Operating a summer camp is a challenging task. And the work doesn’t stop after summer’s over.
There’s so much to do, all year round, from marketing strategy planning, devising the program of the camp, taking care of staff recruitment and training, to tracking and managing enrollment documentation, communicating with parents, and so, so much more.
What would you do with the extra time if there was a way to eliminate at least some of these time-consuming and sometimes tedious tasks?
While you ponder over that question, we’ll explain how camp management software helps you streamline your workflow and consequently work faster and better.
- Reduces Human Error Through Automation
- Creates an Effective Registration Process
- Handles Your Billing and Payment Processing
- Automates Your Communication With Parents
- Makes It Easier to Perform Camp Evaluations
- Generates Detailed Camp Reports for You
- Conclusion
Reduces Human Error Through Automation
Payment processing, invoices, registration, and enrollment documentation—camp workers come into contact with more data on a daily basis than they’re probably aware of.
Moreover, all that data needs to be somehow entered into the system.
And if you’re doing it manually, you already know that this process is not only slow but also quite susceptible to human error.
Even the most dedicated, careful, and meticulous person can eventually get tired and distracted. There’s not much you can do about that.
The mistakes can vary, from minor ones, like typos or grammatical errors, through more serious ones, such as entering duplicate or incorrect information, all the way to downright losing data, especially if you’re relying on paper forms.
This is where camp management software comes in handy.
The automation of data entry that software provides is a game-changer for summer camps in terms of improving operational efficiency.
Here’s just a quick breakdown of the differences between manual and automated data entry.
Data: Docsumo/Illustration: Regpack
Overall, camp management software not only saves time and storage space (because it eliminates the need for paper-based documentation), but it also significantly reduces room for error since it doesn’t rely on human labor to be effective.
In other words, less human intervention equals fewer mistakes, and that directly translates into smoother workflow and more time to deal with what actually matters instead of wasting precious time double-checking everything and correcting mistakes.
Creates an Effective Registration Process
If you’re looking to streamline your operations, you also need to take a look at your registration process. Is it paper-based? Is it applicant-friendly, or is it a bit more complex than it should be?
Overly complicated or long registration forms are ineffective, cause frustration, and, in turn, they usually lead to form abandonment.
So, in order to reduce calls and emails from confused parents to a minimum, you want that part of the process to be as quick and easy as possible.
Source: Genie Gratto on Twitter
In other words, working towards creating a more efficient registration process benefits you and the parents alike, because a simple registration process makes life easier for them and it increases registration rates for you.
Therefore, consider using camp management software to streamline your registration process.
For example, our own solution—Regpack—relies on a couple of features to considerably improve the registration experience.
Firstly, Regpack makes it possible for you to create customized camp registration forms with its online form builder feature. Just drag and drop the fields you need into your registration form.
Source: Regpack
Once you create the form, you can embed it on your camp’s website, which means parents don’t have to leave your website at any point during registration because it all takes place in a single location.
Moreover, the conditional logic feature ensures that the whole experience is tailored to every family’s needs.
Source: OSTraining
The feature operates based on triggers that activate certain questions on your registration form.
For example, if a parent needs to register more than one child, they would only need to click on a statement such as Add another camper, and the conditional logic would automatically activate a set of questions about that additional camper.
Essentially, conditional logic makes it so that the parents see only the fields they need to see, which enables them to go through the registration process more seamlessly.
So, the parents of an only child wouldn’t have to see any questions relevant to parents of siblings.
In conclusion, the registration process is important for making a good first impression on the parents. So why not make it as streamlined and effective as possible?
Such a change would benefit the parent, as well as your staff.
Handles Your Billing and Payment Processing
Finances are another area where camp management software makes a huge difference in your camp’s workflow and it does so by automatically handling invoicing, billing, and payment processing.
Having all these processes automated significantly reduces errors, increases operational efficiency, and saves you so much time in the long run.
Camp management software like Regpack integrates payments into the registration process, which is a huge plus because, just like complicated registration forms, page redirects are known for discouraging people from completing registration.
Source: Regpack
Simply put, parents want simplicity and integrated payments mean less work for them.
Integrated payments also mean less work for you because this feature automates tasks such as sending invoices and payment reminders, which eliminates the need for your team to manually go through every single applicant’s payment status and contact those with an outstanding balance.
Yet another thing parents want, especially when it comes to payments, is flexibility. And with Regpack, you’re able to provide just that.
Paying with different payment methods, in full or in installments—it’s all possible.
Source: Regpack
This is a huge deal because offering personalized payment plans and the opportunity to pay in installments is the only way for some parents to afford your camp and provide their children with this unforgettable experience.
In other words, for some, paying in full is simply not an option, so they are sometimes forced to give up on enrollment.
Therefore, offering the convenience of different payment options to parents will be greatly appreciated and positively impact your enrollment rates.
Automates Your Communication With Parents
By enrolling their children in your camp, parents are displaying a great deal of trust in you.
The key to gaining, justifying, and retaining that trust lies in effective and personalized communication that is maintained before, during, and after holding the camp.
Emails are a perfect tool for that task because they’re cost-effective, easy to personalize, and quite versatile and so they can be used for all sorts of purposes, from sending invoices, payment reminders, or discounts for early bird registrations to providing useful information such as camp start dates, updates, or even photos of campers during camp.
Source: Regpack
In other words, emails can cover all your communication needs.
But at what cost?
Manually typing and then sending out all those personalized emails to each individual parent would eat up all your time.
Fear not, however, because this is yet another problem that can be easily solved by camp management software.
To begin with, consider, for example, the reminder for the final payment from the image above. Imagine you have to send an email like that to a couple of parents.
That would mean typing in a different first name, last name, the amount the parent’s already paid, the amount currently owed, and when that payment is due.
With camp management software, such tedious tasks are a thing of the past.
The software auto-populates each parent’s personal information into the email, pulling the data from their registration form.
Source: Regpack
Then, you can filter the parents with an outstanding balance and send them emails with payment reminders.
No more manually going through spreadsheets trying to find out who has paid in full and who hasn’t!
Moreover, camp registration software lets you send emails automatically after certain predefined actions occur.
This is actually where the conditional logic we mentioned earlier comes into play again. You set up certain conditions, i.e., triggers that, when met, cause a particular email to be sent.
For instance, imagine receiving that final payment from the parent in the previous example. This action can be set up to act as a trigger for a payment confirmation email.
To sum up, automated communication is a crucial part of any camp’s operations.
It makes your workflow more efficient and boosts the relationship you have with the campers’ parents because it’s easily maintained throughout the year.
Either before, during, or after camp, there’s always a reason to reach out to parents.
Makes It Easier to Perform Camp Evaluations
One big part of post-camp communication, for example, is asking parents and campers for feedback.
Their input is invaluable as it provides you with data that can help you make better-informed decisions in the future and as such, it should not be overlooked.
Source: Young Greenwich on Twitter
After all, their opinions should matter the most to you because the whole purpose of what you do is to create amazing experiences and long-lasting memories for your campers.
There are many ways you can go about collecting that precious feedback, from in-person surveys to printing out and then mailing out paper forms, hoping that you’ll get some responses.
You probably already know these are not quite as efficient. Parents are busy people and paper forms are not really known for being either cost or time-effective.
Therefore, using camp management software to create surveys is the way to go.
Source: Regpack
With camp management software, you can create surveys for parents to fill out and send them out via email.
Going paperless and taking the whole evaluation process online means parents can fill out the evaluation forms from the comfort of their own homes and fit the evaluation into their own schedule.
This increases the chances of them actually completing and submitting the form.
Oftentimes, camp management software offers a wide variety of features that take the evaluation process to another level.
For instance, consider looking for software that has the ability to save the parents’ answers even if they abandon the process before completing it.
That leaves you with at least some of that useful input from them.
All in all, finding an effective way to collect feedback can be a game changer for any camp’s operational efficiency, and using camp management software for that often thankless task makes all the difference!
Generates Detailed Camp Reports for You
Now that you’ve successfully collected feedback from parents and campers, it’s time to analyze and actually make sense of all that data.
What does it tell you? Are there any patterns? Are campers generally more satisfied with their camping experience compared to previous years?
Analyzing data from the evaluation forms can reveal a lot about your camp’s current strengths and weaknesses than you didn’t expect.
But all that data has the ability to make your decision-making even more data-driven and better informed.
Source: American Camp Association
In other words, collecting and analyzing data pertaining to different aspects of your camp can help you with both short-term and long-term planning and in turn improve and grow your camp in the long run.
Camp management software enables you to manage all that crucial data more effectively by allowing you to automatically filter, find and export the data you need and then put together high-quality reports in seconds, making them available to everyone on your team immediately.
Source: Regpack
In fact, the ability to create and access reports on the go is just one of the key reporting features camp management software should provide.
The ability to track any set of data and to compare it to any other set of data is equally important.
Want to compare last year’s enrollment rates to the year before? The information is just a few clicks away.
Finally, to better visualize that comparison, there are statistics generated in the form of graphs or pie charts. They’ll give you a better understanding of your camp’s progress.
Overall, being in full control of your data makes for a better camp overall.
It gives you full insight into your strengths and weaknesses, the effectiveness of your marketing strategies, and so much more.
Conclusion
To conclude, automating as many aspects of your operations as possible is what your camp needs, if your goal is to grow and become better at what you do.
From eliminating avoidable mistakes and confusion resulting from complicated registration processes to automating payments, communication, evaluation, data tracking, and data analysis—camp management software does it all.
Why not try it out? You’ll see an amazing improvement in your workflow in no time.