Owning or managing a youth activity center, such as a gym, swim school or dance studio is an extremely rewarding but hectic venture. If you ask any activity center owner what they love most about their job, chances are they prefer strategizing business growth and interacting with students more than manually tracking attendance, billing customers or filing registration paperwork.
When manual tasks prevent you from achieving your strategic growth plans, I recommend you do the following. Take a look at the tasks you and your staff complete on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis and ask yourself:
- Is there a way to streamline your existing processes?
- Can certain business applications be consolidated into one class management software?
Utilizing a smart tech solution like class management software will help you achieve your business’s goals by allowing you to streamline your operations, as well as eliminate the need for multiple platforms that don’t speak to each other or paint the full picture of your business.
Q: Need to increase revenue?
A: Class management software.
Q: Want more time back in your day to strategize or even step away from your office?
A: An end-to-end business management application.
Q: Need your customers to have more access to register for classes at your program?
A: Cloud-based swim school, gymnastics gym or dance studio software is the way.
You get the picture, right?
What is class management software?
Class management software is a web-based solution that helps youth activity center business owners track their students, manage class registration, collect tuition payments, communicate with parents and track staff time. Well, that’s the shortlist of solutions anyway.
What type of businesses need class management software?
If you operate a youth activity center, or are just getting acquainted with the worth of youth activities, you’ll quickly learn that software solutions can be customized to any type of business. Or at least the good ones can (wink!)
Gymnastics and cheer gyms, dance studios, swim schools, music schools, and martial arts programs are a few of the business types class management software typically serves. Though, any business where a parent or guardian is registering a child for classes can benefit from class management software.
Who uses it?
From business owners and program directors to staff and instructors, all employees at a youth activity center interact with software. Even parents play a role in how your business utilizes class management software. However, just like the pieces of a puzzle, the ways each individual uses the software will be different.
Coaches and instructors will use class management software to manage their availability, track hours worked, and take attendance. Front desk administrators will use the software to assist in student enrollment and registration, manage class schedules and events, and process tuition payments. Owners and directors will utilize the software to view business reports, manage marketing and communications, and run instructor payroll to name a few.
Class management software usage goes way beyond the four walls of your facility. Customers of your youth activity center also use the software. Typically, to register their students, pay bills, communicate with your staff, track student skills, and so much more.
With staff and customers relying heavily on the class management software your youth activity center uses, choosing the right software has never been more important.
Why is using class management software important?
Now that you know what class management software is, it’s time to discuss its importance.
Why does your swim school, gymnastics gym, dance studio or youth activity center need class management software? Class management software helps:
- streamline business operations,
- increase customer satisfaction,
- gives you insight into important business metrics,
- allows you to work anytime, anywhere, and so much more
5 ways class management software makes an owner’s life easier
1. The right software can save staff time, which saves you money
Processing registration and class enrollment can cost youth activity centers in time and money. Hours of staff effort can be eliminated when you switch from entering, reconciling and updating individual cells in an Excel file to an online platform that auto-posts fees and other seamless functionalities.
Avoiding efforts that drain you and your staff of precious time cuts down on business labor costs, which could be the single largest line item in your operating budget. Parents and students can check in to classes with a self check-in kiosk upon entering the lobby to ensure accurate attendance without you having to pay someone to check students in at the front desk (—>Check out more payroll budgeting tips here)
Easier access to registration and enrollment online allows new and returning students the opportunity to register for classes when it’s convenient for them. This win-win situation helps you max out class registration numbers while creating a seamless registration process for your customers.
2. Class management software allows you to focus on customer service
When it comes to implementing new software, the words streamlining and automating operations can make office staff feel uneasy. Task automation means there’s less work for staff to do, right? Not exactly!
Time saved through business process automation allows staff to invest efforts in providing more attentive customer service. Your customers are the ones paying monthly tuition, bringing their friends to summer camps and birthday parties, and continuing to support your business, so using the time saved to focus on relationships with customers should be your staff’s top priority.
As the business owner, consider dedicating a portion of routine staff meetings to review customer service best practices with your staff. This is a value-added service that your parents and staff are sure to appreciate.
3. Using class management software helps increase revenue
How many small business owners sweat making payroll or paying bills every month? How many forgo paying themselves a salary to cover operating costs?
According to Fundera, 30 percent of small business owners don’t pay themselves a salary. Improving your program’s cash flow provides financial stability and considerably less stress on you as an owner.
Class management software functions such as setting parents up on auto-draft for their monthly tuition and other fees, batch-processing credit card payments, the option to re-process if the initial payment fails, and setting up automated communication follow-up for parents with declined payments all directly increase your bottom line.
Having one digital hub that shows parents their outstanding bill where they can make payments (assuming they haven’t set up auto-pay) makes it easy for parents to stay current – all without utilizing your staff’s time. The easier your class management system makes it for parents to send you money – the better off you are!
Discover more ways to increase revenue by downloading our eBook, How to Optimize Your Revenue Cycle.
4. Increased happiness through improved user experience
Making everyone’s life easier makes your life easier. Software users will be pleasantly surprised by how using comprehensive application allows them to take care of their own business like:
- Parents enroll their children in classes when it’s convenient for them, from their phone or computer.
- Instructors easily check their upcoming schedules online and enjoy accurate paychecks because they use software to track hours worked.
- Office staff quickly send out group text messages or push notifications alerting parents to a canceled class due to weather, or easily generate marketing emails for a flash merchandise sale.
The result? They are happy and so are you!
5. Gain clear visibility to make smarter decisions based on accurate data
One of the most valuable benefits you and your business will enjoy from using class management software is having a single source for your data.
Many new business owners use a simple spreadsheet program to manage their youth activity center’s data. Not to throw shade on Excel, but all those cells, rows and tabs can quickly leave you confused or missing the full picture.
Say goodbye to guessing which classes are underperforming, which instructors have the best student retention rate, and which class days and times are most popular. Give your gut a rest and start making critical enrollment decisions based on a reliable foundation of information.
How to get started with class management software
Adopting a software system for the first time, or entirely new software can be difficult. As the business owner, it’s important to walk your staff through the entire onboarding process to help them conquer the technology learning curve.
Start using Jackrabbit’s class management software and connect with a Product Coach today! Together you will work to reduce manual processes by utilizing Jackrabbit to its fullest potential.
Get started with Jackrabbit today!
