Clunky systems don’t just frustrate families; they erode trust. Here’s how to ensure your processes build relationships instead of barriers.
Casey Bell, Ed.D., ISM Consultant 4–5 minute read
One of my New Year’s resolutions has been to shop local instead of just hitting “buy now” online. Resolution in mind, I recently stopped by a local bookshop on my way to the airport to grab a couple books I’ve been meaning to read.
I spent a few minutes wandering through the stacks, but I couldn’t easily find the titles I was looking for. A sales associate assured me that both books were in stock, but when she went to check the same shelves I’d searched, she couldn’t find them either.
It turns out, the store had rolled out a new system. Instead of shelving books by the author’s last name, or title, or even publisher, books were organized “by topic.”
That sounds fine in theory, but what if you’re unsure of the topic—as I was in that moment? Or what if your concept of the topic didn’t match the bookstore’s naming conventions? Is 10 to 25 by David Yeager a book about leadership? Could be business. Could be psychology. Maybe self-help? Parenting? What about Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara — business, leadership, or … who knows?
The associate and I wandered through section after section, convinced we had missed something. After 25 minutes, I gave up. I left the store without making a purchase.
Private school leaders, why am I telling this story in the ISM blog? Because schools do this all the time.
In my work with admission, enrollment, and other school leadership teams, I can’t tell you how often I see a “new system” pop up at schools. Someone is convinced a new process will make life easier, improve efficiency, or eliminate confusion. This may be the case for staff, but for families? New systems often cause confusion, frustration, and sometimes flat out exhaustion.
When Systems Undermine Trust
Think about what we ask of our prospective families:
- To inquire: They have to create multiple accounts.
- To RSVP for an open house: We make them click through five screens.
- To enroll: We design contracts that feel like a second mortgage application.
On our end, it all makes sense. We can track the form, we know the data connects to the database, we keep the business office happy, the audit trail is there. From the school’s side, it’s neat and tidy.
But parents don’t experience it that way. For them, it’s one more hurdle in a season when their mental load is already high; it’s one more lap through the stacks feeling bewildered.
What Families Really Experience
ISM’s enrollment management framework defines three spheres of influence:
- Market Position
- School Culture
- Constituent Relationships.
Within the context of constituent relationships, we advise schools to take a personalized approach, share stories that prove it, anticipate needs, and mitigate obstacles.
The problem is that most of our systems are built from the position of the school’s needs. What’s easiest for the admission office? What makes reporting clean? What does the business office need?
I can’t tell you how many times a school has told me they need an inquiry form with 28 separate fields in order to create each record in the admission database. Is this form really the place to collect grandparent information? (One school’s response: We may not have another opportunity to ask for it!)
Families (yes, even current families) don’t live inside the carefully built systems our schools ask them to navigate. Families inhabit their own universe that, during the school search and application process, can be complicated, emotional, and stressful. Their minds are full of questions that have nothing to do with portals or forms: Can I trust this school with my child? Will my family feel known and supported here? Does this place truly care about us?
What Messages Do Our Systems Send?
Whether we mean to or not, our systems speak volumes to the families we’re trying to reach. A clunky, confusing system communicates just as clearly as the website messaging we’ve so carefully curated.
ISM’s research has demonstrated that the way parents experience our school community impacts their intention to enroll and reenroll their child(ren) each year. In an age of convenience and expedience, it’s critically important that our admission and re-recruitment efforts mitigate obstacles.
When families hit an obstacle, it’s more than an inconvenience. It’s a mark on the relationship leading them to wonder:
- If it’s this hard to RSVP for an open house, what will it be like to get school info?
- If I can’t reset a password, will my child fall through the cracks too?
- If the enrollment contract feels like a legal battle, will this school support me when my child has a real need?
Parents don’t separate process from relationship. The process is the relationship.
So What Do We Do?
It’s not about throwing out every system. It’s about pausing long enough to ask: Who is this really serving?
A few recommendations:
- Walk through your own systems as if you were a parent. Seriously, click every button. Fill out every field. See how it feels.
- Ask for feedback about the process from newly enrolled families who have recently gone through the process.
- Engage in a communication audit. Count how many portals and passwords your families need to navigate their relationship with your school.
- Don’t add steps just because they make your database happy. Start with the bare minimum. Add the rest later.
- Remember that families don’t experience your office, your business office, and your IT office as three separate things. To them, it’s one school. Strive to make your process feel seamless to families first.
- Simplify before you automate. Don’t pour tech over a process that’s already too complicated.
How Can I Help?
If you’d like help assessing your systems, I’m glad to take a fresh look. Sometimes it takes a thoughtful outsider — someone not fluent in your school’s acronyms or the inside joke behind your portal’s name — to see where friction hides. We’ll map the family journey end to end and recommend practical changes that simplify processes, reduce barriers, and build trust across admission, enrollment, and re-recruitment.
Back At the Bookstore
So what happened with my books? I ordered them online — resolution cast aside — while walking from the store to the car. They arrived before I returned from my trip. The bookstore lost the sale, and likely lost me as a customer.
That’s the risk schools run, too. If it’s too hard, families don’t just give up on the form. They give up on the school.
As you head into this admission cycle, pause. Look at every “new system” you’re putting in front of families. Ask yourself: Is this working for them or just for us? Is this building trust or slowly eroding it?
And while you’re at it, go pick up Unreasonable Hospitality and 10 to 25. I did finally get them, and they’re worth the read.
About the Author
Dr. Casey Bell offers consultations in enrollment management, marketing communications, scheduling, and organizational structures within schools. Her school experience is vast and varied; she has been a chief advancement officer, director of enrollment management, director of admission, and director of college counseling.
Find out how Casey can help your school deliver its mission.
