Little Locals Satisfies Families and Centre Staff With Improved Lead Management

Little Locals Early Learning is a family-owned and operated early education group founded in 2008 in the greater Brisbane region. Their mission is devoted to nurturing future generations, supporting modern families, and building communities. After four years of relying on their own systems of Excel spreadsheets and manually checking their inboxes, they turned to LineLeader in 2021.

All 10 of their centers rely on Enrol, LineLeader’s customer relationship management (CRM) platform, to create strong relationships with families, keep occupancy high, and find an efficient way to communicate to many families with different needs.

Managing Lead Communications with a Centralised Hub

When Little Locals Early Learning opened their first centre, their lead management process consisted of just a spreadsheet and manually tracking emails in their inbox.

“We couldn’t easily trace emails, whose inbox it was sitting in, who got in touch with them last or if they had enquired before.”
— Eric Grindley-Ferris, Part Owner of Little Locals Early Learning

They quickly realised that the current parent demographic has shifted to digital platforms and automation, which led them to find a solution for their pain points.

With LineLeader Enrol, Little Locals Early Learning began their journey of improving conversion rates, occupancy, communication, and the parent enrolment experience by identifying their biggest pain points and determining what needed to be adjusted first.

With LineLeader

• ​Drives higher enrolment rates across all their locations
• ​Faster response time to families without the extra work
• ​Ensures ultimate parent satisfaction by keeping track of unique family data and care needs

Growing Quickly and Efficiently with Improved Lead Management

Little Locals’s goal is to keep building the brand and expand in other cities across the greater Brisbane region. Little Locals have found advantages of using LineLeader during the early days of a new centre (even while under construction) to let families know what’s to come. They keep every family in the loop about updates and enrolment openings at the new centres.

“With LineLeader, we start the process of getting the new centre settled on the system earlier. This way, we can increase family contacts 3 months in advance, offer them a tour at our nearby centres, and get them enrolled as soon as it opens or even before.”
— Sophie Jones, Senior Manager, Little Locals Early Learning

Boosting Family Engagement With Text Communications

Little Locals were struggling with finding a way to keep parents informed across 12 different locations. Communicating by email and phone calls was not effective enough for today’s modern guardians, given their expectations for convenient digital experiences. As a result, location directors became overloaded with manual enrolment tasks, and their communications to families were often off-brand or not always consistent.

Little Locals have found several benefits of using automated text communications. In fact, text messages in Australia average an open rate of 94% while email averages only 34%. Little Locals uses texting to automate reminders to families at different locations around the greater Brisbane region about excursions and events, but also to create strong and quality relationships.

“Our response rates have increased and we can actually see that the response rates are better outside the normal business hours, so we strategically schedule for the convenience of families. This way we know that families are more likely to engage with us at a more suitable time. Using the response rate tracking report we are able to identify and optimise our communications with families.”
— Eric Grindley-Ferris, Part Owner, Little Locals Early Learning