Koru Kids is on a mission to build the world’s best childcare service – starting with improving the face of childcare in London.

After having a child of her own, and her friends all facing the same problems when trying to access childcare, CEO Rachel Carrell decided there had to be a way of providing top quality, convenient childcare. It was then that Koru Kids was born.

Koru Kids has now provided over 70,000 school pick-ups in London, as well as childcare for children under four.

Putting customers first

Rachel and the team are committed to making their whole customer experience seamless and simple – from getting families set up, to the care provided by Koru Kids’ nannies to the way customers pay for the service.

“Working parents are the busiest people in the world. Koru Kids aims to help parents get home to a calm oasis and our payment process is a part of that,” says Rachel.

“Usually in childcare, the admin is a nightmare. We took the time to choose every aspect of our processes to make the experience perfect. And it works, we often get told how easy it is – one customer even described it as a dream.”

Future-proofing payments

Koru Kids chose GoCardless as their primary payment method soon after setting up the business. After doing some background research into other providers, Rachel found she connected with GoCardless’ company ethos:

“I liked that GoCardless is a tech company, with a simple API and clear coding. So not only is it easy for our customers, I knew when we built out our development team – the developers would be happy too.”

I knew, with GoCardless, I was future proofing payments.

Koru Kids’ recurring business model means finding a payment method that is reliable, cost efficient and adds to the customer experience is extremely important. Rachel explains:

“We bill our customers monthly and process payroll on behalf of all of our families, being able to collect money reliably is extremely important to us.  We’re really happy with how successful our payments processes with GoCardless are.”

We use GoCardless within Xero, the integration works really well and it was so easy to get set up. We have seven day payment terms and one person can manage all of our payments in just two hours a week.

As Koru Kids continues to grow, the focus is to build out the after school services in London and optimise the product to make the experience even better for their customers.

“We’re focusing on London first, and looking to introduce a number of new product features to make sure our customers get the best possible experience – and continue on our mission to make the world’s best childcare service.”