smart wizard, that is Vacancy.care Waitlist Wizard.
In just a few clicks, it can already sort out the best candidate for your open slot, with parent information updated in real time.
Reach out to the parents through email or text notifying of your slot’s details and simply wait for their replies.
As child care providers like you get flooded with parent inquiries and their waitlist grows to unmanageable levels, know that there’s a feature within Vacancy.care CRM that can help you tackle your waitlist, secure leads for the future, and keep both you and waitlisted parents updated on each other’s waitlist status.
Interested in know more about how our Parent Portal and Waitlist Wizard works? Schedule a tool demo today!
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