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‘Tis the Season—For Exciting Changes!

‘Tis the Season—For Exciting Changes!

At FLOW Aquatics, we believe in the power of positive change. Further, we believe that by continually making improvements to how we run our swim school, these changes benefit you, our clients, and most importantly, our fantastic student swimmers!

This October, Coach Shannon and Amber were fortunate to learn about several exciting industry trends during their attendance at the US Swim School Association’s Annual Conference in beautiful Denver, Colorado.

Not only were they able to hear many great presenters, but they also had the opportunity to meet many exciting vendors providing incredible services and insight to those in the swim school industry.  

Some of our big takeaways from the conference include:

  • Introduction to Emotional Intelligence (EI) and how and how it affects the workplace and employee retention
  • Implementation of ZenDesk, a customer service and support ticket software, to better respond to our clients needs
  • Development of a mobile app, specifically for FLOW Aquatics Swim School

Below are the highlights:

Emotional Intelligence (EI)

Inspired by Bruce Sullivan’s incredible presentation about Emotional Intelligence (EI), Shannon and Amber were excited to get back to FLOW Aquatics to start implementing some of the following lessons:

The Institute of Health and Human Potential defines EI as the ability to:

  • Recognize, understand and manage our own emotions
  • Recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others

In practical terms, this means being aware that emotions can drive our behavior and impact people (positively and negatively), and learning how to manage those emotions—both our own and those of others—especially when we are under pressure.  

EI not only affects personal success, it affects professional success. It’s also important to note that the most successful companies have employees who are rich in Emotional Intelligence.  

That being said, Shannon and Amber came back determined to enhance our employees’ EI, and through that increase employee satisfaction and retention. This will, in turn, lead to increased customer satisfaction, something we make a very high priority here at FLOW Aquatics.

The instructors divided our EI lessons into two parts in order to hone this skill on more than one front, and we are helping our team improve in the following ways:

1. Professional: All staff members are learning how to implement the Love and Logic philosophy into their coaching and are rising to the challenge. Love and Logic entails:

  • loving, balanced approach which is neither permissive nor punitive.
  • showing adults how to discipline kids without losing their love and respect.
  • focusing on helping children develop personal responsibility, self-control, and good decision-making skills.

2. Personal: All staff members were given the opportunity to raise their Emotional Intelligence by partaking in Shawn Achor’s amazing two 21-day Happiness Courses. We invite you to learn more or, better yet, join us in our journey!

ZenDesk

We were introduced to a software specifically designed to enhance customer satisfaction. It allows us to put all of our support emails in one place and create tickets for each one to better track the needs of our clients. This is already helping to improve communication and to ensure that all requests are being handled in a timely manner.

Our very own Mobile App

To make communication between us and our clients even easier, we are excited to announce the development of our very own FLOW Aquatics Swim School mobile application! 

The new app will contain family swim registration, account login access, a calendar of events, class make-up requests, class transfers and withdrawals, loyalty card tracking, and will be an easy way to contact us. Below is a brief rundown of some of the app’s features:

CUSTOMER ACCOUNT ACCESS
  • Need to log in to your customer account to check on your child’s class, change your credit card number or email address, or submit a payment? Our app will provide easy access to all of your account information. 
MAKE-UP REQUESTS, SCHEDULE TRANSFERS, AND WITHDRAWALS
  • Need to submit an absence, schedule a makeup class, submit a class transfer, or request to withdraw? Our app will allow easy access to these forms right from your mobile device.
LOYALTY CARD TRACKING
  • Having troubles remembering and keeping track of your loyalty cards? Our app will provide easy tracking of your loyalty card right on your mobile device.  
FACILITY STATUS
  • If you would like to be notified when FLOW Aquatics Swim School classes will be canceled or postponed due to inclement weather or holidays, our app will let you know!

The FLOW Aquatics Swim School mobile app will be launching in January, and we can’t wait for it to be completed.

In the meantime, we are already seeing the benefits of implementing these changes. We are streamlining communication, improving responsiveness, and cultivating a strong company culture. As always, we believe that you, our clients, come first—and we believe our choices should always reflect that. Thank you for growing with us, and, until next time:

Happy FLOWing!