Prepare a useful childcare tour, answer the questions that matter to each family and agree on a clear next step.
A practical guide for centre owners, managers and the team members who welcome prospective families.
A family can leave a tour liking your centre and still feel unsure about enrolling. They may not know whether their required days are available, how their child will settle or what happens next.
When occupancy is low, it is tempting to make the tour more persuasive. Start by making it more useful. Help the family assess whether the centre can meet their needs, show what everyday care looks like and agree on a clear next step.
Use this checklist to review your next tours. It is a suggested working process, not a promised conversion formula. Adapt it to your service and each family.
Prepare around the family
Before the visit, the person running it should be able to see the enquiry, questions already answered and any agreed arrangements. Families should not have to start the conversation again at the door.
Confirm the child's age at the proposed start date, requested weekdays and intended start date. Check the complete booking pattern against current availability. If a required day is unavailable, explain that before the family makes the trip and let them decide whether visiting is still useful.
Our waitlist review guide explains why a room vacancy and a suitable booking pattern are different things.
Prepare a short brief:
- Who is attending, and who will welcome them?
- What matters most to the family?
- Which room would be relevant when care starts?
- What can the centre currently offer?
- Which questions need a manager or room leader?
Ask whether anything would make the visit easier, such as communication or access arrangements. Send practical directions, parking information and a simple way to reschedule. Schedule tours so the staff involved can give families attention while maintaining their care responsibilities.
Ask before you explain
Begin with a conversation. A useful opening is:
“Before we look around, what would you most like to understand today? And is there anything about starting care that you're particularly thinking about?”
Listen for the practical question underneath a broad concern. “I'm worried about settling” might involve sleep, separation, meals, previous experiences or an unfamiliar routine. Let the family explain without assuming what they mean.
Reflect back what you have heard:
“So you'd like to understand how we would support the first few visits and how you'd hear from the room team. Let's cover both while we're here.”
Use the family's priorities to shape the visit. Keep personal information within the appropriate centre records and avoid discussing other children's circumstances.
Show the everyday experience
A tour should help families picture their child's day. Connect the spaces you show to the questions they have asked.
In the relevant room, explain the routines and how educators get to know children. Where staffing allows, introduce a team member who can describe how the room works. Use real examples that reflect current practice.
Instead of “We provide individual care”, explain how the team learns a child's routines before they start and shares that information with the educators supporting them. Only describe arrangements the service can deliver.
Be honest when something varies. A particular educator may not work every day; a child may move rooms before a later start. Explain the expected arrangement and identify what still needs confirmation.
Finish each part with space for questions. Avoid filling every pause with more information. If you cannot answer accurately, record the question, name the person who will check and agree when the family will hear back.
Make the practical decision possible
Before the visit ends, check that the family understands:
- The room, weekdays and start date currently available
- Fees, inclusions and where to get an individual estimate
- How orientation and the first day are arranged
- The enrolment steps and any applicable offer conditions
- Who to contact with questions
A CCS estimate can support a fee conversation, but it should not be presented as a confirmed entitlement or guaranteed final bill. Use the centre's current information and an appropriate estimate tool, such as the customised CCS calculator.
Ask: “What would you still need to know before deciding whether this works for your family?”
If the issue is availability, discuss genuine alternatives. If it is uncertainty about the care experience, address that question. Avoid urgency claims that do not reflect a real offer or availability constraint.
Agree on the next conversation
Some families will be ready to progress. Others will need time, another conversation or a later start. Agree on the next action with them.
For example:
“I'll send the fee information and confirm the Friday place tomorrow. Would an email suit you? Once you've read it, would you prefer to contact us or arrange a check-in?”
Record the action, owner and date immediately. A useful follow-up answers the questions raised during the visit and confirms what was agreed. Respect requests for no further contact.
For a missed visit, offer another suitable time without assuming the family has lost interest. Update the existing record when a visit is rescheduled so it does not inflate tour counts.
Our enquiry and tour conversion service explains how Enrolment Boost reviews the journey and supports the centre team with analysis and training.
Review the evidence fairly
Look at the same group of families as they move through the process. This month's enrolments may come from earlier enquiries or tours.
Track unique families with booked and attended tours. For a family-level tour-to-enrolment rate, divide attending families with at least one confirmed child enrolment by all unique attending families in that group. Report child enrolments, child starts and booked care days separately so siblings do not distort the rate.
Keep future starts open. Record reasons families do not progress, including unsuitable days, changed timing, fees, another service or an unanswered question. Do not guess a reason when the family has not provided one.
Consider this fictional example: several families enjoy a preschool tour but need Tuesdays, which are full. The first task is to correct the availability message and review suitable alternatives. Tour coaching alone cannot create that Tuesday capacity.
Review a manageable group of recent tours with the people involved. Choose one change, such as checking availability before booking or improving the room-team introduction. Give it an owner, then review later groups with comparable timing and circumstances. Small groups and changing availability can make percentages jump, so read the notes alongside the numbers.
The immediate goal is a tour your team can deliver consistently and a family who leaves knowing whether the centre fits and what happens next.
For the next stage, use our first 30 days checklist to support the handover from an accepted place to ongoing care.
