Your Childcare Center Got Amazing Accreditation Scores, Now What?

Congratulations on getting awesome accreditation scores!

You did it. You completed the Accreditation. You earned the Stars you worked so hard for! You were given the Seal. How can you leverage that into gaining interest and enrollment at your center?

First of all, a huge congratulations to you. We know how hard you have worked to achieve those high scores. The countless hours of prep and training all came down to that moment. And you did it!

Now the question is, how can you use those scores to promote your child care center to:

• help build your reputation
• strengthen your brand
• attract enrollment and attract employees

When you demonstrate your center as a place of high quality, you automatically become a stronger organization. Your reputation is viewed as a child care center that is a safe place to care for young minds. You can even become the daycare of the community with a strong reputation of quality.

Your brand has a seal of approval to let potential families and employees know you are an organization that is more than a babysitter. Your business model can become scalable and you can grow on the foundation of quality that you continually strive for.

With your strong reputation you become the destination for enrollment and employment. Those stars you earned shouldn’t just be a cling on that gets put on the front door of your facility, it should become a billboard of praise shouting out to all that will listen!

Yell it from the rooftops-

Write a blog about your scores and share on social media, your website, LinkedIn. For the content of the blog, take consideration to highlight:

• What the rating means in terms of quality
• What you excelled at (make sure to use keyword rich content)
• How your team came together to accomplish the goal
• What does quality mean in terms of the children and the staff
• How do you maintain
• What’s next

Take some time to talk to your staff about it and congratulate them for all their hard work. Let them know how it benefits them, the center and the families. Make sure everyone is on the same page, so no one is giving out incorrect information. A lot of time and effort goes into the rating process, so make sure everyone understands what was accomplished and how that affects the entire company.

Encourage employees to share the news. Get your employees involved. Our employees are oftentimes the reason for the achievement and will gladly help spread the news. Whether it's at a networking event, via social media or at Friday night softball, happy employees like to talk about the success of their company.

Write a personal memo to your families about the score you received and how that translates into better care for their children. Explain what you will continue to do to ensure you reach high scores every time.

Talk about it on a tour-

Parents and potential families are increasingly aware of accreditation/rating processes and what that means for care. It is vital you talk about what your center does during a tour. While they might not know all the intricacies of the programs, they are aware of them. Explain it to the family as simply as you can, what the process is and your scores and what that means to your center and to them as a potential family.

Do you give out a tour packet? If so, you might want to consider adding a 1-page flyer to the packet explaining your top scores, what it means and how it benefits the parents. You are going to explain it all during the tour, but adding that handout as well, will give them a refresher of what you talked about in correlation to the top scores.

Are you one of only a few centers in your area that completed the rating? It is ok to mention that too! You worked hard for those scores, brag a bit (but be sure not to say anything negative about your competitors).

Display it proudly-

You worked so hard for the scores, make sure to put the scores on display. Most organizations will send you a seal/plaque to display. Be sure to put it out, on display where EVERYONE can see it (a vestibule or lobby works great for this).

Create an image of a badge of quality or star rating of quality to display on your website home page. Also include adding it to brochures, flyers and social media.

When it comes down to it, you worked really hard on your rating process and for most of the organizations offering accreditation/stars/seals, it is a long process. Don’t let all that hard work go unnoticed. Talk about it. Make sure everyone knows. Be Proud-All your hard work paid off!

Add an image of your award or a statement about it within your email signature. It can be simple saying - "Proudly Displaying a 5-Star Rating of Quality"

Live video –

Use video (Facebook Live, or prerecorded video) to explain your quality rating. Show your excitement and even have your staff in the background. Make the production fun, simple, to the point, but enjoy it! At your next staff meeting, plan on taking video with a creative way to say – “We did it!”

Reward your staff –

Don’t’ forget to take care of your staff. They worked very hard to get these scores. It’s not just about paying bonuses either, find ways to offer flex time, or rewards to come in late. Be creative.

Don’t forget to include any participation in the employee’s performance evaluations. If they played a role in getting the score or even in hindering the score, include in any performance reviews.

Reinforce it –

Ensure you continuously strive for improved scores. Have the high quality become a culture at your center and not just during times before an accreditation visit.