At Xap, we’re always proud to shout about how our platform handles parent engagement. It’s where we started out, and it’s always been very close to our heart.
It’s not just about happier parents, easier organisation, or reduced admin time for you. Most importantly, stronger parent partnerships mean a better learning environment for the little ones in your care.
Parent communication is absolutely about keeping parents updated about their little’s ones, simplifying learning journals and observations.
Our team has been working hard to make things easier for you. In this blog, we will discover how Xap helps childcare providers streamline parent communication! Our goal with these new features is to strengthen the bond childcare providers have with the parents and the bond between parents and their children. We have already received great feedback and will continue to add more!
1. The Timeline
Why you need a million different ways to get in touch with parents? Calls, emails, crumpled letters hastily passed over at pick up time – none of them truly work and together they waste your precious time every day.
That’s why it’s time to bring it all into one place. Welcome to The Timeline.
- Photo/Video Updates: Engage with Parents through Daily Activities. Add photos & videos of all the fun their child is having while they are at work. Help parents continue to build a bond with their child throughout the day, leading to more engaging questions when they come to pick them up. You can also capture and send incident reports about minor injuries or behavioural issues.
- Daily Diaries: Daily diaries are used to keep parents in the loop about the important things that have happened throughout the day. Record and share nap times and nappy changes. Document meal and bottle intake in real-time. Write meal plans for all parents to see.
- Push Notifications for parents: Engage with parents through daily activities updates. Send messages, notifications, and alerts directly to parents via email and push notifications. Parents have the ability to customize which notifications they want to receive in the settings of their app.
- Like/comment: Parents can like and comment on posts & staff can reply to them.
What is it?
Just like many other social networks, The Xap Timeline brings updates, photos, videos and other communication together in one place. But it’s a lot more secure.
When you send a post, you can tag specific children or parents. That means that parents only see posts they’ve been tagged in on their personalised Timeline, as well as invoices, events, and more.
What will it do?
With the shared Child Profile, you will always have the most up-to-date information on child illness, allergies, parent contacts and more.
For parents, it means that they can be more involved in their child’s day, and establish an even closer relationship with you and daily life at your setting.
2. Parent Contact
The Timeline isn’t where parent contact ends.
Xap also helps you to reduce the time you spend chasing parents for basic information, saving your face-to-face time for more quality interactions.
- Messaging: Send direct or group messages in-app as well as send beautiful emails to the families.
- Days off: Parents report illness and holidays in-app reducing customer care calls.
- Reminders: Request important updates from the parents through our auto-reminder features. Reminders like expired documents, immunisation status certificates and credit card expiry can reduce a lot of customer service time.
What is it?
Parents can report holidays and illness from home using the app, and you can request updates to documents, credit card or immunisation status certificate as well as permission to administer certain medicines, use their child’s picture, or anything you like. These are all stored and recorded in the child’s profile.
Parents can access some of the information on there too, and you can keep in touch on via private messages. You can even create events and collect RSVP’s via The Timeline too.
What will it do?
Put simply, it’s all about saving time.
You can contact parents with all the latest information right there at your fingertips, all using a line straight to their pocket. Start saving that precious face-to-face time to discuss the things that really matter.
3. The Child Profile
Nowadays, you need all sorts of data on each and every child. From birthdays to permissions, contact details to allergies, it can all end up getting a bit messy.
Luckily, we’ve got the solution…
- Shared profile: Update key child information together.
- Activity feed: Parents see nappy changes, food & sleep.
- Contact lists: Create and view contact and emergency lists.
- Journals: Share learning journals with parents.
What is it?
Not only does the child profile give you an opportunity to work together with parents to collect key information, but it’s also a place for parents to catch up on updates about their child.
They can see an activity feed of what the child has done that day, as well as the child’s learning journal and a complete breakdown of their invoicing status.
What will it do?
With the shared Child Profile, you will always have the most up-to-date information on child illness, allergies, parent contacts and more.
For parents, it means that they can be more involved in their child’s day, and establish an even closer relationship with you and daily life at your setting.
Final Notes:
If you are ready to be among the top-performing centres and grow your business, you have to stop doing things the hard way.
Xap is an easy all in one solution for your childcare business. Get started today – Sign up for a free trial!
Xap is disrupting the childcare industry with 100+ features and AI-driven analytics for the enterprise. Xap makes the most complicated tasks fast, simple, digital, and reliable.
