With so many parents working out of the house these days, quality child care and preschool programs are in high demand. There is nothing more important to parents than the early education and safety of their children. Parents are in search of attentive care, a strong curriculum, healthy meals, as well as nurturing teachers and caregivers.<\/p>\n
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But, you already know all of that, right?<\/p>\n
If your child care business is suffering and you have a lot of daycare openings, it might not be because your child care center or home daycare is subpar. There are other, more subtle, reasons why you\u2019re not getting as many enrollments as you should, and they have nothing to do with early childhood education.<\/p>\n
Here are a few reasons why you have daycare openings:<\/p>\n
1. Are your tuition rates too high?<\/strong><\/p>\n When deciding what will be the tuition for your child care or preschool program, you need to consider the following:<\/p>\n 2. Are you marketing your child care program?<\/strong><\/p>\n More often than not, child care and preschool programs are simply not marketing themselves enough. No matter where you are or what your daycare center looks like, you can fill openings if you advertise and build a brand. New to child care marketing<\/a>? Here is a crash course:<\/p>\n 3. What is your location?<\/strong><\/p>\n The fact is that your location may not be a high demand area for a daycare center or preschool. Areas that are great for child care programs are:<\/p>\n If you are running a program that is in the middle of nowhere, or in a high crime area, then you are probably not going to get a lot of enrollments. In addition, if your center is not near workplaces, then you are not as convenient to most working parents. Convenience is key as busy working parents want to save as much time as possible during their morning and evening commute.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re operating a family child care program out of your home, there\u2019s not much you can do. If you have a center though, consider moving to a better location. It shouldn\u2019t be too far (so your existing families can remain enrolled) but closer to a residential area or near offices.<\/p>\n 4. How are you communicating and following-up with prospective parents?<\/strong><\/p>\n If you aren\u2019t sure how to appropriately follow up on parent inquiries, click here<\/a>. The general rule is that you should always answer the phone cheerfully and maintain an upbeat demeanor when speaking with parents. The keyword here is ALWAYS<\/span><\/strong>. I know it\u2019s hard, but you never know which parent is really interested in your child care program. If you happen to be having a rough day and don\u2019t answer appropriately when they call, you might lose $10,000 to $50,000 (this is the average customer lifetime value<\/a> of a family for a daycare or preschool, e.g. how much they will spend with you over the entire time their child is enrolled.) You also need to be sure to give great tours. Here are things to do when parents visit your child care center<\/a>.<\/p>\n The conclusion of all this is that in general, parents will pay a lot of money (or as much as they can reasonably afford) to enroll their child in a high quality child care or preschool program. However, if you are charging an arm and a leg and your child care program and facilities aren\u2019t top notch, then you may need to reconsider your rates. Besides child care quality, you need to think about location and child care marketing. Last but definitely not least, consider how you follow-up on parent inquiries over the phone, and if your tours are as effective as they could be.<\/p>\n If you work through all of these things, you\u2019ll find the underlying cause of your child care openings!<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With so many parents working out of the house these days, quality child care and preschool programs are in high demand. There is nothing more important to parents than the early education and safety of their children. Parents are in search of attentive care, a strong curriculum, healthy meals, as well as nurturing teachers and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[78],"tags":[165],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\t\n\n
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