How to boost student enrollment with Salesforce

In today's competitive landscape, attracting and retaining students is becoming increasingly challenging. However, with the right tools and strategies, you can transform the way you manage student enrollment.

In this article, we'll explore how Salesforce can revolutionize your higher education institution's approach to enrollment. To do so, we teamed up with Kaplan International Pathways during our last webinar with its head of Salesforce, Elaine Bagshaw.

Main obstacles to student enrollment

The overload of manual tasks

One of the main challenges faced by higher education institutions is the overload of manual tasks. As Elaine mentioned, Kaplan International Pathways handles hundreds of thousands of requests each year, and that number continues to rise. To streamline and improve the efficiency of the application and enrollment process, Salesforce can play a crucial role.

Salesforce offers automation capabilities that can significantly reduce manual efforts and improve productivity in student enrollment. By identifying repetitive tasks, institutions can use Salesforce to automate communication by email, document management and the request tracking.

For example, admissions counselors can automate follow-up emails when they receive student registrations and track their responses. In addition, Salesforce can be customized to generate automatic alerts when important documents are missing or when a request is ready for the next stage of review.

Data silos

Data silos represent another challenge for higher education institutions using Salesforce. These silos occur when different departments or teams maintain separate databases, leading to inefficiencies and inaccuracies in data management.

For example, the admissions, finance, and student services departments may keep their own records for the same student, resulting in redundant efforts and lack of visibility throughout the student journey.

Salesforce can help address this problem by providing a centralized platform for data management. Institutions can use Salesforce to create a single record for each student, capturing all relevant information throughout your enrollment journey.

Lack of ongoing training

The lack of continuing education is a common problem faced not only by higher education institutions, but also by organizations in various industries. The updates and Continuous improvements to Salesforce require users to stay informed and trained to make the most of the platform's capabilities.

To address this challenge, Kaplan International Pathways has implemented a robust training and training program. They conduct regular training sessions, create personalized videos and use guides within the application to help users with new features and changes. In addition, they have introduced user surveys to gather feedback and identify areas that require improvement.

A well-structured training program ensures that users are proficient in using Salesforce, reduces support requests, and maximizes the return on investment in the platform.

How to increase student enrollment?

Use automations in Salesforce

Salesforce automation plays a crucial role in improving efficiency and the overall student enrollment process. Kaplan International Pathways has successfully integrated automation into its admissions process, streamlining document collection and follow-up processes.

By automating repetitive tasks, admissions counselors can focus on more meaningful interactions with prospective students, providing a personalized experience. Kaplan International Pathways uses automation to effectively manage incomplete requests.

When a request lacks critical documents, Salesforce automatically sends an email notification to the requester, urging them to submit the required documents. Once the documents are received and uploaded, Salesforce updates the request status accordingly, ensuring a smooth process.

Add Salesforce apps and integrations

The broad ecosystem of applications and Salesforce integrations provides institutions with additional tools and functionality to improve their processes. Kaplan International Pathways uses applications for data security, archiving and improving the user guide.

By carefully evaluating applications and ensuring that they meet information security standards, institutions can take advantage of these tools to improve their experience with Salesforce. The integration of applications that automate specific tasks or provide valuable information can significantly improve efficiency and decision-making.

Create a playbook

To ensure consistency and efficiency in the use of Salesforce, Kaplan International Pathways is in the process of creating a Salesforce Procedures Manual. This manual will serve as a guide for all teams, defining standard processes, automation and best practices.

The Salesforce manual will help align the organization's objectives with its Salesforce implementation, thus improving overall performance and reducing operational friction. In addition, using Einstein Analytics from Salesforce, institutions can monitor the effectiveness of the procedures manual, identify areas for improvement and make improvements based on data.

By addressing challenges related to manual tasks, data silos and continuing education, Kaplan International Pathways has demonstrated how Salesforce can drive positive change and improve outcomes in the education industry.

At the end of this blog post, we want to thank Elaine Bagshaw for sharing her valuable knowledge and experiences. If you're interested in watching the full webinar, don't forget to check out the recording of the webinar on our website.