Parents and guardians are busier than ever, but their voice needs to be heard now more than ever in schools. Here are some strategies for increasing parent response rates. Possip schools can implement these to hear from more families by gaining investment, showing appreciation, and focusing on the Possip Champions in your community!
1. Message Possip’s Purpose Clearly
One of the most crucial first steps to getting families on board with Possip pulse checks is to clearly state the purpose of sending Possip pulse checks, and remessaging this routinely. If families understand the meaning behind the text messages and that you are valuing and reading every response, their investment will increase significantly. Make sure all of your families know the WHY behind sending Possip pulse checks – and the WHY for them responding. Here are a few questions to begin reflecting on as your crafting your Possip purpose statement to send to families:
- What was the reason your school moved to doing specifically Possip pulse checks?
- Why text messaging?
- What do you hope to be able to do with Possip pulse check data?
- Why is it important for your school to hear family voice?
- Why as a parent is it important to share their voice and feedback and praise?
- How will Possip pulse checks positively impact the school community if families respond consistently?
2. Keep Pulse Checks Relevant
Routines are helpful for families when it comes to communication. Possip pulse checks are a perfect example of a consistent routine communication source. We ask a few baseline questions about parent happiness, praise for the school, and feedback for the school. Schools can make the pulse checks more relevant and keep parents engaged in responding to pulse checks by using Bonus Questions at the start or end of each pulse check. Bonus questions allow parents to feel like they are sharing their input on topics that are current and meaningful. Check out this article on the Possip bonus questions and how you can add them to your pulse check.
3. Provide Appreciation and Incentives to Families
Showing gratitude for responders helps them understand that their voice is being heard and it is valued. Schools can reach out to a handful of families who responded each week via phone, email, or other communication method just to personally say “thank you” for taking the time to respond. Parents are busier than ever so providing praise and encouragement to them during this time is a benefit for so many reasons and will spur them on to continue taking the pulse checks. They may even talk to their friends at the school and other parents can become your very own Possip publicizers! Also, by focusing on the parents who are responding, schools can learn so much from them and make such positive momentum in the community through those important voices.
Incentives are also a powerful tool and motivator for families. A few ideas to start thinking about boosting response rates include:
- Having a grade-level competition and the grade level with the most parent respondents wins a community prize (i.e. “virtual movie night” or “free dress day” or a big longer of a recess time one day)
- Provide raffle prizes to families who respond and pick one winner every month for school swag or something families would appreciate
- Write public shout-outs to families that shared their name in an upcoming school newsletter for “top Possip responders” or get their approval to share an actual praise quotes in an upcoming family communication
Incentives don’t have to just be prizes, though. It could be a community incentive of reaching a goal together as a school for hitting a certain response rate and using a visual to track Possip metrics. For example, in front of the school (if doing in-person school), have a visual showing your Possip goal and how much you have left to reach your goal. Think one of those thermometer fundraiser trackers! Humans love to see visual progress towards a goal and will see that the school is putting this goal as a priority for the community.
4. Use Multiple Methods of Publicizing Pulse Checks
Families may need reminders in multiple ways to respond to the pulse check. Schools can increase response rates by reminding families to take the survey on their social media sites (instagram, facebook, twitter), sending out an email or robocall to families, putting a reminder in a parent newsletter the day before or after sending a pulse check, or sending a reminder on apps like class dojo or talking points. The more methods of reminding parents to take the Possip pulse check and the important purpose of Possip, the better!
5. Tell Them What You Heard
Make sure to close the feedback loop after a Possip pulse check and tell the community what you heard. This helps them get invested and understand that someone is actually reading these text messages families are sending in. At Possip, we have a product offering that does this for school leaders called the 360 script. The 360 script pulls out trends in praise and feedback from the pulse checks that week and puts them in family-friendly language so schools can easily share that quick message back to the community to increase investment. If you are interested in learning more about our 360 offering, reach out to caitlin@possip.com.
6. Utilize Possip Champions
Use your family members who respond to Possip pulse checks consistently to hype up Possip to other parents. Schools could even create marketing materials for Possip with those family members or share their testimonials on social media outlets. The more that families see members of their own school community backing Possip and the benefits of it, they will be more likely to get invested and respond. This could even look like just asking a few parents to reach out to 10 friends formally or informally and make sure they respond to Possip that week!
Another way to utilize Possip champions is to ask them what the school can do to increase response rates. They probably have some awesome ideas to try. They also are able to tap into their parent perspective to think of effective strategies for your specific community. Use your Possip champions to build more investment in hearing family voices!
7. Invest Your Teachers in Possip
Get your teachers invested in the purpose of Possip, too! The more that families see everyone at the school referring to Possip and hearing about how the school uses the data, the more families will utilize the tool. Many families also give specific teacher shout-outs in Possip pulse checks that can. These get teachers excited about investing parents in Possip. Possip truly has positive benefits for everyone in the school community!
8. Correct Contact Information & Target Non-Responders
Make sure you have correct family contact information in your system. This is a huge barrier to seeing as much success as possible with respondent rates for Possip. Schools or districts can have a campaign to gather new contact information and try to get up to date data for all families. Schools can even target non-responders to see if that contact information is now incorrect or if there is another reason families are choosing not to respond. Getting that data is important to understanding your community and making the most out of Possip pulse checks!
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