The foundation system of the "Sitter Service" that meets all the needs of families! Poppins System

Japan's increasingly diverse "child-rearing families" have a variety of childcare needs. However, public services have various restrictions and are not always easy to use. Poppins Corporation's sitter service can help in such cases. The company offers not only late-night and holiday care, but also care for sick children and children who use only English. Moreover, the company's "nannies," or sitters, claim to have a customer satisfaction rating of over 951 TP7T due to their high level of service.

The company's IT system, Poppins System, supports this excellent service of Poppins Inc. The system has received the "Award of Excellence (Safety Measures Category)" at the BabyTech Award Japan 2019. The BabyTech.jp editorial team interviewed Ms. Yuko Maruyama, Executive Officer, and Ms. Yen Yamada, Assistant Manager (titles below omitted) of Poppins Corporation, to get an overview of the Poppins System, how it was developed, and its future development.

(We spoke to...)
Poppins Corporation　Executive Officer
Yuko Maruyama

Poppins Corporation　Assistant Manager, Child Care Services Department
Madoka Yamada

The Poppins System, a seamless delivery of Poppins' three services

Editorial: First, please give us an overview of the "Poppins System".

Maruyama:Poppins operates four major businesses: a babysitting service called "Nanny Service," "VIP Care," which dispatches nursing care staff to elderly people, operation of more than 300 childcare and educational facilities nationwide, and a training business. The "Poppins System" is a one-stop system for all three of these services: nanny service, VIP Care, and childcare and education facilities.

Editorial:How exactly can it be used?

Maruyama:First, regarding the Nanny Service and VIP Care, customers can easily make reservations using the Poppins System, either from a smartphone or from a computer. When a customer requests the dispatch of a "Nanny (Note: this is the Poppins name for a babysitter)" or "Care Staff (Note: this is the Poppins name for a caregiver)," an algorithm inside the Poppins system matches the most suitable nanny or care staff candidate and returns the results immediately. The "Poppins System" then provides a series of functions for using the service, such as checking contracts and dispatch schedules, and confirming the details of fee requests, all in one place.

Order screen for "Nanny Service" in Poppins system

The contents of the "Poppins System" at a daycare center are slightly different. It manages children's arrival and departure from preschool, calculates monthly fees, and has a "Poppins Memory" function that is like a communication book between the daycare center and the parents to keep them informed of their children's condition. You can insert photos of your child taken that day, and also send notices from the day-care center in the form of news releases. There are still many day-care centers that use "paper contact books," but we are doing all of this online.

Editorial:My daughter's daycare is exactly the paper contact book: ....... I would love to see that one go electronic as soon as possible!

Maruyama:Our clients may use more than one service. For example, there are cases where a family with children using a daycare center uses our babysitting service. Therefore, we aim to provide a one-stop service to make it easier for our clients to use multiple services.

Editorial:You may have a grandparent at home who needs care, or your child goes to daycare, but the daycare is closed today, so you ask for a babysitter.

Maruyama:That's right: the smartphone app we released in early 2019 displays icons for Nanny Service, Nursing Care Service, Daycare Center, and Smart Sitter, our group company's babysitting service, on the home page after you log in. And the frame of the icon of the service you are subscribed to is highlighted with a color. In other words, our multiple services can be used seamlessly from this app screen.

Each service you can choose from the Poppins System App

The industry's fastest "reservation system" that allows you to order with your smartphone

Editorial:I would like to ask you about the part of Poppins System related to "nanny service". What is the major difference between Poppins System and similar services of other companies?

Maruyama:There are various babysitting service companies in Japan, but many of the older babysitting service companies are not yet online-enabled. They have websites, but few of them have their own reservation systems.

Editorial:Does that mean I have to call every time and make a reservation?

Maruyama:Yes, we do. While there are so many companies that use "human labor" to handle the back-end system, i.e., matching and arranging for potential nannies to be dispatched, our system uses IT, and I think our strength is that our customers can make reservations easily and quickly through the app. Nannies that have been previously requested are displayed on the app as candidates with their portraits, and the customer can choose from among them.

Editorial:You mean that reservations can be completed quickly online. Are there any other features?

Yamada:Our company is able to provide "100% support (dispatch a nanny)" even for same-day orders. We will always arrange staff no matter how urgent the request is, which we believe is an advantage that other companies do not have. Recently, we have been receiving a great number of orders outside of normal hours, such as from parents in the service industry who have to work even when daycare centers and kindergartens are closed on Sundays and holidays, from police officers and ministries, and from foreign securities companies who have to deal with early morning and midnight market hours. Our "24 hours a day, 365 days a year" service is a groundbreaking service format, and we offer "services that basically never say 'no'" with "English-language support" and "support for newborns and sick children," which I believe is an advantage that other companies do not have.

The "Poppins System" has continued to transform the old structure of the sitter industry.

Editorial:I understand that the "Poppins System" is updated approximately every five years; what year was the current Poppins System released?

Maruyama:The current Poppins System 2015 was released in 2015 and allows you to take orders and check your reservations on your computer or smartphone. The app was also released in early 2019. We are currently developing a new version, which we call internally "Poppins System 2020".

Editorial:Was it not possible to make reservations online in versions prior to 2015?

Yamada:When the previous version of "Poppins System 2012" was released, smartphones were not yet widespread. Instead, we made it possible for customers to place orders using the so-called "Galapagos," which I believe was the first such initiative in the industry. At that time, after an order was placed, contacting Nanny and sending her an email with an introduction were all handled manually. What was revolutionary about the "Poppins System 2015" was that it could be viewed on smartphones as well as Galakay, and furthermore, contacting nannies and making introductions to customers, which had been done manually by coordinators, could now be done fully automatically.

Editorial:What was the impetus for you to develop such a system?

Yamada:This is the strong desire of our chairman, Nakamura. Nakamura started the babysitting business based on her own experience of working as a mother who had to leave her child at home, which was a very difficult experience for her. Therefore, she has always had a strong desire to advance the world of childcare. As a result, we have accomplished many firsts in Japan, such as being the first nanny service in Japan to receive ISO9001 certification and the first nursery school in Japan to be operated by a corporation. We have also begun to make our services available on the web.

To introduce "nannies who match the needs of families" in the fastest possible time

Editorial:What difficulties did you face in the development process?

Yamada:In a nutshell, "automating matching" is not a simple task. For example, it is very difficult to express "the compatibility of a nanny and a family" as an indicator. In addition, some parts of the system, including the adjustment of nanny schedules, are not yet fully automated, so we are still working on ways to "improve the matching rate.

Editorial:What do you mean by "matching rate?"

Yamada:This is the "percentage of nannies automatically introduced by the system in response to a request. The Poppins system picks up the most suitable nanny and introduces her to the client, but there are cases in which the system is not able to find a nanny. In such cases, the coordinator will search for and introduce the nanny to the client.

Maruyama:After all, nannies are human beings, so there are times when the system mechanically asks, "Would you like to work here? If we call them and ask them to help us, they often accept the request. In the future, we hope to be able to automate this part of the process in some way (......).

The "Poppins System" welcomed by parents of the "smartphone generation."

Editorial:Can you tell us what your customers think of the Poppins system?

Yamada:First, as for the results of the satisfaction survey on Poppins nannies, we received a response of "satisfied" from more than 951 TP7T customers last year as well. We also received feedback that our web-based order placement system is "very convenient," which we believe is partly due to the increasing use of the system by young parents.

Editorial:What are your nannies' impressions of the Poppins system?

Yamada:When the system was first introduced, more than 50% of the nannies were using Galapagos, and some said it might be difficult to use ....... However, over the past three years, more than 90% of the nannies have become smartphone users, and they have become so accustomed to the system that some of them say they have become IT-savvy thanks to the Poppins system; even nannies in their 60s have arrived at customers' homes using Google Maps, and they can view information about customers using their smartphones, Nannies say it is very convenient. They have commented that it is really easy compared to the "phone" and "fax" they used to use to exchange information.

Editorial:Finally, what are your plans for the future of the Poppins system?

Yamada:We have already achieved this with the application, but the web system's nomination screen currently only displays Nanny's name. We plan to release the system by the end of 2019.

Maruyama:Our goal for the future is to improve the matching rate. It is an insatiable challenge to introduce the most suitable personnel in the shortest possible time, even if the client does not tell us to do so.

<After the interview

When working and raising children together, there are often times when it is difficult to reconcile the convenience of work with the convenience of the children. When work is off or after hours at the daycare center, or when a child develops a sudden fever, a service like Poppins that provides "safe and high quality childcare" is something that all parents are sincerely seeking, don't you think?　And for busy working families, the fact that they can make a request with just one phone call, without being asked to submit cumbersome forms or make phone calls, is also something that is truly appreciated. While covering the event, I thought about the possibility of this service spreading nationwide, and if possible, if local governments would hand out coupons to subsidize the use of this service: .......

Poppins Corporation Official Website https://www.poppins.co.jp/