A student enquiry management system (SEMS) helps your team streamline student interactions and improve overall visibility of the admissions funnel. So, for Janet, our admissions counsellor, it is easy for her to focus on building a rapport with her students rather than spend time on manual tasks and daily updates.
Institutions today struggle with meeting their overall enrollment goals due to intense competition and manual tasks that counsellors need to complete on a day-to-day basis. The result—poor student experience and low engagement.
Introducing a SEMS in the process will not only ensure better student experiences but also help the management to get predict trends for upcoming academic sessions.
It serves as a centralized platform for managing student inquiries and interactions. SEMS automates tasks, allowing counsellors like Janet to focus on personalized engagement, ultimately improving the efficiency of the entire admissions team.
In this article, we share what it is how it works and benefits of a having a SEMS in place.
What is a Student Enquiry Management System?
Student enquiry management system (SEMS) is a software used by educational institutions to organize and manage student inquiries. It helps institutions keep track of inquiries, communicate with prospective students, and streamline the admissions process.
Let’s explore the inner workings of a SEMS that helps streamline counsellor interactions and build interactive onboarding processes.
Student Enquiry Management System—How It Works?
We’ll talk about Janet, our admission counsellor, again, but this time look at her day without a SEMS in place. She begins her day by reviewing incoming inquiries and reaching out to them. She then applies additional filters to prioritize follow-up calls for the day. Afterward, she painstakingly records her notes and updates the admissions head about her daily progress.
And the cycle repeats itself.
With a SEMS in place, your counsellor can deliver better student experiences. The most obvious impact being– helping them focus more on counselling the student rather than spend more time on repetitive manual tasks.
Let’s see how a SEMS helps Janet and her team.
1. Captures inquiries across sources
In the digital age, inquiries pour in from different sources—social media, ads, direct walk-ins, publishers, and more. A student enquiry management system ensures that enquiries are automatically captured from all these sources and lead leakage is avoided.
Result:
- 100% Lead capture.
- Proper lead source attribution
Requirement: Automated acknowledgement of incoming inquiries.
2. Quicker student response times
Once the inquiry comes into the SEMS, you can set up an automated “Welcome Email” to go out to the student, acknowledging that their enquiry is being looked into and a counsellor will get in touch with them.
Result:
- Personalized student experience
.
Requirement: Assigning the right counsellor for the query.
3. Assigns counsellors in real-time
It is important to deliver on the promise you made to the student. So, assigning the right counsellor in real-time is a step the student enquiry management system takes care of. You can auto-assign counsellors based on the course of interest, campus location, preferred language, or simply in a round-robin method based on counsellor availability.
Result:
- Zero missed opportunities
. - 3X more connected calls
Requirement: Omnichannel communication and quick dial options.
4. Sends out omnichannel channel communication
An integrated SEMS like LeadSquared enables your counsellors to get in touch with the student across multiple channels—emails, phone calls, texts, WhatsApp. This gives them the liberty to talk to the student in the format they are most comfortable in. And because every information is getting mapped, there is no loss of context.
Result:
- Context-driven communication
Requirement: Activity history of the student.
5. Tracks entire student activity
A student enquiry management system should be able to capture and track all information, action, and conversation a student has with your institution. This will help your counsellor deliver more personalized experiences. And in case a counsellor is not available, the one taking over isn’t lost in translation.
Result:
- Higher personalization
. - Improved conversions
Requirement: Updated lead status. Better segmentation.
6. Segments and prioritizes leads
After the initial contact, not every student is interested in enrolling for the course. Some require more information, some request financial support, while others would want to get started with the application process.
With a SEMS, the counsellor can prioritize and handle application-related inquiries, while the marketing team educates and nurtures students until they’re ready to apply.
“LeadSquared, as a platform, is a dream come true. The team envisions the problems we face and provides end-to-end solutions that significantly improve the efficiency of my teams.”
KS Baskar, Founder, Wizako
Result:
- Better quality of leads
. - Better segmentation
Requirement: Real time alerts.
7. Notify counsellors in real-time
As the counsellors concentrate on application-ready leads, and the marketing team nurtures others, it’s crucial to ensure a smooth transition of leads into the application process when students are ready.
To facilitate this, the student enquiry management system should have the capability to notify counsellors when students take the necessary actions or when important deadlines are approaching.
Result:
- Faster query resolution
.
Requirement: Student portal for paperless applications.
8. Track student activities in real time
The student enquiry management system enables the counsellor to track student activities and get real-time updates. To ensure that students can also take necessary steps and get status updates, it is important to conduct the application process through online portals. This approach facilitates smooth communication between counsellors and students, making it easier for both parties to interact and stay informed.
Check out how LeadSquared’s applicant portal ensures real-time student activity tracking.
Result:
- Lower student drop-offs
- Better inquiry-to-enrollment ratio
Requirement: End-to-end admission funnel visibility.
9. Creates advanced reports and analytics
Your SEMS can act as your best friend and confidant. It will help you stay on track and notify you if you’re not meeting expectations. Having end-to-end visibility across the funnel will help you achieve just that.
These types of reports help you make faster decisions and take corrective course of action in due time –
- Performance reports: team-wise (how your counsellors are performing), source-wise (which sources have better conversion rates), channel-wise (which marketing channel is generating most inquiries)
- Funnel reports: Stage-wise reports like applied, interested, enrolled, payment pending
- Revenue reports: Course enrollment, marketing ROI, publisher ROI
Result:
- Faster decision-making process
- Qualitative insights collected
Now that we have seen how it impacts the admissions process, let us also look at how a student enquiry management system helps maintain the overall hygiene of the admissions process.
10. Avoids duplication of inquiries
A SEMS ensures that all student information is captured, updated, and attributed to the right sources. It ensures no student inquiry is captured twice. This helps avoid clashes and conflicts between team members and saves time so that no two people are working on the same lead.
11. Centralizes repository of student data
From the source of lead capture, documents submitted, counsellor interactions, and student responses—everything is maintained and mapped to the student via the student enquiry management system. This helps the stakeholders get complete information on the requirements of the student.
12. Seamlessly integrates with SIS
A complete student enquiry management platform also enables you to share the information you collected for enrolled students and update it in your student information system for the post-admission journey to run seamlessly.
Now that you know how the SEMS works, let’s look at what aspects you should keep in mind while choosing the right system.
Pre-requisites of Student Enquiry Management System
Here’s a checklist of the abilities and features your SEMS should have –
1. Scalability: Your system should be able to handle high volumes of inquiries without breaking down.
2. Integration: It should be able to integrate with different communication platforms — sources that generate leads, publishers, and SIS.
3. Customization: The SEMS should be able to provide customization based on your requirements and business processes.
4. Easy User Adoption: The system should be user-friendly and easy to adopt by various teams involved in the admissions process.
5. Personalized Customer Support: Driving your entire admission cycle on a single system requires excellent support for each customer—both while implementation and post-sales.
6. Low code/No-code Ability: While it is good to have technical assistance, a system should not go overboard such that even a small change in process requires external support. It should give you the ability to make changes quickly and smoothly.
7. Data security: You are collecting sensitive information from students and from various sources. The system should be secure and compliant to ensure no personal information is leaked.
Have you checked these out before implementing your SEMS?
Check here!
Wrapping up
A student enquiry management system has become a necessity if you are looking to improve student interaction, engagement, and experience. With the heavy competition the education industry faces, cutting out manual processes should be prioritized. This will make the Janets and the managers of your teams beaming with JOY!
If you’re looking for a robust student enquiry management system, take a closer look at LeadSquared’s Education CRM.
