How improving parent activation can help you get the best out of ParentPay

You’ve signed up to ParentPay, uploaded your pupils, added your bank accounts, set up your trips and payment items, and sent out the activation letters. But what happens when parents are still not logging in and using the system? You don’t want your investment to go to waste.

Having ParentPay set up does not automatically mean that parents will start adopting the new system. Could there be anything you missed that may be stopping some parents from using the system?

The truth is that some parents take time and plenty of encouragement to accept a new process; some may not want to pay online, or may not be aware of what they need to pay for. Whatever the reason, getting a high parent activation rate is the key to getting the best out of your ParentPay system.

Why Parent Activation Counts

For schools, having access to an efficient income management and reporting system that seamlessly integrates with all the leading management information systems is a critical way to save time and increase productivity.

We’ve found that the best way to maximise these benefits is by increasing the number of parents using the system.

Getting Parents on Board

It may seem like a difficult task – if parents haven’t signed up already, what’s to say they ever will? But it may not be the uphill battle you’re expecting, and there are a number of simple things you can do to improve your parent activation.

Setting up the system

All parents may have different requirements and circumstances, making it difficult to adopt a uniform approach in encouraging them to commit to using ParentPay. Making sure that your school has everything set up correctly and that you are presenting all the useful features of ParentPay will give you the best chance of getting parents on board.

Another feature that may be useful for parents is the Secondary Payer option. For separated or blended families, ParentPay gives the option to set up secondary payer accounts. This allows pupils to have two or more payers, each with their own unique login. Both payers can see what has been paid for and what is still outstanding, without having access to each other’s personal information.

Many parents also find ParentPay’s Alerts function useful. This function allows parents to set up free-of-charge email alerts, notifying them if their balance is running low, or if a new item or trip is available for payment.

You can find more information on ParentPay’s key features for parents here.

Promoting ParentPay to parents

Another common reason for some schools struggling with low parent activation rates is that the parents simply are not aware of ParentPay. We have found that active promotion of ParentPay to parents can make all the difference when transitioning your school to a cashless system.

You can let parents know that they can use ParentPay to pay for trips, meals, and much more through your school’s social media accounts. Something as simple as a quick tweet or Facebook post along the lines of “Geography Field Trip information is being sent home tonight. Don’t forget you can pay for this trip promptly via #ParentPay” can spark parents into action.

Another great option would be sending an email out to parents with some information about ParentPay and how to sign up. Writing emails can be time-consuming, so we’ve provided a variety of email templates for you to adjust which you can find in our suite of promotional content for increasing parental activation here.

Still struggling to get your parents on board?

If you’re still struggling with low activation rates, here are some additional tactics that may help.

You could also ask the headteacher to announce at Parents’ Evenings, or new intake meetings, outlining the key reasons why the school is making these changes, and how they can benefit parents and students.

Finally, consider incentivising your parents. You might run a competition where everyone who activates their ParentPay account or makes a payment online or through PayPoint, is put into a prize draw. Incentives like these could nudge parents into making an effort to use ParentPay. After all, who doesn’t love a good prize draw?

Hopefully, our blog will help you improve parent activation, but you can also check out our Top 10 tips for encouraging parent activation for more ideas to get your parents on board.