#63 – Child Care Business Training: Manage Your Wait List and Save Time

Want an easy, time effective way to manage the waiting list at your child care center?

Here are some simple steps to help you save hours and hours on call-backs and follow up. This will help you get your child care center full and maximize your profits, allowing you to spend time on the important things.

Step 1: Communicate to the parent about your waiting list, get her contact information, and ask her desired start date.

If a parent calls in to your child care center inquiring about a room that is full, communicate openly on the phone before booking the tour that there is a waiting list in the room, along with the expected wait time. Have a very up-to-date wait time for every room on hand so you can best communicate this to the parent.

Make sure to still get their name and contact information so you can follow-up with them whether they are booking a tour or not. Get their child’s name, date of birth, phone number, email, and desired start date. I have phone scripts to help you easily get the information from the parent.

In this particular situation I would recommend using a phone script such as:

I really want you to come in for your tour and I look forward to meeting your children. I just want to let you know that our toddler room is on an average six-week waiting list. We do believe that we’ll have an opening in mid-August for you but we would still love you to come in and see our school as soon as you can. What is your anticipated start date?

You want to get clear data on her and what her desired start date is so that you can use that information in managing your list.

Step 2: Maintain a spreadsheet of leads or input the information into a CRM (customer relationship management) system.

Keep an updated spreadsheet of leads or put all the information you gathered about a parent into a CRM (customer relationship management) system such as Child Care CRM. This will save you time when it comes to the next step.

Step 3: Automate your communication out to parents when you do have an opening at your child care center.

The final step is to use some sort automation to save you time in follow up. You can do automated voice blasts and automated follow up emails very easily.

One automation system you can use is called Phone Burner. With Phone Burner you can upload a spreadsheet of contacts and send out a voicemail blast with a customized message, letting all the people on your list know that you have an opening coming up, with the touch of a button.

Your message could say something like:

Hey there, we saw you have August as a hopeful start date in our toddler room and I wanted to reach out to you and let you know that we’re going to have an opening in two weeks. We have a first come first serve policy and we blast out to all our families that want the same start date. The first one or two families that book with us and enroll will get those spaces so please give us a call back.

This will save you lots of hours of time in terms of following up with your list. You won’t waste it spending time on the phone with families who have found care somewhere else or may have had a situation that has changed. It also creates a sense of urgency for the families that are still looking for care.

I hope this helps with managing your list. If you don’t have a CRM in place and you need an online resource to manage your list one system you can use is called Daycare Waitlist. Procare also offers an online service that integrates directly into their software.

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