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We all understand the importance of partnership with parents and encouraging parents to comment on, and contribute to their child’s learning journey. We created the increasingly popular ParentZone app to make this partnership easier.

But parent comments can help more than just child learning.

Here we discuss some ways that you can harness parent positivity to help your business.

According to Nielsen, 83% of people trust recommendations from friends and family over everything else. I would expect that this is even higher when talking about the wellbeing and safety of our precious little ones.

So encouraging parents to promote your setting is an essential component to getting more children into your setting and increasing your occupancy.

How can you collect parent comments?

Sorry to state the obvious here, but the only way to know what your parents really think is to ask them!

Ask them as part of their registration form when they first come to you. How do you know about us? What made you pick us over other nurseries in the area?

When children are leaving your nursery ask the parents to complete a form to let you know why they are leaving and how they found the experience with you. This way, positive comments can be used to help promote your setting, and any criticism can give you valuable insights into your offering.

Make the most of your communication tools. Use ParentZone to start a conversation directly with parents to get their feedback, or send a bulk email out with the Comms module of Connect Childcare.

The more feedback you get; the better.

Now you have your positive comments, what should you do with them?

Share, share and share some more!

Get them on your website, on the home page if possible. Prospective parents will have checked you out online before visiting and a customer referral will stick in their mind and make sure they come to you with high hopes!

50% of UK residents log onto Facebook at least once a month. So if you have a Facebook page, make sure you are using it to your advantage. Post positive comments on your wall for all to see. This might even encourage more parents to send their feedback.

If you have a Facebook group you can set up a poll, from here you will be able to see how your parents feel about different aspects of your nursery and can work out who to ask for quotes on specific areas.

Think about your physical space. Do you have an area that you can display positive comments inside your setting?

We all hope that parents come to view your setting with an open mind. But it’s likely that they may have preconceived ideas of your setting before they arrive. If prospective parents are greeted with brilliant testimonials when they step through you may be able to boost their perception of you without even saying a word.

We’ve created a free eBook, How to Impress Prospective Parents, full of ideas and things you might want to consider when trying to attract more parents and children.