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Last week a camp director called me in
a panic. "We’re way behind
in registrations and I’ve tried everything! I
don’t know what to do!" While
we talked, I pulled up his web site. I
asked, "Are you aware that your web
site still has your 2007 dates and says "2008
registration coming soon?" Hmm. Tried
everything.
Here’s a different way to look at
it. We spend tens of thousands of
dollars, and days of our most valuable
resource, staff hours, convincing parents
they should consider our camp; to give
us a call. Lots of parents,
lots of calls. But many camps leave
only a small window open for those contacts
to get through, because so many of the
calls from parents have been "deflected" away.
We’ve
inadvertently made the window smaller with
a number of small decisions, which together
make it more and more unlikely that a potential
customer can get through to us. And
they end up somewhere else.
Instead of making assumptions, let’s
immediately examine our "window" from
a parent’s point of view, and fix
anything that’s broke:
- Turn off the voice mail during the
day.
- Change the voicemail message to focus
on summer camp registration first.
- Update the web site: make summer camp
the top choice; make the phone number
obvious on every page; make it easy to
find dates and descriptions; use photos
to answer the most common questions,
like "why is your camp different?"
- Extend phone-answering hours during
peak registration months, even if you
have to answer the calls from your home
at night.
- Teach your receptionist how to put
second calls on hold, instead of letting
them roll over to voicemail; and encourage
them to transfer summer questions to
those who can best answer them.
- "Secret shop" your other
sales points and provide the motivation
(try brownies!) and training to improve
their performance.
- Have all of your staff trained to "listen
first" when they take a call,
to fully understand what the parent (or
any customer) is looking for before offering
suggestions.
Parents and campers have so many choices,
and so much research to do in deciding
to go to camp, and then choosing a camp. Some
camps make it easy for them, others make
it nearly impossible. Every day counts.
How fast can you change?
Gary Forster, Camping Specialist YMCA
of the USA, gary.forster@ymca.net |
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