Managing a dance studio can oftentimes appear like a glamorous job; and, with the gang of students to teach, studio employees to schedule, classes, instruments, and equipment to organize, you would not think that a seemingly trendy studio could be really tough to handle. Dance studio management actually entails attending to various administrative tasks like billing, payments, scheduling, payrolling, registration attendance and a lot more. In addition to this, you also have to think of ways on how to generate more revenues, build relationships with your community in order to attract more potential customers and build a network of people in order to gain an effective referral system as well as create an effective marketing plan that would actually work.
And as you watch your studio grow, you would think of different ways on how you can successfully manage and operate your business. There are a lot of options that you could choose from, like hiring someone to help with management and administration, but given that there are rather economical and more efficient tools that you could employ, that is something that you could postpone in the meantime. With the numerous preferences that are available in the market, the challenge would be choosing the right software that would effectively cater to the requirements of your dance studio.
Important Things to Consider Before Choosing a DSS
Before you go ahead and decide which specific DSS you are going to buy, the following are some of the most important points that you need to consider to guide you better in your search for the best DSS that can essentially make your job easier:
1. Take Advantage of Trial Versions. A lot of software vendors and providers allow potential clients to make certain that their product is effective and worth its value so as to aid them in deciding without spending a single cent. This way, when you have already decided and chosen the perfect DSS, you already have a general idea on how you can take advantage of its features as you have already given it a try.
2. Identify Your Needs. It is important to be aware of everything you need that your software has to do for you and then search for the product that could possibly address those needs. It is also important to decide what operational efficiencies you require. Would you use it for an efficient bookkeeping or online registration and payment? Or are you going to utilize it for running status reports like attendance reports and payment report? Making a list of your identified essentials is important as a DSS is not a one-size-fits-all
3. Read Reviews. One of the most important things that could help you decide which product will best fit your needs is reading current client reviews of a specific DSS. With this, you will be able to get significant opinions about what works and do not work for them.
Dance studio software is a rather powerful tool that will help you save time in the office. This suggests that you will be able to spend more time in the studio rather than performing the dreaded daily administrative tasks.
Essential Features and Benefits of a DSS
It is but natural for DSS vendors to claim that their product is the best. Since you have already distinguished the specific needs of your business, therefore, it is up to you to sift through the wide array of solutions that are being advertised in the market. To make your decision-making a lot easier, here is a broken down list of some of the essential features and benefits that you must look out for from your DSS:
1. Automated Administrative Tasks. Some of the best DSS allows you to automate administration where you record routine administrative tasks like billing automation and attendance checking by identifying the conditions where each task occurs. Using this feature frees your and your team’s precious time to do other administrative functions.
2. Membership Management. In order for dance studios to draw attention from potential students, they offer a number of promos and packages that cater to their various needs. With this feature, you will be able to offer them with different membership options like multiple memberships that can be easily modified. You should likewise look for DSS that has the capability of automatically alerting you of students that have canceled their memberships. This feature gives you the opportunity to woo your clients back by providing them with your studio’s promos and discounts.
3. Decreased Staff Workload. One of the challenges that a growing company usually experience is with the staffing aspect of the business. However, as this software allows you to automate administrative tasks, your staff or team will be eased out from the rather boring job of recording and entering vital students’ information.
4. Online Booking and Scheduling. With the advent of tablets and smartphones, an effective online booking and scheduling system a convenient and significant feature that allow you to stay constantly connected with existing and potential students. Also, your dance studio members are allowed to instantaneously access and register for their classes using any device via the internet.
5. Revenue Generation. Revenue generation is a method where your dance studio can sell or promote your services wherever and whenever you can to gain more income. Some DSS features intelligent point of sale solution where you can sell merchandise, track inventory and help you with client purchases and reordering.
6. Monitor Overall Operations. Given the numerous amounts of tasks, that should be taken care of; your chosen DSS should allow you to monitor your overall operations. It should feature a smart dashboard that will allow you to instantly access vital information and data from a bird’s eye view as being able to monitor your students’ current data will keep you updated important in managing your dance studio.
7. Technical Support. You should be looking for a DSS that provides efficient technical support who could guide you through their product in the event that you experience technical difficulties or just simply have questions on how to go about some of the software’s functions. Some usually provides a support button where answers to frequently asked questions are indicated.
What Dance Studio Software is Best for You
Crowdreviews.com lists some of the best dance studio software that is currently making a significant impact on dancing studio owners or managers. Below are the top 5 DSS according to client reviews:
1. MainSreetSites. This web-based software is ideal for mid-sized studios that feature quite an upfront functionality like online registration and payments, class management and website hosting that caters not only to dance studios but also, music schools and studios that offer drama and arts program.
2. MINDBODY. This DSS supports small, medium to large-sized studios all over the world that are capable of continuing to function even when you plan to expand your business, helps in reducing costs, generate revenues, attract new students and improve retention with online scheduling and payments and effective membership management.
3. Bookeo. According to a client review, this DSS was made an all in one effective appointment, classes scheduling platform with a large number of staffs. It also supports social media integration where students can book and pay online anytime, anywhere.
4. iClassPro. This is a medium-priced web-based software that caters to recreational class based business, which enables them to streamline daily administrative tasks and boost productivity, registration and improve communication in the workplace. It also features outstanding parent portal, intelligent student attendance tracking system, billing and invoicing, instructor management, online payments, scheduling as well as mobile attendance features that will effectively cater to your dance studio’s requirements.
5. YourVirtuoso. This DSS allows small and mid-sized dance studios to try this software before actually acquiring it. This software lets your customers do all the data entry for you online, which effectively eliminates the dreary job of going through numerous administrative tasks. Also, it takes care of alerting customers about their payments, at the same time, it has efficient accounting capabilities like monitoring revenues and receivables and lets you print class rosters.
While you are in the process of streamlining your dance studio management and administration, there are a number of things to consider and many decisions to make and one of these is picking the right dance studio software that will help you in simplifying your studio’s day to day operation. It may seem somewhat difficult, but with the foregoing information provided for you, you already have glimpsed through the most basic and essential features that you would need in getting one.
As your business gets more successful, the need for a tool that will lift off most of the burdens of managing it also grows. You may check Crowdreviews.com, to see the different examples of the best dance studio software based on client reviews and know what worked for them and their students.
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