Closing the “black hole” that is a child’s school bag

So the summer holidays are over and the kids are back to school. That means frantic mornings getting the kids ready; gridlock traffic on the way to school and a new mobile app to improve school communications!

Exactly what I’ve wanted … better communication between the school and the parents (it’s funny how effective communication is a common problem literally…everywhere!) and no more lost letters.

You can imagine my delight when my girls came home with new homework diaries. Nicely bound with plenty of information at the front; time tables and other educational material at the back, with lots of pages for teachers to write details about the day and; space for a parent to put a comment in reply.

This alone was a massive leap forward and testament to the new Head who has been in the post only a year.

And there it was … a big statement on the first page about their brand new mobile app. To quote:

“The app contains term dates and events calendar, news from the school and galleries, Headmistress letter and other info. So it is easy to find out about activities in the school and it is free of charge to download onto your Smartphone”.

Brilliant! This is going to make it much easier to manage all the information we need to know about our girls rather than manage crumpled up letters in the school bags, if they even reach us. It went on:

“Like all Smartphone apps, you can contact the school directly to notify of absences etc from within the app.”

Fantastic! So they have really thought about what it should do. The app isn’t just about the school communicating with the parents. It is a two-way street. We can communicate with them. Where do I download?

Ah ha. A QR code. Perfect. I grabbed my phone and opened up the QR code reader app and scanned. “Ding”. Code accepted. App Store opened and there it was …. The wrong school!?!

What a monumental failure. All the hype, all the excitement and they hadn’t done the simplest of things. They hadn’t checked the QR code was the right one. Never mind, there is a URL. So I typed that it and “ding” an app unrelated to schools appeared. Oh dear.

I tell this story not to embarrass the school but to highlight a very simple but common problem. Here is a forward thinking school looking to use technology to its advantage. It is going to save on paper, miscommunication and provide information within seconds of needing to inform parents. Yet the basics have been lost – communicating the solution effectively in the first place.

By failing to ensure that the users can access it immediately, it has undermined the whole idea of a mobile app.

Before you ask, no, me and my business did not develop this app. I’m sure it will be great, when I can use it … but for now the school is going to have to spend time and money printing letters and hoping they reach me via the black hole of my children’s school bags.

So while our schools are turning to mobile apps to improve their communication between Heads, teachers and parents, what are you and your business doing to improve your communication between you and y our clients/customers ?