2 Key Customer Service Characteristics of Dance Studio Management Software
While each dance studio certainly has a flair all of its own, the basic needs of dance studios across the country are essentially the same, especially when it comes to dance studio software. As you evaluate various dance studio management software options, it’s important to find one that will justify the expense it represents. In particular, you need software designed specifically with dance studios in mind.
In order to ensure that whatever software you’re considering will actually be worth its price tag, there are important factors to consider when it comes to saving you and your staff time, being helpful and user-friendly for parents, and helping your dance studio increase your bottom line. These two aspects of any good dance studio software program relate to customer service.
Online Registration and Payments
This one single factor is honestly worth its weight in revenue. Online registration, along with online payment options, is a huge asset for both your staff and your dance studio families. It’s a value add for busy parents, who can now enroll children in various classes from their phones, tablets, or computers. But it’s a huge benefit for your staff as well, who no longer have to be on site to process registrations or collect funds. They’ll also save time by not having to update class schedules manually or communicate schedules to parents after registration. Schedule changes are also easy with instant updates for both instructors and parents to see. Your studio budget will enjoy the change as well, without the need to pay staff extra hours to work registration.
Communication with Parents
In addition to online registration, your dance studio management software should be able to accommodate and track communication with parents. The Jackrabbit Dance parent portal allows your dance studio to offer customer service around the clock. From processing recurring payments to providing updated schedule information including those relating to upcoming recitals and competitions, parents will be able to access all kinds of information, day or night. You can prompt the system to send out automatic reminders about late payments or schedule changes, too, without having to enlist staff members to do so.
Any high-quality dance studio management software will also allow you to offer parents the potential of a mobile app, sending out mass e-mails to any selected individuals or groups, and receiving important announcements via text messaging.
As an added benefit to having contact information stored in your dance studio software system, you’ll appreciate the possibility of tracking communications, allowing you to look back and see all contacts relating to a specific student, all in one place.
These customer service benefits of a great dance studio software management program are just the beginning! There are excellent benefits to your organization and staff, as well.
Learn more about our Dance Studio Management Software. View the powerful features of Jackrabbit Dance and try a customized live demo.
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First Steps to Implementing Online Registration for Your Dance Studio, Part 1
The most significant step toward growth for your dance studio may be online registration! Once you’re convinced of the importance of implementing online registration for your dance studio, you’ll definitely want to know how to get started. With Jackrabbit Dance, the process will be straightforward and simple for both your dance studio staff and your dancers’ parents.
While any change can seem daunting at first, as long as you clearly and continuously communicate with others in your dance studio family, you’ll be able to ensure that this important change is stress free as possible. Think of it like you do learning a new dance routine; you don’t learn all the steps at once, but by mastering one step or sequence of steps at a time, it won’t be long before you’re able to master the entire routine!
First Step: Create a Plan
Don’t worry: this initial step won’t take nearly the amount of time or effort it once took you to prepare for old-school registration. But you still do need to prepare. The online registration process will require some planning and communication with parents, particularly relating to dates for priority enrollment (something we’ll discuss later) and open registration.
Once the registration date arrives, you’ll need to open both the Classes element and the Parent Portal element in Jackrabbit Dance to allow for registration. While you won’t have to stay at the dance studio all evening or shuffle papers, you will need to finalize each registration with a few clicks of your mouse: confirm registrations, post fees to families, process payments, and send out class schedules electronically to all students who are enrolled. (You can read more about those processes on our website.)
Second Step: Consider Additions
Before the registration date arrives, you’ll want to consider adding some extra steps to the process in order to reduce paperwork later on. Jackrabbit Dance makes it easy for you to incorporate added options such as priority enrollment (allowing returning students to get first dibs on popular classes) and policy agreement (so that you can easily track those who have agreed to any changes in policy).
Third Step: Communicate Details
Don’t wait until registration is open to communicate dance classes and scheduling details; instead, use Jackrabbit’s Listings Tables to post details about each class well in advance to your dance studio website. That way, parents will know exactly what they need to know before registration opens up.
By setting appropriate class names within Jackrabbit Dance and writing thorough descriptions for each dance class you offer, including important details such as age or skill level requirements, parents will have details in advance and can ask appropriate questions before “crunch time.”
What comes next? Take a look at our next post.
Learn more about our Dance Studio Management Software. View the powerful features of Jackrabbit Dance and try a customized live demo.
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First Steps to Implementing Online Registration for Your Dance Studio, Part 2
One major factor that allows Jackrabbit Dance to give you greater flexibility is the fact that it’s in the cloud, so you can access it from anywhere that you have internet. Among other benefits, the online format of Jackrabbit allows you to avoid using up your own website’s bandwidth. Even more importantly, though, it frees up you and your dance studio from having to staff in-person registration days, allowing you to offer online registration!
One Jackrabbit customer describes the coordinated Jackrabbit features of online registration and electronic payments as revolutionary, referring to them as “the biggest game changers for us,” because they “totally take time-consuming processes out of our hair and make them available to parents 24/7.”
In addition to the first 3 steps described in our post above, you’ll be ready to continue with this next set of steps in your new dance studio routine.
Fourth Step: Coordinate Registration Event
Change can be difficult, especially for some dance studio parents. That’s why we recommend making the process as easy for them as possible your first time around. Even though Jackrabbit Dance allows parents to easily register their children for dance classes from the convenience of their own mobile devices, you may want to offer some extra, in-person support by offering some registration hours at your dance studio.
To create a user-friendly environment, make sure to have clear signage directing parents to registration stations. Each station should include a tablet or laptop on a table, and dance studio staff members should be available to answer any questions. (Be sure that at least one staff member is available to answer any phone calls with questions from those registering elsewhere. The main information that person will need to give out will be that the link to online registration can be found on your dance studio website.)
Like any other details about registration, you’ll want to communicate with parents about your in-person registration event. You can do so by e-mailing any existing dance studio families through the Jackrabbit Parent Portal, but don’t forget to post details on your dance studio website and social media outlets, too.
Fifth Step: Confirm Each Registration
Once an individual has registered online for a dance class, you will immediately receive an e-mail notification as well as an update on your Jackrabbit Dance Dashboard. We recommend checking each registration as it arrives, ensuring that all information needed has been entered. Be sure to check that students meet any qualifications listed (such as age and skill level) for any class for which they’ve been registered. By checking these details immediately, you’ll be able to ensure that all children are enrolled in the appropriate classes before they fill up.
Once you’ve responded to each registration as it comes in, you’ll be ready for the final steps in the registration process as detailed in our next post below.
Learn more about our Dance Studio Management Software. View the powerful features of Jackrabbit Dance and try a customized live demo.
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First Steps to Implementing Online Registration for Your Dance Studio, Part 3
Online registration can truly benefit your dance studio in more ways than you may realize! Once you complete the first set of steps, you’ll be ready for the next set. Once you’ve created a plan, considered additions, communicated details, coordinated your registration event, and confirmed each registration, you’ll be well on your way to completing the process — even before the registration period ends!
The cloud-based nature of Jackrabbit Dance makes it possible for you to keep up with the registration process in real time, even if you aren’t at the studio. You and your dance studio staff won’t be the only ones to benefit, though: parents will also appreciate not having to wait in line or wondering whether they registered their children in time to get into the classes they desire.
Sixth Step: Complete Payments
Along with confirming registration details, you’ll need to verify that the proper fees have been assigned to each registration and that complete credit card information has been entered. It’s no longer entirely up to you now as much of the registration and payment process is automated. Jackrabbit Dance offers plenty of possibilities when it comes to posting fees to accounts and processing payments in batches.
Whatever your comfort level may be when it comes to automation, one thing is sure: Jackrabbit will help simplify the payment process for you and your staff, while keeping payment information secure. It also streamlines the process in a way that parents appreciate.
One Jackrabbit Parent User, Drew Stainton, raves about his experience with Online Registration: “Even the first time I used Jackrabbit’s online registration it was easy to step through the process. . . . Jackrabbit made it simple to understand this through very direct instructions on an intuitive screen.”
Seventh Step: Contact Parents
With Jackrabbit Dance, you have the potential of having automatic registration-confirmation and receipt-of-payment e-mails sent out to parents. Jenn Buckton of Turning Pointe Academy of Dance explains what she likes about the automated messages. “The post-registration emails – automated via Jackrabbit – are great because they provide us with proof of registrations.”
Of course, once the registration period has been completed, you’ll also want to contact parents of various groups within your dance studio. Jackrabbit Dance makes that task both easy and efficient by the ability to communicate with various individuals and groups through pre-formatted, professional-looking e-mail options.
It’s up to you whether you send out student schedules to parents or let them know how they can view and print their children’s schedules on their own, directly from the Jackrabbit Dance from the Parent Portal.
Learn more about our Dance Studio Management Software. View the powerful features of Jackrabbit Dance and try a customized live demo.
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