Customer Success from the Lens of Early Education
When most people of Customer Success (CS), they do not readily think of Early Childhood Education (ECE).
Having worked within the industry in varying roles, I find this incredibly interesting and wanted to dive a little deeper into the subject.
One may think from a “daycare” mentality with Winne the Pooh posters plastered everywhere, poopy diapers, and dedicated/underpaid teachers…even this has its roots in customer service at the core, which effects customer success.
I have experienced all of the above at some earlier points in my journey as a teacher, curriculum coordinator and school leader and we regard ourselves as professionals as any other educator. After all, we lay the foundations.
For the purposes of this work, I beg the question why no one considers Customer Success as synonymous with ECE?
In nature, while these program serve the purpose of providing care and education to young children and their families; they are typically for profit and even the non-profits are highly and centrally customer-facing.
To elaborate, there are many types of ECE programs:
For-Profit
(Corporately-owned, franchises, family childcare home centers, privately-owned, church programs, offshoots of public school programs).
Non-profit
(State-regulated, church programs, work funded programs for employees, off-shoots of public school programs).
This is not an all-encompassing list, but you get the idea of the diverse opportunities for families to choose educational programs that also offer care.
There are Types/ Schools of Thought/ Teaching Methodologies/Pedagogies (again, not an all-encomapassing list):
Traditional Preschool
Montessori
Special-Education
Reggio-Emilia
Bank Street
Waldorf
Head Start
Co-ops
HighScope
Religious-Based
Why is this important to Customer Success?
Because, with the diverse forms of ECE, families take a journey of weeks, months and years to research programs that they feel will be the best fit for their child. Many times, that involves the administration and teachers educating/selling families on these pedagogies and schools of thought…which is a process of it’s own.
The customer’s perspective in the customer lifecycle:
Searching for an ECE Program-referrals, online searches, word-of-mouth, social media, community connections.
Scheduling Tours-calling/emailing admissions or the school, walk-ins, open houses, school events.
Touring-learning more detail about the school, the enrollment process, speaking with school leadership, observing the classrooms/environments, observing teacher and administrative interactions, reviewing tuition plans, the curriculum, schedules, staff and family retention, classroom sizes, family events, parent participation, assessment through the year, meal plans, therapies and supports, and program offerings.
Decision-Making- which school upholds their values, what is most important to the family, care, safety, communication, nutrition, cost, curriculum, community reputation, location, social-emotional learning/supports, enrollment timeline and process.
Enrollment- Fees, meeting the teachers, classroom visit days for the child(ren) prior to their start date, what to bring, communication, applications set-up, start date.
Customer Satisfaction- program quality, care of children, communication, promised deliverables, family involvement.
Annual Re-Enrollment- Retention or churn and determining factors.
Upsell-Tuition packages.
Cross-sell-Enrichment opportunities.
Referral-Customer loyalty.
Dis-enrollment-Customers/families come to the realization that your school is no longer a fit for their child for a plethora of reasons. If you nurture the customer lifecycle, typically we can avoid losing families/ customers. However, there are times when it does not have anything to do with the school, but extenuating factors. Still, nurture the customer through their lifecyle.
As you can see from this brief (yes this is considered brief!), synopsis from the customer perspective, there is much thought that goes into to this process. The same is true from the business side. For us this is Business as a Service or BaaS.
From our perspective it looks very similar:
Marketing Efforts- Advertising your services and drawing customers to your product. This can be events, grassroots, online, and more.
Leads Generation-Typically created from your marketing efforts, your leads are potential customers.
Tours-A personalized experience for customers to learn more about your schools and what sets you apart from the competition. Remember, they can choose anyone, but they may choose you…and why wouldn't they?!
Lead Nurturing-Follow-up is very important and remembering key details about your customers makes it personal for them. Check-in to see if they have further questions about your program or the process. Ask them about that interesting detail you learned on the tour. Send a Canva postcard via email, even mail a postcard.
Customer Discovery-Some may argue that there is a specific time in the customer lifecycle to explore Customer Discovery, but the truth is that it is an ongoing process and is equally organic, planned and measurable. What does that even mean? It means that we are constantly exploring customer need, pain points, and archetypes of the customers in our business. Once we gather that information, we use it to improve and offer higher quality educational experiences.
Enrollment-All of your above efforts were successful and we are now supporting the customer in joining our programs. Meeting the teachers, visiting the school for an “experience”/free-trial day, setting up tuition, what to expect, orientations, and more.
Onboarding-As an off-shoot of the enrollment process, customers need to be onboarded to the various communication applications and technology used in Education settings. This allows them to experience the best quality and get the most use out of it as well.
Upsell-Depending on the school, there may be various levels or tiers of tuition packages to choose from and this allows you to speak tot he value proposition of your school and upsell the higher packages (because your program is worth it!).
Cross-sell- In ECE at the school level, this typically involves enrichment programs that add value to your program, and allow students to enhance skillsets while at school. Usually sports, arts, technology or support services geared to young children.
Retention-This happens during the entire life of your customer and their journey. How have you nurtured the quality of their experience and their child’s education. Something that holds true in our field is that families are often willing to pay and travel for ECE schools as long as they feel their child is receiving the best value and education. That happens from the very start of their customer lifecycle. Every interaction, thorough information, caring and trained educators, and added value that differs your school from any other.
Churn- Many things cause churn in Early Childhood schools. Lack of quality, teacher turnover, cost, location, the ability to stay home with your children, children graduate, school culture, and more. There will always be churn in ECE due to any circumstances, but our job is to make the customer experience as wonderful as it can be…because why wouldn’t you want to do that?! But that involves doing all of the above well and sometimes more.
I have found success in nurturing customers through various forms of engagement and maintaining the mindset to continually nurture the customer experience. Again, it starts at their initial point of contact. Being trustworthy, solution-oriented, thoughtful, and kind has proven successful for me. The best part is that it is not a gimmick, but the truth and customers appreciate authenticity. Even if everything is not perfect, I have found that as long as you possess those qualities and can de-escalate their frustrations or fears with kindness, calm and solutions, they will listen, and remain loyal customers. Great service, knowledge, heart, and integrity.
~Fin~