Speakers:
- Eddie Cook, Corporate Director of Admissions, Asher College
- Maggie Zaman, Director of Admissions & Marketing, California Career Institute
- Loren Ellison, Key Accounts Executive, LeadSquared
Key Takeaways:
- This webinar follows in the footsteps of education industry experts who talked about LeadSquared’s 360-degree solution for their institutes with the power of its complete admissions platform for student acquisition, application tracking, student journey tracking, enrollment, and more.
- The webinar concentrates on how an optimized student journey mapping can smoothen out institutes onboarding students from an inquiry to admission.
- The concept of a non-linear student journey map was discussed which says that student’s journey map has no real end.
“A Students Journey Has No Real End”
Does it read like philosophy?
No, let’s have a closer look, but this time, to provoke a ‘challenge.’
The challenge was posed by Loren Ellison, who wants to re-think everything about a student’s journey.
She asked her webinar audience to imagine the student journey as a cycle.
Her hypothesis is simple.
- A student enquires,
- Gets admission
- Enrolls for a course
- Their course progresses
- They graduate
- They continue education which starts again with an inquiry.
This is one of the many examples of successful student journey mapping.
Experts on the webinar panel discussed such examples.
These experts are professionals in the education sector, thriving for over a decade.
But before you read on, here’s a small recap for context’s sake.
A student journey map is a non-linear timeline that starts with their decision-making process.
Then it touches on various hotspots, like knowledge gathering and emotional microdecisions.
For a not-so-clinical approach, a student journey tries to achieve some goals.
Goals like gaining insights and improving touchpoints to increase the chances of enrolment.
What Student Journey Map Really Tells Us?
The student journey map provides a snapshot of how students interact with institutions.
Simply put, a journey map identifies the interaction between a user and a company.
The journey is identified over time and across all the channels they use.
It depicts the user’s journey, in this case – students.
The map is a snapshot of different phases of getting to know them.
It can highlight things like
- student entry and exit points
- frequency, nature
- effectiveness of various touch points.
It highlights what works vs. what does not work.
Key insights help forecast and plan for enrollment targets .
It also helps in student engagement initiatives.
LeadSquared played a crucial role in transforming Maggie’s institute in this particular instance.
LeadSquared a) translated her vision and b) personalized and provided targeted solutions.
More than 500 career schools use LeadSquared’s powerful, all-in-one CRM and marketing platform to gain remarkable efficiencies across every aspect of admissions which is what transformed California Career Institute.
LeadSquared’s enrollment automation can help you:
- Work smarter, slash costs, optimize student experience
- Increase inquiry-to-enrollment speed
- Zero lead leakage with complete data capture
- Centralized lead management
- Run targeted communication campaigns
Technology Brings True Personalization
Eddie Cook, Corporate Director of Admission, Asher College, explained how automation adds to the fine print of personalization.
“It is like a row of dominoes, right?”
“You have 30 dominoes and the very first domino is the student inquiry, they flip that first domino, and that’s the first action,” explained Robert.
“Because of that first action, the automation, flips over the rest of the dominoes and it does everything for you,” he added.
He also explained streamlining the process of replying to enquirers.
The quick response time was done through automation by LeadSquared.
Selling or reducing response time is not new to LeadSquared, you can now empower your response team with LS’s on-the-go mobile CRM.
“I’ve added a lot of human touch to it. I’ve added a lot of components that allow me to connect with students,” said Maggie.
So, technology is used to fine-tune personalized messages with a quick response time.
It is to make connections stronger during entry/exit points.
All of these to maximize efficiency in
a) reaching out to more students
b) optimizing student journey map.
This kind of personalization through automation can be resourceful, significantly when a longer response time to basic queries from students can drive them away.
“So technology can help you with mapping each student touchpoint as we talked about achieving faster response times at ease team and incredible, less than one minute speed to lead, leading to better engagement,” mentioned Loren Ellison, Key Accounts Executive, LeadSquared.
A report by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) estimated a 4.1% dip in undergraduate and graduate student enrollment, equaling about 685,000 students in spring 2022.
With personalization, institutions might effectively tackle the declining enrollment numbers and punch it with effective student journey mapping, and the results could be nothing short of a miracle.
Eddie Cook shared a quick comparison between pre-LeadSquared and post-LeadSquared days at Ashford.
“We had a homegrown CRM that had worked, it worked well, it wasn’t great, but it worked well,” he said while stumbling upon the fact that through LeadSquared powered automation, he essentially could get rid of manual follow-ups and check-in on students.
“By automating that and saying, hey, look, this is the next person you want to reach out to or don’t forget to follow up with this person,” he added.
Personalized Student Portal
There’s a basket of solutions that tech-driven innovations can bring. For instance, faster and personalized response times can drive better engagement.
Here’s another example, a personalized student portal, an experience zone for the student to imagine their journey ahead, can help institutes make data-driven choices and get actionable insights for student journey maps.
Maggie Zarman did a quick walk-through of how ‘imagery’ played a big role and how LeadSquared-powered CRM had a profound impact in telling a story.
The first page starts with Student Portal online application login.
Once logged in, the first page gives students a view of all the programs.
The second page breaks down the admission process as digestible information.
The student applies and enrolls, followed by the application stored in Orban.
So, what Maggie observed is that
- Content should be strong
- Storytelling through imagery
- Personalization is important
It would seem that the institute is trying to articulate that “we have your back” – in more straightforward terms making CRM useful for students.
“So for me, the student portal has been really something innovative. I’ve had a lot of fun with it. But at the same time, I’ve seen how much it’s helped with improving our systems, the applications are coming in seamlessly, students are able to get on there 24/7, it works for you overnight.,” explained Maggie.
She referred to the LeadSquared-powered solution that transformed her student portal.
A student portal is amongst the common student-college touchpoints, an essential part of a student’s journey map. Intuitive touchpoints like this also help institutes map their students better.
Getting student journey mapping right can dramatically increase the application and retention rates —a case in point is Maggie’s anecdote.
Mapping A Diverse Gen
“We can look at it by generations we have the Baby Boomers, Gen X millennials, Gen Z are sometimes called the Zoomers,” said Loren Ellis while explaining how diverse the student population is.
This very diversity demands the dismantling of what institutes think.
They treat student journeys linearly.
They ignore that everyone’s journey is unique, which requires respective journey mapping.
This understanding is what institutes need to internalize over time.
“It’s foolish to think that a singular student journey is going to fit all student’s situations,” added Loren.
Responding to this, Maggie talked about how invested she is in each student’s journey and their stories.
“I personally like to connect to the stories behind each and every one of the students,” explained Maggie.
“It really helps us to decipher the model of who our student is and so in doing that, we found ourselves at the heart point of our strategic enrollment management plan,” she added.
This sentiment is something that LeadSquared grasps.
LeadSquared’s power of one helps automate application process and student enrollment. It helps institutes map end-to-end student journeys – inquiry, applications, counselling, enrollment, and beyond!
We allow a merge of plans, thoughts, ideas, and various student touch points, all under one roof.
Call us, book us, ask us for a demo, and let us be a part of your journey ahead.
