Let’s talk “discounts”. And, no, I am not referring to discounting CampBrain! 🙂

I am referring to the concept of lowering a session’s price for one reason or another. It is a tricky topic because there can be a variety of reasons for discounting a session’s fee – early bird, sibling, referral, staff, special code, etc. We recently released a new discount engine in our web-based version and I would like to highlight some of the specific benefits and how they can assist your camp. Our dev crew has done a fabulous job with a complicated topic – making it easy to create your own discounts for a variety of situations and maintaining a lovely interface for parents while also building a very robust piece!

Here are some of the parts I really like:

1. Self-serve configuration – we created a special place devoted just to configuring your own discounts! This is important because you may decide to try something new, on the fly, and you need to implement it right away (e.g. you are headed to a camp fair and you want to give the first 10 families 5% off if they register within the next 2 days). You also might change your mind and need to adjust things quickly yourself. Configure them one-by-one, allowing you to have discounts that are unique to each session or session option. Want to provide a higher discount for a less popular session? No problem:

   

   Configure them one step to multiple items – here is an example of applying a 10% discount across the board:

   

2. Automation – set it up and let it run. Early bird discounts turn on and off at the right times. Codes monitor when to be available, for how many people and for how much.
3. Flexibility – you can set your discount as a general one for the whole season (e.g. $25 off the season) or have discounts on a line by line basis (e.g. have discounts for specific sessions and options). They can be triggered by date or by a special code.

   

4. Presentation – when parents are registering online, it is critical to provide a simple, clear and complete picture, particularly when it comes to the numbers. The parents see both the net price as well as the “base” price less the discounted amount. Everyone loves to see a discount!
5. Accounting wonderfulness – we are tracking each use of a discount and can report back both how many people took advantage of them and the total financial impact.

Software development and use is a collection of small nuances that can make one’s life much more pleasant …and our Dev crew works hard to hit those nuances, reduce those clicks and make the experience a more pleasurable one for parents and camp staff. I am confident there is much enjoyment to be had from this particular feature.