Spending too much time looking at a screen, writing emails, filling out forms, and reacting to security issues isn’t what most camp managers signed up to do.
Most of them wanted to think up and execute new initiatives, get some creative stimulation, and spend time helping families and children.
Fortunately, camp management software streamlines and automates a lot of the busy work involved with managing a camp, from collecting payments to registering new customers.
In this article, we’ll cover the five best reasons to use camp management software. This should help you decide if it’s the right tool for you.
- All Data Is Stored in a Centralized System
- High Security Against Data Breaches
- Streamlined Camp Registration Process
- Efficient Communication With Parents
- Improved Insight Into Camp Operations
- Conclusion
All Data Is Stored in a Centralized System
There’s so much to keep track of when you’re managing a camp, from a parent’s recent payment transactions to a child’s medications and allergy information.
You don’t want to scramble through paperwork or disorganized document files for that information when you need it most.
Poor document management is inefficient and costly:
Source: GoodFlow
It can also be stressful. When a child has a strange rash, you want the camp nurse to be able to quickly pull up their medical information and make an educated diagnosis.
Making data and documents easily accessible is one of many advantages of deploying camp management software.
These platforms store all your camp data in a cloud-based centralized database, so there will be no misplaced or lost documentation.
Because these tools can be integrated with your other software platforms, data will also remain up-to-date and consistent across departments.
Removing these data silos will lead to synergy, more efficient operations, and a unified view of your camp’s processes.
Source: Segment
These cloud-based databases are also searchable and filterable, meaning you can locate whatever specific detail you need with a few taps on the keyboard or mouse.
For example, if you’re on the phone with a parent discussing payment, you can type their last name into the database and pull up all their past payments and outstanding invoices.
This enables you to quickly address the parent’s question or concern, and exude competence and familiarity while doing so.
Customers will appreciate that you know their child’s name, the number of years they’ve attended the camp, the exact program and cabin they’re in, and all the other specificities of their situation.
And you and your team will appreciate the time you save thanks to having all your key documents at your fingertips.
For some camp administrators, that can mean hours back in their day.
According to research, knowledge workers spend about 2.5 hours per day searching for the information they need to do their jobs.
Source: Armedia
These are hours that you can devote to more critical and interesting camp projects, like rolling out a new marketing initiative or helping a child develop a passion for art.
High Security Against Data Breaches
It’s important to keep the data you collect on your campers safe from identity thefts and hackers. One slip could result in a bad month, or even year, for your brand’s reputation.
In fact, 83% of customers will stop spending money at a business for multiple months after a data breach.
Fortunately, camp management software platforms need to comply with certain security standards. A business themselves, they aim to protect their customers’ sensitive data.
For example, tools that facilitate online payments should be PCI-compliant, meaning they follow security protocols set by the Data Security Standards council.
Source: DPO Group
Through tokenization, encryption, firewalls, and a host of other security methods, these tools ensure that online payments are transacted safely.
When compared to on-premise data storage, cloud-based technology also tends to be far more secure, for many reasons, such as simplified encryption.
In sum, a cloud-based camp management tool will help you keep your data safe and maintain trust with your customers.
Streamlined Camp Registration Process
Camp management software allows parents to register their children online, using their mobile devices or laptops.
Since parents can do this on their own, your team won’t have to fill in any information manually. Consequently, you’ll eliminate human error and save a bunch of time.
This streamlining is all made possible through custom online registration forms that collect the specific information you need from parents.
You can easily build these custom forms and embed them on your site using camp registration software like Regpack.
Below you can see its drag-and-drop editor:
Source: Regpack
Your embedded online forms will also guide parents through the registration process, making it a fast and easy task for them.
The process is even more convenient if the tool offers conditional logic forms. This technology only displays form fields to parents that relate to their specific situation.
It hides the others so they don’t have to answer questions that don’t pertain to them.
Further, Regpack’s online forms enable parents to pay directly on your website using a variety of payment methods, from credit card to ACH transfer.
They can also choose from personalized payment schedules that you build in the software platform:
Source: Regpack
For example, one parent might pay in full, while another decides to pay in monthly installments.
This flexibility makes it easier for them to pay for your service and can increase sales.
With so much going on in their lives, parents will appreciate how easy it is to sign their children up for your camp.
Efficient Communication With Parents
Parents like to be kept in the loop. They’re trusting you with their children, so they certainly deserve that courtesy.
Camp management software makes it easy, even effortless, to communicate with parents.
With trigger-based email automation, you can set up emails that automatically send to parents when they take a defined action on your website.
Source: Regpack
For example, you could make it so parents receive a confirmation email whenever they register their child through your online registration form.
That way, parents get the need-to-know information ASAP.
Keep in mind that these automated emails don’t have to be impersonal.
You can create email templates with placeholder fields that autofill with the correct information about the recipient, such as their first name or the start date of their child’s program.
As a result, email automation reduces the amount of time your team has to spend communicating with parents, while still providing parents with a personalized experience.
Further, high-quality camp management software will also enable you to automate the creation and sending of invoices.
This reduces the number of instances of human error, late payments, and customer confusion.
Lastly, even if you do need to write a full email from scratch, you’ll be able to find all the details you need right there in your camp management software, so crafting a personalized email will be painless.
Improved Insight Into Camp Operations
Camp management platforms not only capture important data, but also help you turn that information into valuable insights through reporting and analysis.
Most tools will enable you to quickly generate reports with all the data that camp managers need to evaluate the performance of different initiatives and processes.
For example, you could uncover inefficiencies in your payment collection process through a payments report.
You could quickly figure out how many of your invoices are outstanding:
Source: Regpack
Or, you could spot a camp program that’s associated with fewer next-year returns, signaling that the program may be causing campers to dislike your camp.
With insights like these into your operations, you can make smart choices about how to improve camp performance.
Many platforms also allow you to set up ongoing automatic reports that share key metrics and KPIs that you need on a daily or weekly basis to make data-driven decisions.
For instance, a camp safety manager might track incidents like slips and falls or other injuries on their user dashboard.
If they noticed an unusual uptick over the last two weeks, they could decide to investigate the counseling methods, environment, and protocols to figure out what’s going on.
In this case, the analytics alerted the safety manager to a potential problem, and it gave them some direction for their action.
Perhaps, upon inspection, it turns out that one of the counselors is failing to enforce the pool’s no-running rule.
Overall, a robust reporting feature will help you answer important questions about your camp.
It will also help you figure out which questions to ask, and which things to investigate, in order to improve the camper experience and boost operational efficiency.
Conclusion
To summarize, camp management software can help your business in many ways.
It’ll help you store camper data securely, streamline camp registration, communicate with parents efficiently, and analyze and improve your camp’s operations.
As a result, it should improve your sales, retention, and revenue.
If you’re feeling like this whole camp management platform thing is worth investigating a bit more, check out our article on what to look for in camp management software.
There we break down the five common issues that tools solve for camp management teams, and how they work to do it.