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YMCA of Memphis & The Mid-South goes digital for childcare management
Impact
6,300
online registrations in the first week
48,400
waivers and forms collected online
100%
registrations completed online
Organization:
YMCA
Community:
11 branches, 127 sites
Individuals Served:
40,000
OVERVIEW
Farewell to paper-intensive forms and long waiting lines
In its 160 year history, the YMCA of Memphis & The Mid-South has grown and transformed in a variety of ways, but never fleeting away from the belief in helping children and creating a supportive environment where kids and families can thrive. Today the YMCA boasts 11 full facility branches that serve over 40,000+ individuals of all ages and segments of their community. That also includes over 7,300 childcare participants in 127 sites in their Early Learning Centers and Before & Aftercare programs.
Having already implemented Salesforce for Case and Lead Management (a solution that proved successful beyond their expectations), YMCA of Memphis & The Mid-South recognized the potential for serving their community members with more efficiency in their operations, and a more positive customer experience in their programs. That is when they turned to Traction Rec to become the technology solution for their organization, which included a comprehensive childcare programming and enrollment management system.
In 3 months, YMCA of Memphis & The Mid-South streamlined its registration process to collect 100% of its childcare enrollments through an easy-to-use and self-serve digital platform.
We moved to Traction Rec because it's a 100% digital solution that brings our various business lines together on the same system.
Vanessa Providence
Senior Operations Director
challenge
Struggling with inefficient systems and a lackluster member experience
Prior to working with Traction Rec, the YMCA struggled with inefficient systems and the lackluster member experience for its childcare programming and enrollment management. Some of the key pain points included:
Fractured data: When the Y’s core technology lacked the functionality to serve their most basic needs of programming and enrollment management, they sourced a secondary software solution hoping to fill the gaps. But the two systems were disconnected and the collected data was being stored in separate databases. This proved to be a band aid solution that was costing extra dollars and still wasn’t cutting it to effectively serve their ever growing childcare department. Information became unreliable and had the potential to be inaccurate and out of date.
A cumbersome enrolment process: Completing administrative paperwork took time away from staff, and waiting in a line to submit multiple application forms created a poor and time consuming experience for parents. Prior to using Traction Rec, it wasn’t surprising to see staff bogged down with a multitude of laborious tasks like processing stacks of paper application forms, capturing financial aid information, and manually managing financial transactions and refunds.
Inefficient resourcing: Staffing for childcare programs proved difficult to anticipate because attendance information had the potential to be inaccurate. Poor data visibility and lack of real-time information across childcare sites created last-minute urgencies to plan and resource appropriately. Teachers could often bounce around sites based on fluctuating attendance on any given day.
Trends we’re seeing in the industry - a complexity of needs and growth in childcare departments
While YMCA and community center annual memberships are slow to return to pre-pandemic numbers, we’ve witnessed the booming growth and increased desire of childcare offerings.
Organizations that are increasing the number of facilities for childcare have been met with new demands such as complexity of staffing, transportation, and classroom / teacher assignment. In turn, this has created the need for process automation (doing more with less), utilizing data insights (predicting peak enrollments and resourcing), and a desire to enhance both the customer (parents/ guardians) and staff experience (make it fast and easy). These are no longer nice-to-have features in a YMCA’s technology platform, they’re a need-to-have.
Solution
An easy and intuitive digital experience for staff and parents
Ready to rip off the bandaid, YMCA of Memphis & The Mid-South was set to consolidate and replace their legacy systems with Traction Rec, as the best solution for managing and simplifying the customer experience, all with the power of accurate and real time data.
The solution entailed several key aspects:
- Forms/paperless integrations and a secure, self-serve portal for registration and data collection.
- Automated waitlists that allow for custom prioritization rules, automatic enrollment if there is a cancellation, and full transparency to staff of the changes made by the system.
- Automated email campaigns and SMS communications: upon registration, and prior to the first day/week of the program.
- Individual and Mass Check-in Options for staff at each individual site.
- Onsite application that allows parents to check in the kids they are authorized to pick up and drop off, including those outside of their own household.
- Tracking and management capabilities of meal delivery service program participants.
- Centralized billing and registration support using Case Management to triage and organize inquiries.
- Real time dashboards with participants check-in data and registration capacity.
- Capabilities to integrate with other software solutions (while still maintaining a single data source of truth)
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"Not only does this save time for the administration team, but it also means the member-facing staff can easily manage their day-to-day activities with the vital information they need. With highly customizable permissions the right people have access to the right information needed to complete a task.”
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Impact: Faster registration. Easier for staff. 100% digital.
For Parents/Guardians:
- Easy & accessible registration process: Digital and mobile-friendly experience to complete registration information requirements, documents/ forms, and process payments for current and future dues.
- Self-service: One secure portal to manage (and make edits to) all information including modifying registrations, adding other individuals that are authorized to pickup, managing emergency contacts as well as child medical information and many more.
- Billing transparency: Visibility of current and future payments owing, including invoicing to identify each registered program or week of care.
- Speedy future registrations: Account information auto-populates (from previous enrollments) for a faster registration process, while still allowing to make changes where necessary.
- Timely communication: Customized email and SMS notifications to registrants upon enrollment and ahead of scheduled program start date.
For Onsite Staff:
- Activity tracking: Report on daily diapering, bottle feeding, meals, naps, crib checks, and photos.
- Real time visibility: Instantly view classroom rosters, family or medical information (allergies), emergency contacts.
- Security: Digital sign-in/out of program participants by authorized individuals.
For Finance Department:
- Flexible billing: Ability to schedule billing on different timelines (weekly, monthly, every other week, etc.), stop payments, integrate with third party allocations/billing and so much more.
- Real-time reports: Clear view into accounts with returns or balances, as well as visibility into all future revenue
- Detailed Analysis: can see the breakdown of revenue by site for visibility of the most popular and busiest locations
For Administrators and Operations Teams:
- Ability to define groups and restrictions: Segment and establish participant restrictions across sites, by capacity, by age, by specific participant, or automatic waitlist enrollment.
- Flexibility to make adjustments: Make changes in bulk which can be related to enrollment, add or remove charges, etc. Transfer or move participants and staff to a different site.
- Easy and in-depth reporting: report on historical attendance by site, so staffing predictions can be made according to patterns in the data
- Automated waitlists: Automatic enrollment if there is a cancellation, and full transparency to staff of the changes made by the system
- Full View into Participant Activity: Ability to see clearly into a person’s history and what programs they have been enrolled in now or in the past.
- Instant notifications to parents upon check-in/out of outstanding balances or forms/waivers that require completion
- Custom Questions and Forms: Capture supplementary information needed (ie. age, medical details, or special needs) to replace paper intake forms.
- Timely Customer Support: Efficiently tracked, directed, and managed over three thousand inquiries (holds, terminations, withdrawals for childcare) with a small team.
From registering for childcare or wellness programs to purchasing a membership, submitting required program documentation, or creating a support case our customers can do everything they need from one user-friendly online portal.
REsults
Skyrocketing in record time
In the first week of being live
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<stat left="3 months" right="to implement" bottom="from project initiation to go-live" table_id="1"></stat>
<stat left="800" right="registrations" bottom="in the first hour of enrollment" table_id="1"></stat>
<stat left="2,700" right="registrations" bottom="on the first day for one district" table_id="1"></stat>
<stat left="6,300" right="registrations" bottom="after the first week" table_id="1"></stat>
<stat left="100%" right="successfully completed" bottom="through self-service online enrollment" table_id="1"></stat>
</stat_table>
After 6 months
<stat_table table_id="2">
<stat left="7,700" right="secure" bottom="digital check-ins/check-outs a day" table_id="2"></stat>
<stat left="48,422" right="waivers and forms" bottom="collected online. 35,630 that utilized a digital signature" table_id="2"></stat>
<stat left="15,118" right="records" bottom="captured in one centralized system for easy access" table_id="2"></stat>
<stat left="35,679" right="authorized pick ups" bottom="created or updated by parents through the self-service portal" table_id="2"></stat>
</stat_table>
