Feedback On My Daycare Product (Posted w/ Permission Of Michael)

[smart]

Hi Forum, (Posted w permission from Michael C. of Daycare.com)

I've created a simple software product that I'd like your feedback on. It's worked wonderfully for my personal daycares (to the tune of several hundred to several thousand in extra revenue per month) and I'd like to get your feedback.

Here's the Pitch:

As a daycare owner/operator myself, one of the biggest struggles I’ve found is all children don't show up every day for daycare. What if you could fill those gaps and earn more income from existing customers? That’s why I invented Hopping In, http://hoppingin.com, that allows you to sell vacant daycare spots! Hopping In makes it easy to update availability, schedule days and half days, and collect payments on any smart phone.

Check out our brief explainer video

It’s super easy to sign up and use. There are no start-up fees...you only pay when you use the service. This is a much needed product in this industry and will revolutionize your daycare business!

You may get paid even when children are absent due to vacation or illness. But to keep a daycare center running at optimum levels and make continued center improvements, your business needs as much revenue as possible.

Expand your customer base and grow your business. By appealing to parents who work remotely, travel often, or have variable shifts, you can rapidly expand your business. We’ll even get your more regular customers on board. When a parent drops a day with Hopping In, they’ll receive a partial credit if the slot gets booked. That makes the parent happy, and takes yet another scheduling task off your hands.

- Very simple setup.
- Set your classroom hours and capacity so you are never over over-booked.
- Let parents do the work! – Ask them to use Hopping In on their smart phone to let you know days they won’t be coming, this will automatically open empty dates for you on the calendar.
- Parents can browse and book available days instantly.

Please visit www.hoppingin.com and sign up today for free!

Any feedback on your thoughts would be appreciated! PS a flyer is attached

[Blackcat31]

Hi Forum, (Posted w permission from Michael C. of Daycare.com)

I've created a simple software product that I'd like your feedback on. It's worked wonderfully for my personal daycares (to the tune of several hundred to several thousand in extra revenue per month) and I'd like to get your feedback.

Here's the Pitch:

As a daycare owner/operator myself, one of the biggest struggles I’ve found is all children don't show up every day for daycare. What if you could fill those gaps and earn more income from existing customers? That’s why I invented Hopping In, http://hoppingin.com, that allows you to sell vacant daycare spots! Hopping In makes it easy to update availability, schedule days and half days, and collect payments on any smart phone.

Check out our brief explainer video

It’s super easy to sign up and use. There are no start-up fees...you only pay when you use the service. This is a much needed product in this industry and will revolutionize your daycare business!

You may get paid even when children are absent due to vacation or illness. But to keep a daycare center running at optimum levels and make continued center improvements, your business needs as much revenue as possible.

Expand your customer base and grow your business. By appealing to parents who work remotely, travel often, or have variable shifts, you can rapidly expand your business. We’ll even get your more regular customers on board. When a parent drops a day with Hopping In, they’ll receive a partial credit if the slot gets booked. That makes the parent happy, and takes yet another scheduling task off your hands.

- Very simple setup.
- Set your classroom hours and capacity so you are never over over-booked.
- Let parents do the work! – Ask them to use Hopping In on their smart phone to let you know days they won’t be coming, this will automatically open empty dates for you on the calendar.
- Parents can browse and book available days instantly.

Please visit www.hoppingin.com and sign up today for free!

Any feedback on your thoughts would be appreciated! PS a flyer is attached

I see this as a fantastic tool for large centers in metro areas verses family child care.

As a family child care provider I simply bill families for their slot and get paid whether they show up or not. I don't need to fill empty spaces at all. Drop in kids aren't an ideal client for family child care programs in my area.

But as I stated previously this seems like an ideal solution for large centers that bill by the day or time used and juggle multiple kids/families/shifts etc.

[daycarediva]

I see this as a fantastic tool for large centers in metro areas verses family child care.

As a family child care provider I simply bill families for their slot and get paid whether they show up or not. I don't need to fill empty spaces at all. Drop in kids aren't an ideal client for family child care programs in my area.

But as I stated previously this seems like an ideal solution for large centers that bill by the day or time used and juggle multiple kids/families/shifts etc.

I agree.

I offer drop in care, it's mainly my part time clients and a handful of drop in kids. I post on my DC FB page if I have a family going on vacation, and IF I fill it with drop-ins, I credit that family their daily rate. (drop ins are more $/day).

[Pestle]

I'm a family care provider like BC. Since I've only been in business for a year, I often do have one or two drop-in spaces available, but the number of families I'd consider for those spaces is small and I don't feel the need for a software program to connect with them.

[MarinaVanessa]

I provide drop-in care so this is something that I might be able to use. I signed up and here are a couple of my thoughts.

I like ...
* that it's easy to sign up and that there is a choice of being able to sign up either with email, Facebook etc.
* the look and that it's easy to navigate.
* that I can choose whether I want to allow for a half day or not.
* that I can enter my rate and decide how much of a credit I want to give my client if the full day fills up.
* the ability to set your hours and half day hours. I leave a gap in between my half days as a buffer in case a client is late picking up and I was able to set it up easily in the program.
* I was able to set up a separate "classrooms" for weekend care for the times that I want to make a little extra on the weekends. I really liked that!

What I wish was different...

* I saw that it allowed for half days but did not see anything that allowed me to charge a different rate for half days. I'm assuming it's half the daily rate. I charge a higher hourly rate for half days than I do for a full day. I would have liked to have been able to set a different rate for half days.

* I would have liked to be able to set a credit amount for half days that fill up for situations where a full-day client is absent and I'm able to fill the spot at least for a half day and give my regular client some sort of credit (less than the credit if it were a full day)

* I am restricted to only being open for a minimum of 6 hours. I sometimes do evening care for parent's night out on Friday or Saturdays from when my daycare closes (6pm) until 10pm but I'm not able to set up a different "classroom" for evening care for that number of hours (4 hours). The closest I could get was 5pm-11pm. It would be nice to have more control of these hours.


Questions that I have ...
Is the regular client given a credit if their spot only fills up with a half day client? If so how much?

Can we open up a spot without having another client drop one? For example, when I decide to do daycare on a weekend or evening (I don't have regular clients scheduled during this time regularly).

For a multi age family child care home what's the best way to set up the "classroom"? Just one classroom for the whole group? Different classrooms for different age groups? I'm wondering about ratio like if a client with a preschool age child drops a day and I already have 3 infants (under age 2) I don't want another client with an infant to sign up for it because then I'd be over my infant ratios but a school ager can also take the spot.

What's the best way to schedule school agers? I have a different rate for them for after school, before and after school and full days (for when school is not in session).

Do we have to give a credit? I know many providers don't give a credit for missed days. In this scenario do we just manually open up a spot?

Thanks. Overall for me I think it could potentially be a helpful tool. The fees aren't too bad and I suppose other providers could simply deduct the hoppingIn and PayPal fee's from the credit their clients receive but since in essence the spot will be paid for twice it's enough for me to just eat the costs and claim them as a business expense.

[smart]

Hi Marina, thanks for the thorough review and questions! Answers are in your questions in Red

I provide drop-in care so this is something that I might be able to use. I signed up and here are a couple of my thoughts.

I like ...
* that it's easy to sign up and that there is a choice of being able to sign up either with email, Facebook etc.
* the look and that it's easy to navigate.
* that I can choose whether I want to allow for a half day or not.
* that I can enter my rate and decide how much of a credit I want to give my client if the full day fills up.
* the ability to set your hours and half day hours. I leave a gap in between my half days as a buffer in case a client is late picking up and I was able to set it up easily in the program.
* I was able to set up a separate "classrooms" for weekend care for the times that I want to make a little extra on the weekends. I really liked that!

What I wish was different...

* I saw that it allowed for half days but did not see anything that allowed me to charge a different rate for half days. I'm assuming it's half the daily rate. I charge a higher hourly rate for half days than I do for a full day. I would have liked to have been able to set a different rate for half days.

You are correct, it does split the full time fee in half. Your idea is a great idea, and hopefully with continued adoption of the software, we will be able to add this feature

* I would have liked to be able to set a credit amount for half days that fill up for situations where a full-day client is absent and I'm able to fill the spot at least for a half day and give my regular client some sort of credit (less than the credit if it were a full day)

Good news! it does provide half of the full day credit that you are offering. So for example if a client opens a full day, and someone take half of that full day spot, if you were offering a $10 credit for full day, it would provide the client who dropped the spot $5 because her space was sold!

* I am restricted to only being open for a minimum of 6 hours. I sometimes do evening care for parent's night out on Friday or Saturdays from when my daycare closes (6pm) until 10pm but I'm not able to set up a different "classroom" for evening care for that number of hours (4 hours). The closest I could get was 5pm-11pm. It would be nice to have more control of these hours.

That's a great catch! That can and will be fixed!


Questions that I have ...
Is the regular client given a credit if their spot only fills up with a half day client? If so how much?

Yes! they get half of the credit you offer for a full time spot!


Can we open up a spot without having another client drop one? For example, when I decide to do daycare on a weekend or evening (I don't have regular clients scheduled during this time regularly).

Absolutely! it's designed for classrooms that are not full to begin with, so you can set open spots right off the bat! as people book or if you manually close spots it tracks it all!


For a multi age family child care home what's the best way to set up the "classroom"? Just one classroom for the whole group? Different classrooms for different age groups? I'm wondering about ratio like if a client with a preschool age child drops a day and I already have 3 infants (under age 2) I don't want another client with an infant to sign up for it because then I'd be over my infant ratios but a school ager can also take the spot.

Yes, you should classify the classrooms by groups like infant group classroom, etc... even if they are physically combined into one room, this makes it easier to manage and will ensure you don't go over ratio in the classroom as a whole


What's the best way to schedule school agers? I have a different rate for them for after school, before and after school and full days (for when school is not in session).

I would set these groups as different "classrooms" so the client can pull down afterschool - before school, afterschool - full day, etc...


Do we have to give a credit? I know many providers don't give a credit for missed days. In this scenario do we just manually open up a spot?

No, you can use this as a one way tool where you simply open the days you want to open and parents can browse and buy. The credit thing is really to motivate parents to open even more spots and have the calendar start to manage itself with parent input so they can help you create even more revenue! If an existing tuition based parent does "drop" a day, you ALWAYS get an email to approve or deny the opening


Thanks. Overall for me I think it could potentially be a helpful tool. The fees aren't too bad and I suppose other providers could simply deduct the hoppingIn and PayPal fee's from the credit their clients receive but since in essence the spot will be paid for twice it's enough for me to just eat the costs and claim them as a business expense.


Thanks for taking the time to fully examine the product and ask questions. I gave you a call and it went to VM but look forward to helping you get going. You'll be surprised how well it all works when you let the parents know about it!

[smart]

In response to Blackcat31

Thanks for your feedback. I understand that you may not need to fill the empty spaces, but just to clarify this was designed for those who wish to take advantage of the empty spaces and get additional revenue by letting other part time parents take those empty spots that are already paid for but not being utilized. So essentially you can get paid twice for that spot so you can garner additional income for your school if you wish.

I see this as a fantastic tool for large centers in metro areas verses family child care.

As a family child care provider I simply bill families for their slot and get paid whether they show up or not. I don't need to fill empty spaces at all. Drop in kids aren't an ideal client for family child care programs in my area.

But as I stated previously this seems like an ideal solution for large centers that bill by the day or time used and juggle multiple kids/families/shifts etc.

[Blackcat31]

Thanks for your feedback. I understand that you may not need to fill the empty spaces, but just to clarify this was designed for those who wish to take advantage of the empty spaces and get additional revenue by letting other part time parents take those empty spots that are already paid for but not being utilized. So essentially you can get paid twice for that spot so you can garner additional income for your school if you wish.

Personally, I find that practice unprofessional but that's just me.