Build a Team of Rockstars That Ensure Inquiries Become Enrollments
Quality customer service is essential for any business that wants to retain its customers and grow its client base. Unfortunately, for many Early Childhood businesses the day-to-day fires that come up and the daily tasks can take precedence over quality customer service.
We all want to achieve great results. But more often than not, we need others on our team to achieve this success. It becomes clear pretty quickly that when working with parents and their children, there isway too many moving parts for one person to manage alone.
When you have a rockstar team that executes your vision, you eventually get to stay out of all the day-to-day business activities NOT in your genius zone. However, those non-genius activities still have to get done with the same care, quality, and attention you would give. That’s where a Team Development Process comes in.
Today, we want to share the best way to kickstart your Team Development Process. And that is by installing a Team Development Process. It will help you:
Define what quality customer service is for your Early Childhood business.
Set clear expectations for your team members.
Train your team members on how to execute your vision.
You have to have customers to stay in business, it is the most basic business truth. And for us Early Childhood businesses that means families. Busy parents who are looking for help with their most prized possessions in life. Which is why these can often be the pickiest customers. We all want the best for our children. Whether it is a quality preschool education or a fabulous birthday party that will be remembered.
So how do you build a team of rockstars that ensure inquiries become enrollments?
When it comes to taking care of other people’s children, customer service has to not only be a priority, but you have to fully understand the strategy behind it. When you do, you can handle those overly high-maintenance parents because you not only understand where they are coming from, but you also have a strategy and a process to support them in a way that provides quality customer service. This all begins with your Team Development Process.
Part of the Team Development Process includes increasing the overall value your team members will feel about their value in your business and in the minds of your families. When they feel valued they are more likely to not only stay but be committed to doing a good job.
Creating a team culture of high worth and value goes hand and hand with being able to turn your inquiries into enrollments.
Today, we are going to focus on building your very own Team Development Process. A process to ensure you are building a team and not just merely hiring staff. When you put in a Team Development Process you can train almost anyone to execute your vision for a quality customer service experience and turn those inquiries into enrollments.
Define what quality customer service is for your Early Childhood business.
In order for your team to deliver an exceptional customer experience, they need to have a clear view of success. What does an ideal customer journey look like?
Next to providing quality care and early childhood education, the next most important work your team should be focused on is careful, thoughtful, and non-rushed conversations with potential families. Sadly, though, most team members do not fully understand how important they are to the customer service experience.
The first part of the Team Development process is to make certain every team member understands what quality customer service is and what your potential family’s customer journey looks like.
We go over in more detail the Parent Attraction System and the Parent Journey in the ECBME episodes #30 and #31. When your team understands the 4 steps of the Parent’s Journey and can identify on a tour, which step, Awareness, Consideration, Decision, or Happiness the parent is on, then they can create more meaningful conversation and begin building a relationship with that family.
Set clear expectations for your team members.
The next step in the Team Development Process and ensuring that your team can provide quality customer service experiences is to set clear expectations for your team members. Once you have defined what quality customer service means for your business, you need to communicate these expectations to your team.
Make sure that each team member understands what is expected of them in terms of providing quality customer service. In addition, you need to make sure that the expectations are realistic and achievable. If your team members feel like the expectations are too high, they will be less likely to meet them.
The key is to optimize the customer experience of your potential families. And you do that with the expectation that your team understands that the parent’s experience is just as important as the child’s.
You set the expectations for what you want to see in a quality customer service experience. And then you let them in on the process. Have them give input, update or add to the experience. This will create buy-in from them and in turn, they will see the value they are providing.
Some things to consider to start, how would you like to:
Share with families what your everyday activities are?
Highlight the teacher or teachers and their experience?
Discuss the teacher/parent relationship?
Explore the classroom environment?
Review the party process?
What memories are important to highlight if it is a party situation?
Now you have a starting point. It is time to involve your team in this process. Work as a team to determine what is the most important to share and what parents can expect to get when they are a part of your Early Childhood business.
You and your team will determine the key parts of the customer service experience. Create a framework of the most important things that you want to ensure every prospective family experiences during their visit.
For example,
How will they be greeted?
Who will show them around the classroom?
If it is a party being planned, where will the best photo opportunities be?
If they bring their child, how will you engage with them?
Training your team members on how to execute your vision.
The final step in the Team Development Process and ensuring that your team can provide a quality customer service experience is to train your team members on the exact steps to provide that quality customer service.
This training should cover all of the expectations that you have set for your team members. In addition, the training should be ongoing so that your team members are always up-to-date on the latest customer service techniques. By providing quality customer service training for your team, you can help to ensure that they are always providing the best possible service to your customers.
Training your team to know what to do will raise their confidence and comfort level. Share with them that you are so excited to share with the prospective family all of the wonderful things you do.
Arrange with the team member for you to take over their role in the activity and invite the visiting child to join in, so the team member can briefly chat with the parent. This allows for some focused conversation between your team member and the prospective parents.
This kind of support and trust shows your team how much you value them, and how important they are to the enrollment process and the success of the business. Working together on these expectations will reinforce the team approach to enrollment building and make the process of growing your business easier.
I share some of the training tips your team member should expect you will do during an inquiry or tour, so be sure to listen to the podcast episode.
Final Thoughts on Building a Team of Rockstars
As you work with your team and build an effective Team Development Process, remember your team does not have to be good to start, but they have to start to be good. It’s your job to help them become more skilled and confident. When you make your team your marketing partners, it presents you as a strong team of friendly professionals. That feeling relayed to a visiting parent will help them make the decision to become your next enrolled family.
By taking these steps to create a Team Development Process, you will ensure that your team can provide a quality customer service experience. This is essential for any Early Childhood business that wants to retain its customers and grow its client base. Quality customer service is the key to success for any business, so make sure that your team is equipped to provide it.
Resources
Be sure to get on our email list so we can send you more information about our Shine Membership for Early Childhood Business Owners/Managers that is now Open!
We give Early Childhood business owners/managers the operational strategies and tools they need to grow their profitable businesses with more joy, confidence, clarity, and less overwhelming.
You will learn how to spend less time on small details and daily tasks. You can spend more time doing the things you truly enjoy. Focusing on the things that really matter, your top priorities, your key relationships, your most important projects, all the things that will bring you more joy and your business more success.