Running a Successful Dance Studio

Students are the Soul of Your Studio

If teachers are your most valuable asset, then students are the soul of your business. If you don’t have students or if you have students that aren’t happy then you are on a very slippery slope indeed.

Address Complaints Quickly and Positively
Address Real Concerns but Don’t Pander to Whims
Use the Phone or Face to Face if Possible
Use Open Days to Show Off Your Classes
Offer Trial Classes
Stay in Touch
Be Consistent About Your Approach to Dance
Encourage and Improve
Run Classes at Appropriate Times

Address Complaints Quickly and Positively
If a student or parent has a complaint you need to address it quickly and fairly. If someone has gone to the trouble of complaining then as far as they are concerned it has become a significant enough problem that they have taken the time to do something about it. You should deal with all complaints as a top priority to show that you also feel the same way.

If you delay in addressing it, the problem may grow into something much bigger that may harm your business.

Address Real Concerns but Don’t Pander to Whims
Do your homework and do some fact finding. Talk to teachers if they were involved and assess whether the complaint has any legitimate merit or whether it’s a misunderstanding or a troublesome student / parent and then do one of the following.

Legitimate problem – basically fix the problem or put a plan in place to fix the problem. If it only affects a few people, contact them directly and explain what has been done or what will be done. Again, try to anticipate how they may react and prepare your responses so that you can remain in control and act positively. Empathize with them and do not get into any arguments and thank them for bringing the matter to your attention. If the problem may end up affecting many people, create an announcement and send it to everyone.

Misunderstanding – sometimes misunderstandings can occur if teachers give mixed messages, don’t follow procedures or a message isn’t communicated clearly. When this occurs you can diffuse the situation quickly by contacting the person directly and explaining what happened. Contact everyone if you think that the same misunderstanding may happen again. Clarify the original source of the misunderstanding.

Troublesome Student / Parent – this is probably the most difficult to deal with and should handled very carefully to prevent it blowing up into a bigger problem. The old saying, “You can please most of the people most of the time, but you can’t please all the people all of the time”, is very true.

There’s a way to solve every problem but you need to determine if fixing it is going to pander to the complainers whims and potentially cause problems for everyone else or whether the complaint, no matter how trivial, can be fixed easily without upsetting anyone else. Weigh up the pros and cons and try to think outside the box. Hold a staff meeting if necessary to get ideas and to alert your teachers that there may be a problem.

Contact the student / parent that made the complaint and try to be constructive by asking them to explain their problem again. Often explaining it will diffuse the situation because they may realize how silly their complaint is. If they are still holding firm then ask them for help. How do they think you might be able to solve the problem. Often that question will make them start thinking about how much of an impact their whim might have on your business. Explain to them that there really is no solution that will not affect everyone else.

If the worst comes to the worst you may end up losing the student but try to part on good terms to avoid ugly confrontations or potential law suits but do not offer discounts or side deals otherwise the following week you’ll end up having the same conversation with everyone and having to offer the same deals to them too.

Don't turn your studio upside down for one student.

Use the Phone or Face to Face if Possible
Email, texting and instant messaging are great ways to communicate but can so easily be interpreted wrongly. Unless you’re an award winning writer, the phone or face to face is always better.

Firstly, the person will appreciate the personal touch. The fact that you went out of your way to call and address their concerns directly. Secondly, people are less aggressive when they are talking to a real person, and they’ll be able to gauge your emotions much better. Often that will be enough to demonstrate your concern and they’ll appreciate the importance you have placed on fixing their problem.

Lastly, phone calls are often much less time consuming than email where you have to read and re-read what you wrote to avoid miscommunications.

Use Open Days to Show Off Your Classes
Students hate these but parents love them and overall they’re great for business. Parents get to see your teachers in action, can talk to them and put a face to the names they hear each week. This contact makes them feel a closer connection with the studio.

Younger students often complain about not liking classes but really it’s because they’d sooner be watching TV or something else. If parents know that the teachers are great and the classes fun they will act in your favor and encourage their children to continue and better than that, won’t just call the studio to complain. They’ll also be more inclined to send siblings to classes too.

Offer Trial Classes
Trial classes are great for getting first timers into your studio or for getting current students to bring along their friends.

Stay in Touch
So many parents lead busy lives and probably don’t get the information from their children, so you have to tell them what’s going on. Send newsletters and announcements home with students.

Email is very effective but use it wisely. It’s easy to misinterpret an email because it has little emotion to it. Keep emails short and to the point and don’t abuse email by sending something every day otherwise people start to ignore them.

There are many great email subscription services available online that give you the ability to send nicely formatted emails with options for the recipient to opt out. You’ll pay a small monthly fee for one of these services but they are worth it because they are globally recognized and so even if you’re sending out thousands of emails they don’t get blocked as spam. However, if you use their services to send spam you will be banned from using their service.

Be Consistent About Your Approach to Dance
If you’re a fun dance studio where students will have a great time, learn some cool dance moves, but may not get a thorough grounding in the core techniques that will enable them to dance with the Royal Ballet then you need to be honest about that. If you’re a super strict studio that does 50 minutes at the bar for an hour long class but with a high probability that your students will end up with a career in professional dance, then be honest about that too.

When students or parents approach your studio, assess what the student is looking for. Will they do better in a nurturing environment or a strict lesson structure. If what they want doesn’t align with what you provide then be honest with them. There is more than enough business out there and they will still recommend you to other people because of how honest you were with them. It’s better to send a student to another studio on good terms and get referrals than it is to have a student enroll for a semester and leave on bad terms. The negative publicity just isn’t worth it.

For the same reasons above, have your teachers assess students and make recommendations to parents if you see that they are not getting the most out of the class.

Encourage and Improve
Self esteem is an important goal for all your students. Even if the student isn’t the best in the class, you can go a long way to making them the best by commenting on how much they improved or how well they executed a step. It really helps them to improve and feel positive about what they’re doing.

Happy students who feel they are improving tend to stick it out and sign up the following year.

Run Classes at Appropriate Times
Find out the times when your local schools start and finish and offer classes at times that are appropriate. Look at large corporations in the area and consider traffic patterns. Even think about meal times.

If you make it convenient for students to attend classes and avoid difficult times of the day, you’ll find that not only will your attendance improve but your class sizes will grow and your students will do better.