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Blog

by Ty McDowell, on Thursday September 24, 2015

Parents have access to decision-making details from their mobile device. Brian Foster at Stars & Stripes Kids Activity Center noticed that most of his parents are last minute shoppers. Having a tool at their disposal, like a mobile app, gives parents exactly what they want: complete access to all the information they need to schedule and buy.

“Parents can even schedule events happening within the  hour quite easily through the app. Human interaction – such as calling in – is usually slower than using the app. In the end, providing the mobile app is better for everyone involved.”

The mobile app offers parents the 24/7 access they want and feeds their need for spontaneous purchase-ability.


The Revenue Follows

Opening up access and providing more and easier opportunities to buy increases revenues exponentially. Push notifications enable Stars & Stripes to put class and event availabilities and payment methods directly onto the mobile devices that parents are using all the time. Events or classes that may have fewer registrants can be promoted using this push feature and the result is an increase in total enrollments. It follows that revenues parallel this enrollment increase.

“Because of the ability to promote events at a moment’s notice, we can push events with lower numbers up the scale to higher attendance.”

Items that have performed especially well using push notifications are skills clinics. Brian attributes the improved performance to the staff’s ability to offer more information than a conversation allows since the app can display all instances that any particular items are offered. This opens up a time-saver for the parent since they can schedule and pay for all 6 clinics at once. Offering this “bundle” drives a revenue boost, as well, because these kids probably wouldn’t have been scheduled for all 6 events if sign-ups were only offered one by one.

Minimizing Front Office Workload

“We love it when we offload activities from office staff that parents are perfectly happy using an app for.”

With 24/7 access through the mobile app, parents have most of the answers they’re looking for at hand. The app’s menu functionality allows for very quick and easy maneuverability between various types of information like calendars, class listings, enrollment and payment.  This allows parent interaction with front desk staff to be about more meaningful topics than these business-related details.

Welcoming New and Innovative Ideas

Mobile Inventor demonstrates openness and flexibility in its relationship with Stars & Stripes. Brian brought into the development cycle some very innovative ideas to give parents a view into what’s happening at the facility within the app. The dev team is working on this as a customization that could work into a new standard feature option. 

“For me, this validates the extent to which Mobile Inventor will go in helping its clients provide features and capabilities that they think are important to their gym’s parents. Instead of putting this off as something that isn’t offered, Mobile Inventor immediately began research into making our ideas happen.”