Communication is king when it comes to improving customer retention in your swim school. To improve communication, having the right tools is important.
As consumers spend more time on their smartphones, one of the best ways to communicate with your swim school customers is via an app.
In this article, we explore how using an app can improve your communication with swim school customers leading to improved customer retention.
Why consider an app for your swim school?
An app gives an additional communication channel that has advantages over traditional communication mediums such as email and SMS.
Emails can end up in a spam filter and typically have a low open rate (20-30% is common).
SMS has great cut through but the additional expense can quickly add up and is best used in emergency situations where you need to ensure the message is received in a short time period.
An app has the benefit of push notifications where you can push a message directly as a notification on the customer’s smartphone.
An app can also be a great way to share important information such as the details of the customer’s bookings.
5 tips for improving your with a swim school app
Here are 5 important considerations for improving your swim school communication with an app.
1. Your app should be connected to your CRM/ class management system
Your class management system holds all of your customer records including things like the day and time their children swim as well as their swimming level and teacher.
This is why your swim school app must be connected to your CRM.
It is not an ideal practice to have all of your customer contact information in your swim school CRM and then have a separate app for communication.
Such an approach would require you to double-handle customer records by importing and maintaining customer records on your app.
If your app is connected to your CRM this process is automated and new customers are instantly available for communication via your app.
An example of a swim school management software that has an integrated app is First Class software (find out more here).
2. Branded
Another desirable feature of an app for your swim school is the option of branding.
Can your app be branded to your organisation?
Can you control the name and the icon of your app?
For example, app name: Superstar Swim School
A branded app will typically have an additional cost as opposed to using a standardised app.
For example, First Class software has the option of a standard app for swim schools which has the First Class branding and also has a branded option that can be branded to your organisation’s logo, name and colour schemes.
This can be a desirable option for the brand-conscious swim school that likes to portray a professional image to its customer base.
3. Push notifications
Perhaps the biggest benefit of an app for communicating with swim school customers is a push notification feature. Push notifications are sent directly to a customer’s phone as a notification that pops up on their home screen.
In a swim school, you can use push notifications to communicate several things with your customers. This applies to mass communications such as updates on closures or holiday periods as well as specific targeted communications such as a student passing a level or fees are overdue.
4. Allow segmentation
A very important functionality to look for in a communication app for your swim school is the ability to segment your contacts by different variables. For example, if you need to close your pool on a Tuesday at late notice for maintenance purposes, you ideally will want to communicate with only the customers who have a student enrolled to swim on a Tuesday. By using filtering a segmentation you can ensure your notifications reach only the relevant customers.
By making your communication relevant, it increases the likelihood that feature communications will also be read.
First Class software has a powerful list filtering functionality that allows you to segment your communication lists by lesson day, class level, teacher, status (active/inactive) as well as other variables. Filters can also be stacked on top of each other to provide hyper-targeted communication options.
5. Provide feedback on progress
An additional app feature to consider is the delivery of progress reports. A swim school app can allow customers to more easily monitor the progress of their child’s lessons.
This has a time-saving benefit for both the customer as well as the swim school team.
Using an app such as the First Class app, the swim school admin or teaching staff can update skill progression information for their students using a smartphone or tablet. This information becomes instantly available on the parent’s app so they can follow progress.
Many swim schools do not give customers enough feedback about the progress of their children. Some only give feedback if customers ask! Such an approach can lead to less than optimal customer retention which can limit the growth of your swim school.
An app is the perfect solution to enhance your process of assessing students and providing feedback to customers.
And one final tip: Make sure your app is available on both Apple and Android so the majority of your customers can access your app.
If you are interested in exploring an all-in-one app solution to improve your swim school communication look no further than First Class Software.
For more information go to https://www.firstclassretention.com/swim-school-software/.