How to Increase Daycare Enrollment With Security Camera System & Live Streaming Parent Portal
with Daycare Security Camera System with Live Streaming Parent Portal
The day care business isn’t all that different now than what it was 20 years ago, other than two factors which are unfortunately making it harder and harder to be competitive in a highly over-saturated market. There are MANY more day care facilities available to choose from these days. Not just the corporate giants spread across the country, but also in-home day care providers and non-profit day care facilities as well. There are also MANY more children placed in day cares these days because a large percentage of both parents now work full time. For day care providers across the nation, they must find ways to market to and attract parents to their facility and then keep them there.
In 2017, the Small Business Development Center Network states, “The US child care services industry includes about 54,000 commercial facilities with combined annual revenue of $21 billion, plus about 21,000 facilities run by nonprofit organizations with combined annual revenue of about $12 billion.” But it is very much a competitive landscape.
“Demand is driven primarily by growth in the youth population, and secondarily by employment and income. Recognition of the importance of early education is also driving demand for high-quality care. The profitability of individual child care facilities depends on good marketing, reputation, and efficient operations, as well as how saturated the local market is. Large companies have economies of scale in advertising and administration.”
Differentiating yourself with an edge you can market to your current clients and to attract new customers is the only way to survive in these areas.
“Customers whose yearly household income falls into the zero to $40,000 range make up 29% of the potential household market. These households typically use government assistance to access child day care services. The largest client segment includes households with incomes ranging between $40,000 and $100,000 at 40% of the market with household of income over $100,000 constituting the remainder.”
Average hourly wage is increasing, cost of operation is increasing, competition is increasing so to be able to charge the highest rate and offer the best care to the children you care for, you must stand out with services others don’t offer.
With all of these costs rising yearly, and sometimes quarterly, owners and operators of day cares must find new and unique ways to help set your facility apart from the masses.
Operators can hire more qualified staff and child care providers but that directly equates to having to raise the fees and tuition for the parents and guardians of the children you teach. Hiring the best child care workers is highly competitive as well. Being able to charge more so you can pay your workers more, especially ones with formal education, can increase your ROI tenfold. In this highly competitive area the window of raising fees too much and eliminating your clientele completely is very narrow.
Owners can build new facilities, but most facilities are perfectly fine the way they are.
So what are business owners supposed to do to give yourselves the advantage you need in this ever changing landscape?
For one owner, Julie Marshall in Phoenix, who found herself in this exact predicament, she discovered an unlikely answer to several issues and set herself apart from ALL the other operators in a more than 25 mile radius.
Case Study
A day care owner trying to stand out and be unique in a sea of other day care providers in her area
Charging more for the same services left her in a precarious position between attracting new qualified child care providers and pricing herself out of the market with new parents. Finding a unique answer to this balance came in the form of a technology solution that could help on three widely differentiated fronts.
Differentiating herself from the other day care providers in her area, Julie found a solution to not only how to be a cut above the other facilities and offer a service no one else was, but also how to provide security to herself, her staff, the children, along with the parents AND save her money each year on her commercial property insurance.
The Soluiton?
An IP camera system with remote access that ALL of the parents can use to watch and hear their children during the day.
In Julie’s facility, Rainbow Kids Daycare, she has cameras outside at the drop off / pick up area, in the lobby, in each classroom, the main hallway, her office, the kitchen, the staff lounge and outside to watch the recess area.
She installed the system herself with the help of her husband and a couple other members of the staff over the course of a single weekend. She set the system up on her high speed internet so she and the parents could have remote access to it on their phones and tablets from anywhere through a very simple to install app.
Once the app is installed she has a simple QR code the parents can scan to give them access to the specific NVR applicable to their child/children. The code can be placed on stickers, on the terms and conditions page for the facility, on the agreements the parents sign or even on a small placard that sits on the lobby desk.
She even has stickers on all of the doors and windows notifying everyone that enters the facility that video and audio are being recorded.
Then each parent or guardian can be assigned a different user name and password that gives them ONLY the cameras they need for their child/children. The applicable classrooms, recess area, drop off area, main hallway, etc. If a facility has a cafeteria that can be one of the cameras as well.
These settings and login credentials can be adjusted, added and/or deleted within seconds from the NVR itself.
This way each parent and guardian has real time access to footage of their child at all hours they are in her day care facility.
This is a gigantic added value that clients are very willing to pay for
Results
Peace of mind is worth A LOT to parents when it comes to their children.
Capitalizing on this opportunity won’t break the bank but will gain you a huge leg up in reliability and reputation in an ever changing landscape of childcare.
How to do this? Have cameras installed around the facility to watch everything and then give specific access to the parents of each child for the areas their children reside. Classrooms, recess area, cafeteria, pick up / drop off areas.
At the push of a few buttons parents will be able to see and check on their children.
Audio is even a possibility which can protect the facility and staff from unwarranted allegations that can be easily and summarily negated. Another added benefit to having cameras mounted around the facility!
You’ll also be giving your staff peace of mind with having a security presence on site at all times. Not to mention the property insurance premiums you could save. Most insurance companies give businesses a price break for security and/or camera systems.
For Julie, and hundreds of other owners/operators just like her, who called Jennifer at Rugged Cams, they’re already reaping the benefits of this kind of system.
Call today! An example of a site plan layout and package pricing are below.
The infrared triangles show the direction the cameras are facing, NOT the areas the cameras will cover, since the Occulus domes all have motorized adjustable lenses.
And with the plug-n-play technology of Rugged Cams, Julie was able to install her system with no added labor charge.
If you don’t have enough time to install your own system that’s just fine, there are tons of installers all over the country that can install it for you.
Installation Charges could range anywhere from $95 to $250 per hour depending on the difficulty of the install.
Quote and statistics for this white paper were pulled from SBDC Network website. SBDCNet
16 Camera Daycare Security Camera Package
- 1- 16 Channel Recorder (6TB HDD)
- 2K Resolution (4 Megapixels/camera)
- Audio included on every camera
- 12 – Infrared Motorized Zoom Domes
- 4 – Infrared Bullet Cameras
- 8 – 50′ Pre-Made CAT5e Cables
- 8 – 100′ Pre-Made CAT5e Cables
- 1 – 24″ 1080p LED Monitor
