TGIF Jackrabbit friends and fans! In this edition of Jackrabbit’s Friday Five, we’re diving deep into customer loyalty and how properly customizing your Parent Portal will help you build better customer relationships.
Let’s look at the 5 key takeaways from this recent webinar.
5 ways to build customer loyalty with the Jackrabbit Parent Portal
The Jackrabbit Parent Portal was built for parents – sounds obvious, right? Here are the top 5 ways swim schools, dance studios and gymnastics gyms are creating loyal customers by using the Parent Portal.
Easy connections
It’s no secret we are living in a got-to-have-it-now world so it’s important that your families can connect with you anytime from anywhere. The Jackrabbit Parent Portal is mobile-friendly, meaning it is compatible with any device no matter the size and it will adjust based on the device it’s being used on. Pretty cool, right?
You might be wondering why this is such a big deal. Did you know there are 3.2 billion smartphone users around the world? And in addition to that, there are 1.14 billion tablet users worldwide? That’s a lot of people!
Having a Parent Portal allows you to meet your customers where they are and provides an easy connection to you that will have a positive impact on their experience with your program. It’s basically a no-brainer!
Quick enrollment
The Parent Portal provides a quick and easy way for parents to enroll their student in additional classes for the current session or choose their class schedule for a new session as soon as enrollment opens. Furthermore, you can offer priority enrollment for your current students by opening up enrollment in the parent portal before you open it to the public. This is a perk that creates a sense of loyalty for those students that come back year after year.
The easier the enrollment process is, the more likely your classes are to fill up. And we all know that full classes = revenue goals! With filters and options to sort available classes, parents are able to find what fits their schedule best and complete the enrollment process with policy agreement and payment.
Simple account management
We all know what it’s like to have a debit or credit card compromised. You get a new card in the mail and then you have to remember all the places you have that card connected to. That’s where the self-service aspect of the Parent Portal is amazing, not only for you but for your customers as well.
Within the Parent Portal, families can update billing information, pay their balance, and use a one-time form of payment for any payment. In this simple process, parents are able to manage their account at their convenience while not tying up the phone line or having to send an email asking for a call back when the office is open.
Real-time progress updates
There’s nothing parents want more than to know how their child is progressing in whatever activity or sport they are involved in. Being able to give real-time updates is priceless for any family that is part of your program.
Through Skills and Levels that you customize in your Jackrabbit application, instructors can notify parents on when their student started working on a specific skill and when the still was attained. By the time their child makes it to the car for pickup, parents can celebrate these milestones with their child right after class.
If that’s not awesome enough, the Jackrabbit Parent Portal also offers an integration with Spot TV to live stream classes so parents can watch the progress in real-time from anywhere.
Two-way communication
Through various features of the Parent Portal, one of the most important things is two-way communication. Not only can you send messages to your parents, but they have ways to reach you and your staff to keep the communication going strong.
One of the fan-favorite communication features available right now is scheduling absences and makeups from the portal. We heard that so many phone calls and emails to organizations daily were in regards to letting instructors know their child would be absent or asking to schedule a makeup from a previous absence. The ability to schedule absences and makeups from the parent portal is convenient for parents and also a time-saver for staff. Don’t worry – you set the parameters and determine where you want notifications sent for awareness and review. (—Learn more about allowing parents to schedule absences and makeups in the portal)
The Parent Portal is also a great way for you to communicate a message to all families or customize a message for a specific family. Between the login message, they see each time they log in to the News & Announcements, there are multiple ways to reach out to families through the Portal. And if you’ve ever had that parent that says they didn’t get your important email – the Parent Portal has a log of emails sent to that family over the last 365 days that they can always refer back to!
The best part about the Jackrabbit Parent Portal is that it’s constantly evolving based on what you and your customers need. The 4th highest request in the Idea Portal, posting registration fees from the portal is already in beta testing and will be released soon. And just to continue making the parent experience as smooth as possible, Multiple Policies is also in beta testing for release soon so you can customize policies on a class level.
Truth be told, there’s so much you can do with your Parent Portal to truly customize it for your program and what I covered today is just the tip of the iceberg. Stream the full webinar so you can be inspired to start your Parent Portal journey or maximize your existing portal to its fullest potential!
Take me to the webinar recording
