The impact outweighs the effort – effective and impactful CRM and online application implementation
College Marketing Network Annual Conference
12 November 2016
Daniel Falls, Head of HE Consulting Services
The Impact Outweighs the Effort: Effective and Impactful CRM and Online Application Implementation
1. The impact outweighs the effort – effective and impactful CRM
and online application implementation
—
College Marketing Network Annual Conference
12 November 2016
Daniel Falls, Head of HE Consulting Services
2. An introduction to Hobsons
1,500 colleges
and universities
using Hobsons
technology
40 years in
education
900+
Employees
London, UK
USA
Malaysia
Australia
3. Our partners in CRM
More than 1500
global partners
More than 50 in the
UK and Europe
4. Enquiry Capture & Event
Management
Admissions and
Enrolment
Ongoing Student
Engagement
Radius is a best-in-class admissions and enrolment management CRM for higher education that helps institutions make strong
connections with students from enquiry to application and enrolment, through to graduation and beyond.
Radius helps you connect with best-fit students early in their search process, deepening the connection by providing timely and
relevant information and helping them progress from interested to enrolled. We combine robust CRM and application
management functionality into one seamless solution to track students throughout their academic journey, showing a holistic
view of your interactions with individuals at each stage of the student lifecycle.
Connecting students with their future
5. Today’s Conversation
The challenges – what to look for
Implementation and building an
effective project team
Managing expectations
What is CRM and why is it
important
Go live and success stories
6. CRM v Marketing
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
CRM is the implementation of a strategy through which an organisation
aims to optimise customer relations in terms of customer value and
customer satisfaction. It is a continuous, systematic and all-encompassing
activity. ICT plays a supporting role.
CRM Association
Marketing
Marketing is an organisational function and a set of processes for creating,
communicating and delivering value to the customer and for managing
customer relationships in ways that benefit the organisation and its
stakeholders.
American Marketing Association
7. CRM v Marketing
Marketing CRM
Markets Individual clients
Recruit Retain
1 to N 1 to 1
Short term Long term
Product life cycle Customer life cycle
Transactions Relations
Marketing dept All departments
8. CRM systems support your marketing
CRM systems allow you to capture and store data of
– Prospects, leads, applicants, admitted and enrolled students
– Alumni
– Parents
– Employers
– Donors
To communicate with them
– Faster
– More personalised
– More reliable
CRM systems allow you to organise your work more efficiently
9. Some recommended reading/reviews
Study Portals CRM Report (2015) – Global Report
• How are institutions using CRM systems globally?
• What are the features of the top 15 CRM systems?
• What are important features for insitutions using CRM systems?
• What CRM systems are more popular in certain regions?
AACRAO Study: CRM usage gap in higher education (2015) – US
• Implementation of CRMs has a significant influence on changes in practice and staffing
• CRMs are most likely to be used to support admissions and recruiting
• Institutions are not fully integrating their CRM data with their Student Information System (SIS)
• The majority of respondents (59 percent) indicated their institutions have only been
the CRM
JISC CRM Good Practice Handbook (2012)
http://www.uofadmissionsmarketing.com/ - CRM Secret Guide
10. Step Two Step Three Step FourStep One
Are you using
systems to their
full ability? What
other systems are
there?
What type of
CRM do you
need?
Undertake a
touch point
analysis?
Understand your
own institution
Pre Implementation Scoping
11. How are you differentiating from other institutions?
Are you doing the same thing you’ve always done?
What’s your favourite piece in your communication
flow?
What’s your least favourite?
If money was no object, what do you wish you
had?
Do you personalise anything to your audience?
Is your material specifically addressing your key
audiences, or is it general?
How do you get students interested?
How easy is it to get a new project completed
internally?
Questions to ask
12. The challenges
No information collection and tracking
Large teams using disparate systems
Everyone having their own way of
working
Decentralised admissions
13. o Be clear about the project requirements
o Identify possible pitfalls
o Commit the time and the right people
o Who are the right people?
o Understand it will not go to plan so allocate a little leeway
Implementation and challenges
14. Build Verify Go LiveDiscover
Configuration & Integration Data Load & Training System LivePlanning/Discovery
Visit
Implementation Timeline
15. The transition to Radius
Ask for a dedicated account manager coupled with expert consulting, training and
responsive technical support helps your institution align people, processes and
technology.
16. Building an effective project team
Get the right people on the team
- Skills required
- Level of influence
- Access to resource networks
- Capacity to participate
effectively
- Ability to work well in a team
Pull together a resource plan Result: a strong, results oriented
team!
17. Do sell it in to key
stakeholders and
create excitement
Ensure time for
training
Cascade trainingDo not
overpromise
Manging expectations
18. Getting to go live!
o Big bang or phased go-live?
o Choose a realistic date – build in a little
flexibility
o Consider institutional and individuals
calendars
o Do you need a soft go-live then a big bang
later?
o TEST TEST TEST
19. Dedicated project team engaged and empowered to
make decisions
Dedicated time throughout the implementation
process
Centralised system administrator(s)
Input and compliance with project plan
Migration best practice
23. About LSBM
Success Stories
Based in Central London
Working in partnership with the
University of Northampton
Offering UG & PG in Business, Law
and Finance
Share facilities with Birkbeck
Going paperless and
measuring interactions
24. About LSBM
Success Stories
Based in Central London
Working in partnership with the
University of Northampton
Offering UG & PG in Business, Law
and Finance
Share facilities with Birkbeck
Going paperless and
measuring interactions
25. About LSBM
Success Stories
Based in Central London
Working in partnership with the
University of Northampton
Offering UG & PG in Business, Law
and Finance
Share facilities with Birkbeck
Going paperless and
measuring interactions
26. About LSBM
Success Stories
Based in Central London
Working in partnership with the
University of Northampton
Offering UG & PG in Business, Law
and Finance
Share facilities with Birkbeck
Going paperless and
measuring interactions
27. About LSBM
Success Stories
Based in Central London
Working in partnership with the
University of Northampton
Offering UG & PG in Business, Law
and Finance
Share facilities with Birkbeck
Going paperless and
measuring interactions
28. The challenge
Success Stories
Manual processes for Recruitment,
Marketing and Admissions
Paper based systems
No marketing automation
Recruitment bogged down in
paperwork
Messy data and no relationship
tracking
Going paperless and measuring
interactions
29. Learning lessons…
Success Stories
Legacy of previous system
implementation
Fear of system not being fit for
purpose
Radius has to be quick to respond to
change
Communication!
Going paperless and measuring
interactions
30. Planning it out
Success Stories
Not rushed!
Phased project
Mapped against student lifecycle:
Phase 1: Enquiry Management
Phase 2: Application Management
Phase 3: Student Management
Going paperless and measuring
interactions
31. Lessons learnt
Success Stories
Radius is very powerful, but need to
manage expectations
People are resistant to change, learn
how to communicate how great the
system is
System has such potential, its
exciting! Share your enthusiasm
Have an open, honest relationship
with vendor
Going paperless and measuring
interactions
32. Founded in 1840 as a Teaching Education
College
Modern, dynamic University in a wonderful
historic city
Successful & values- driven
Teaching excellence (Ofsted Outstanding)
8000 Students, 1200 Staff
AbouttheUniversityofWinchester
Success Stories
Using insight to increase recruitment, improve
student and customer satisfaction,
employability
34. Success in numbers!
Success Stories
Using insight to increase recruitment,
improve student and customer
satisfaction, employability
41516 Contacts created
4825 number of Enquiries
7012 number of Cases
4283 number of Prospectus
103 number of Events
4345 number of Attendees
130751 number of emails sent
35. Learning points
Success Stories
Using insight to increase recruitment,
improve student and customer
satisfaction, employability
Setting KPIs
What we had prior to installing Radius
- No centralised solution
- Lack of collaboration
- No tracking contacts
- Manual processes events and
enquiries
36. Michelle Blake, Sarah
Baxter
College of West
Anglia/Bedford College
CRM, conversion and
keep warm strategies…
Collingtree 1
12:35 – 13:15
Hear from a current client!
38. Please visit hobsons.com for more information, client stories, or sign up for
one of our upcoming webinars.
ThankYou
Notes de l'éditeur
A little bit about Hobsons:
We are a global company focused solely on Education. Our aim is to allow institutions to work more effectively and to lead students to better outcomes.
There are around 1,500 universities using our systems across the world. UK and Europe is a key growth market; we currently have around 60 partners in the region, including 10 of the Russell Group.
Many of these partners use Connect and ApplyYourself and are now getting ready to migrate to Radius.
They will join around 220 Universities currently using Radius worldwide.
Who do we work with? Aside from the fact we work with over 1500 universities globally, over 40 of them are UK institutions. That’s a third of UK universities using our CRM technologies to directly improve their marketing and recruitment efforts.
As you can see this includes 9 of the Russell Group Universities….
Across Hobsons as a whole, including our technology products and marketing & recruitment solutions work, we count 58 UK universities as Hobsons partners.
There a really bad joke in this slide (partners in CRiMe)……..
As you will all be very aware, there has been a great deal of change within the sector within the last few years
Your institution is a part of that change
Fees increasing significantly has resulted in
Students questioning whether HE is for them
Questioning which institution and course will bring the best return
And post enrolment a natural expectation that they will receive value delivered through quality support, good facilities, and personal attention
In addition to world class tuition, universities are being asked to deliver an exceptional experience for students
Ideally a university will retain a relationship with a student right from the very first point of contact(when they hit that button on your website) through to graduation and beyond(possibly into the workplace)
They are needing to differentiate themselves from competitors in and outside of the UK. Especially with the removal of the cap on EU and domestic intake.
In order to make these things happen universities are reviewing business processes and systems, looking to get smarter about how they operate, more measurable, more efficient, more joined up
Much of the foundational research in the field of student success addresses the role of student attributes in student attrition.
Univerisites work that in an increasingly competitive environment with higher fees and cutomer expectations, alongside changes in BAU processes internally– HEI’s desperately need an effective enquiry management system in order to work effectively. undertook extensive research to determine its system needs, confirming that it not only wanted to capture the details of prospective students but also tracking who and where to ensure communications plan for both enquirers and applicants could be put in place to build the relationship at every stage of the student journey.
It’s important to be very clear on exactly what the brief for the project specifies and requires as measureable outcomes. A CRM system implementation has some very clear and obvious outcomes and it will be important to spend time with the supplier drawing out a realistic picture of what is required your end to make it all happen
Consider carefully how this project will impact on all areas of the business – what about those areas that are resistant to it? It might have been presented as a fait a compli but that doesn’t prevent people being bloody minded and obstructive. Building effective relationships early can help avoid much of this
Establishing a realistic timeline is vital and once you have identified or been allocated the ‘right people’ the key to success will be getting their commitment and ensuring that they are going to be released from their day to day duties when needed. To this end it is important to set meeting dates, training dates etc in the diary early on.
For us, and I would suggest for any University implementing CRM, we had a core project team comprised of the web mktg mngr. the enquiry handling and database mngr, the Head of outreach, a senior project mngr from ICT and the Mktg Comms Mng. In addition to this we were able to call on people from Faculties and Depts as required (pre- indentified in the initial plan) like Admissions and Faculty mktg mngrs
Always build in a little extra time – foresee the unforseeable!
Need to be clear on the human resource required to do the job. Initially might just identify stakeholder groups and departments plus approx numbers of staff and likely amount of hours. Need to ‘sell in’ to departments who will provide staff
Might sound obvious but really do need to get the best people for the job – not always as straightforward as you might think!
Sometimes PMs don’t get to choose their own teams If you don’t get to choose it’s especially important to establish the ‘group’ relationships early on. If this fails to happen people remain disconnected from the project and the group – they may feel ‘put upon’ and actively stay disengaged
A CRM system always sounds amazing – especially if there has been nothing like it in place before now. However, it will take time to bed in; it will take time to train people and get them used to working with it; there will be hitches and hiccups – Rome wasn’t built in a day and this wont be either
Yes, be realistic but at the same time – this IS an amazing system and it WILL have a really positive impact on our relationships with all our key stakeholders and will have the impact on the bottom line – recruitment – that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day!
Any reputable CRM company will spend time on site ensuring that key staff are fully trained in all aspects of the product and it is vital to get all key staff along to that. In addition to this you should expect on going support throughout the implementation period. We had weekly conference calls which were scheduled in advance so that we could pull in additional staff where appropriate and these were really useful. However, the on site, face to face stuff was invaluable. It is important when choosing a CRM supplier to check out thoroughly what training they offer as it is absolutely necessary to the success of the project. We also had access to a series of on-line trainings that proved very useful.
A big issue will be deciding on user rights and levels of access – think carefully about this. The CRM system provides such a great tool for instant access to potential students that you stand a very good chance of over-egging the cake if you allow user rights too widely. Once this is done it is time to start to cascade the training down. Again, this is a time consuming exercise and needs to have been factored in at the beginning so that there are no nasty suprises!