The Childcare industry is changing as many providers are looking to grow and scale their businesses while improving quality of care. As a childcare software company, Kangarootime stays up to date on trends and data relevant to our customers to help provide meaningful insights.
In a recent podcast, Kangarootime’s Founder & CEO, Scott Wayman, sat down with ChildcareCRM’s CEO, Matt Amoia to discuss 2022 childcare business trends. To learn more about industry trends, insight, and data, you can keep reading, listen to the podcast, and check out ChildcareCRM’s Benchmark Report.
Key Findings
This year, more than ever, we’ve seen childcare providers looking for resources to manage, grow, and improve their business. To do so, it’s important to keep track of industry trends and data. This helps you understand what parents, staff, and prospective families are looking for in childcare.
The Parent Experience: What Parents Want
80% of today’s parents to children under 12 are millennials. This generational difference means today’s parents like to be connected to their child throughout the day through a digitized and seamless experience. Using this 2022 report, we see that parents are looking for:
- Immediate Responses
- Text Communications
- Self-service Processes
- Convenience
- Online Payments
Parents have experienced the challenges of slow responses, no follow-ups, time-consuming paperwork, no digital payment options, waitlists, and more. Using these insights, you can improve your business and the parent experience using tools like software that can automate tour scheduling, enrollment, waitlists, payments, communication, and more.
COVID-19’s Impact on the Childcare Industry in 2021
COVID-19 greatly impacted the childcare industry in 2020 causing multiple closings, shut downs, lay-offs, etc. Resilient providers rebounded and with the help of loans, patient parents, and always-essential services, they were able to reopen and grow their business. In 2021, we’ve seen these centers bounce back and grow through:
- Increased Tour Conversion Rates
- More Parents Returning to Work and Looking for Childcare
- Maximized Center Waitlists
However, the pandemic still isn’t over and has provided other challenges for the industry including:
- Decreased Childcare Staff and Staff Retention
- Quarantine Requirements and Increased Virus Spread
- Constantly Changing Guidelines
The Future of Childcare
As the childcare industry changes, we expect to see more consolidation of centers along with the introduction of automation to help manage these challenges.
Currently, 11% of childcare rooftops in the US are a part of enterprise businesses. This means they’re a part of a business that owns and operates around 15 centers or more. Over the next five years, we expect that number to climb to 30%. Our business partners in real estate and beyond have seen more childcare providers buying centers and growing their business.
When it comes to automation, we know a great deal of centers have already taken the steps to invest in childcare software. Whether that’s a CRM, like ChildcareCRM, or a CCMS like Kangarootime, software provides a level of automation that saves time and improves efficiency. With ChildcareCRM you can monitor leads, schedule tours, manage enrollment, and more. Kangarootime automates your billing and invoicing, helps manage staff, and improves parent communication.
Automation not only saves time and money but also provides tools to make daily tasks easier for your staff members. This helps increase productivity, quality of care, and staff retention. By eliminating pain points through software, we see a thriving childcare industry ahead with more improvements and innovation than ever before.
Watch and Listen to the 2022 Childcare Business Trends Podcast
In this episode, Matt Amoia of ChildcareCRM, Scott Wayman of Kanagrootime, and Sierra Rossing of ChildcareCRM discuss best practices for growing your childcare organization in 2022 based on ChildcareCRM’s 2022 Building Blocks for Success report. Watch the full podcast below.
Kangarootime is the leading all-in-one childcare management software for daycares and preschools. With billing and invoicing capabilities, parent communication and staff management tools and classroom automation, Kangarootime helps childcare centers grow and scale. To learn more about optimizing your center with Kangarootime, visit kangarootime.com
