Ask for Feedback

“Too often we substitute internal industry and product knowledge for customer input.” - Cindy Alvarez

🤔 Without feedback, you’re not going to know the issues parents have on their minds or what support they need. Communication is a two-way process. 🔀 Without having a consistent means of giving feedback you’re missing out on the feedback that will help you fix issues early on before they sink the ship. 👂 If you’re not listening to what your parents are saying then you’re not going to know their challenges.

🥺 With the uncertainty of today, feedback has become even more important. Things look different and that means we need to understand how parents are experiencing these ever-changing situations.

💡 Feedback can take many forms. It can be through phone calls, bi-weekly surveys, or a monthly zoom meeting with the administration.

💡 Ideally, you want to get feedback from everyone. But when doing time-consuming tasks such as phone calls, sometimes it’s best to focus on new families as well as high-attrition grade levels. Then it’s checking in with your long-term families to get a feel for the overall situation (they usually will tell you how it is).

💡 People often have feedback preferences. For example, some may prefer anonymous surveys while others do better with a phone call or Zoom session. That’s why varying your feedback methods are important.

🤔 What do you do after you collect feedback? Reporting back to your community after you’ve asked for feedback is probably the most forgotten step in this process. 🤨

🔄 It’s vital that you close the communication loop. If you asked for feedback and people shared, then it’s acknowledging that you’ve received feedback and that you are going to do x, y, and z.

💡 This could be saying that a certain issue was identified and either giving the solution or saying we’re working on a resolution.

🙌 Added bonus: I like to pull parent quotes from surveys and share them with staff (anonymously, of course). This strategy helps bring to life issues that staff need to hear about but ensures they’re not just hearing about it from the administration. They’re hearing it from their parents. 🐴 👄

For more ideas about communicating with your school's families join our next Free Monthly Small School Leaders Meetup! We are celebrating our 2-year Anniversary 🙌 so it's going to be extra special!

Thursday, October 6th @ 12PM EST we're inviting you, your team, and a colleague of your choice to join us in celebrating our Small School Leaders Anniversary! 🎉🤩

During this FREE event, there will be:

✅ Breakout rooms for development, enrollment, and marketing so you can dive into the unique challenges your small school teams face

✅ Prizes - just for showing up!

✅ Great conversation and support!

Add us to your calendar TODAY 👉 www.easyschoolmarketing.com/leaders #community #support #retention #communication #marketing #development #admissions