Review and convert a lead

A lead is a prospective family: someone who filled in your inquiry form, called, or walked in asking about openings. You work each lead from its drawer on Admissions & CRM → Pipeline, and when they sign up, Convert to Family creates the family, the child and the classroom placement in one step.

Where leads come from

• Your inquiry form. Families who use your enroll link, the Enroll button on your website, or find you through NestliCare's search become leads automatically. See Add an Enroll button to your website.
• Walk-ins, calls and emails. Add them yourself with Add Lead on the Pipeline. Once the lead exists, emails you send from it are logged for you (see below).

Add a lead manually

1. Go to Admissions & CRM → Pipeline.
2. Click Add Lead.
3. Fill in what you know. Only First Name is required. Then click Create Lead.

Screenshot pendingThe Add Lead form

1234

1. 1Parent first name is required. Everything else is optional and can be filled in over time
2. 2Contact: email and phone, so you can follow up
3. 3Child's date of birth. You'll need it before you can convert the lead
4. 4Source: website, referral, walk-in, phone, and so on

Move a lead through the pipeline

Every lead sits in one stage:

• Inquiry: just came in
• Tour Scheduled: a tour is booked
• Toured: they've visited
• Waitlisted: they want a spot that isn't open yet
• Admitted: you've offered a spot
• Lost: they went elsewhere or stopped responding

Drag the card to another column, or click the card to open its drawer and pick a new Status. Every change is logged on the lead's timeline. When you convert a lead, it's marked enrolled and leaves the board.

Screenshot pendingThe lead drawer with status, assignment, activity timeline and tasks

1234

1. 1Status: change the lead's stage here
2. 2How warm the lead is, worked out from its logged activity
3. 3Activity timeline: every status change, note, call, email you send, and the parent's reply
4. 4Tasks: follow-ups for yourself, like calling back Monday

Assign a lead

If more than one person chases leads, pick a staff member under Assigned To in the lead's drawer. Hand-offs are logged.

Calls, tasks and follow-ups

• Log Call and Add Note on the timeline record a phone conversation or anything else worth remembering.
• Add Task sets a follow-up with a due date.
• The Today button on the Pipeline opens Today's actions: overdue tasks, tasks due today, today's tours, and leads that have gone quiet or have nobody assigned.

Email a lead and see their reply

Open the lead and click Send email. Pick one of your email templates as a starting point (the one matching the lead's stage is listed first) or start from scratch, edit the subject and message, and send. The email goes out under your daycare's name, and the send is logged on the lead's timeline.

When the parent replies, the reply lands on the same timeline as Reply from …, the lead's assignee and the person who sent the email are told (bell and push, plus a copy in their own inbox), and you can click Open conversation to read the whole exchange and answer right there. Answer from NestliCare rather than from the emailed copy so the reply is kept with the lead.

Automated emails from your lead automations work the same way: the send is logged, and a parent's reply lands on the timeline. Since no one person wrote them, the reply alert goes to the lead's assignee, or to your admins if the lead is unassigned.

Email sending is switched on per daycare. If the composer says it isn't switched on for your account yet, you can still write the message and copy it into your own email; email [email protected] to have sending turned on.

Extra questions on the lead

To collect extra details (how they heard about you, the days they need, allergies), add questions to your inquiry form under Admissions & CRM → Enroll Page → Inquiry Form → Questions. The answers show on the lead under From the inquiry form. See Change your inquiry form questions.

Convert a lead to a family

When the family says yes:

1. Open the lead and click Convert to Family at the bottom of the drawer.
2. Under Where does this child go?, choose:
   • New family for their first child with you. Check the Family name and Billing email.
   • Existing family for a sibling of a child already enrolled. Search by name, email, or a child's name and pick the family. If the parent looks like someone you already have, the dialog says so.
3. Check the Child: first name, last name, and Date of birth. The date of birth is needed to create the child.
4. Choose what happens for the parent:
   • Add [parent] as a family member is ticked when the lead has an email. Their phone comes across too.
   • Email them an invite to the parent app is off by default. You can also send it later from the family card.
5. Under Enrollment, leave Place the child in a classroom ticked and pick the Classroom and Start date, or untick it to place them later.
6. Click Convert (or Add to family).

Any completed enrollment forms are copied to the family's documents; the dialog tells you how many. Conversion can't be undone. Afterwards, attach a tuition plan so the child is billed. See Create a billing plan.

Troubleshooting

Converting said the parent member wasn't added. The family and child were still created. Usually that email already belongs to a parent in NestliCare. Add or invite them from the family card. For a returning family, use Existing family next time.

Converting asks for the child's date of birth. Enter it in the dialog's Date of birth field and convert again.

There's no Convert to Family button. It's hidden on Lost leads. Change the status back to an active stage first.

A lead is sitting in Inquiry but I did call them. Stages don't change on their own. Move the card after each contact, and use Log Call so the timeline shows it.

The lead looks cold but the parent is engaged. How warm a lead is comes from logged activity. If you talked on the phone but didn't log it, the system has no idea. Use Log Call or Add Note.