When you first meet the staff at Krupinski Academy of Dance, you get a sense of family. After all, practically everyone on staff is related. Husband, wife, daughter, niece, aunt – even the in-laws are part of the amazing team that runs the Krupinski operation!

But when you get to know them, you get a greater understanding of the role “family” plays in their core values and activities. By treating their customers like family, they’ve grown quickly and now draw families from across 50 different school districts with their unique culture.

It’s not an easy trick to be “family” to almost 500 families, Abbey Wagoner, Krupinski Academy of Dance’s office manager, admits. But Jackrabbit provides the tools and technology structure to help the Krupinski family do it.

Three Core Areas of Improvement

Abbey sees three main areas where Jackrabbit helps improve the way Krupinski Academy of Dance does business:

• Organization of Information | Jackrabbit’s database stores all details of classes, students and families so that scheduling, payment and communication tools can be easily used by the entire staff.
• Single Point Access for Staff | Jackrabbit is a comprehensive toolbox where staff can log in and manage all of their responsibilities in running Krupinski Academy of Dance.
• Online Access for Parents | The Academy’s parents can log in to a secure portal to review class and account details, register and pay.

“Jackrabbit helps us stay in sync by giving us an organizational structure for our data. We only need to go to one application to easily and quickly access everything we need to run our business. Because of Jackrabbit, we know every detail about our customers which helps us to make them feel at home in our facility – just like family.”  

Bottom Line Benefits

There are bottom line benefits that Abbey has identified since implementing Jackrabbit.

-Delinquent payments have dropped from 70-80 to less than 30. Jackrabbit’s auto-draft capabilities make paying convenient for parents. Abbey eliminates one of her most arduous manual processes and gets payments in almost at the speed of light.

-The software’s sort capabilities make Jackrabbit a favorite of the Academy’s accountant because it makes quick work of pulling detailed financial reports.

-Online registration has distinct advantages. Prior to implementing online registration, the Academy mailed registration forms to parents who, in turn, mailed them back. The cost of printing + postage = ~ $1000 (not including the cost of 20 man hours required to complete the manual process). To offer parents opportunity to register, the Academy hosted 4-5 open houses each registration period. In short, manual registration is work- and time-intensive. Online registration eliminates the $1000 approximate cost for each registration mailing since online registration doesn’t cost them extra and it reduces the number of events Krupinski Academy of Dance must host to provide ample registration opportunities for all families.

The Academy could totally eliminate onsite registration events but they don’t. Instead Krupinski Academy of Dance makes two registration events into celebrations that capitalize on the fact that almost everyone’s registration work is done!

The Open House provides open registration for those who prefer in-person registration to the online counterpart. This is a small percentage but the Krupinski staff prefers to offer parents a variety of choices so they can choose the registration method that makes them comfortable. Mostly, the event allows office staff to connect with families and students with each other.

The second event is a Welcome Back Party that gives existing students and parents a time to meet new instructors and students. The event is a real party – complete with snow cones and a bubble bus. The community is welcomed and students are encouraged to bring friends. Class and payment details done online don’t interrupt the fun.

“Jackrabbit helps us use the power of technology and the internet to finish the ’work’ part of registration so we can focus on meeting the new members of our “family”. Hosting events that fit into our families’ busy schedules was a challenge. Fewer events reduce that stress but still give us an event where we can meet parents face-to-face and have real conversations with them.”

Krupinski Academy of Dance | Chesterfield, Missouri | www.krupinskiacademy.com

Abbey Wagoner | Office Manager