next generation education - managing student recruitment and alumni relationships with salesforce

relationships networks

alumni student recruitment

Next Generation CRM for Schools, Colleges & Universities

If you only read one page, make it this one!

1. Salesforce is the world-class CRM solution that powers thousands of successful organisations including Facebook, and Virgin. It was used to power the Obama 2012 election campaign, too.

2. It is suitable for all types of organisation (education, non profit, charity) large and small, across all functions

3. The Salesforce Foundation provides massive discounts and special configurations to suit non-profits

4. Salesforce is built on an open technology platform so it is easier, cheaper and less risky to build and deploy

5. People love using Salesforce because it is user-friendly and intuitive

6. The AppExchange enables you to build in different tools and apps at the touch of a button

7. Salesforce is designed and built for online, social and mobile relationships

8. A range of specialised tools are available that are more effective and less expensive than those from traditional non-profit CRM vendors

Purple Vision | Next Generation CRM 2

About this paper

This paper is about Salesforce and why we believe it offers opportunities for education providers to transform the way they engage with prospective students and alumni.

Written for managers who want to understand what Salesforce is all about, we share our experience and insights into:

1. Why Salesforce is so powerful and potentially game changing

2. What the benefits are for education organisations

3. How you can access these opportunities and make the right choices

Technology convergence is happening now, connecting people and information through mobile and social channels never before possible. Just as supermarkets, insurance companies and governments are reaching out to their constituents, so too can non-profits. And with the same results – increased loyalty, reduced cost and managed risk.

We are excited about digital integration – and we think you will be too.

3 Purple Vision | Next Generation CRM

Old systems just aren’t up to scratch anymore

4

“We get lots of student enquiries via social media – my current CRM is older than Twitter so has no way

of handling them”

“I want routine things to

be automated so that I

don’t have to always do

them myself”

“Whether I am in Hull or Hong Kong I need to be able to access the system there and

then to record prospective student information. Ideally straight into my

phone…”

“I can only tell how many enquiries we

have had via a complex monthly

reporting process”

“Our research and business development managers are all working with the same funders, but they each use different systems and reports. It is hard to get a

complete picture of what is going on across the institution”

Contents

About Salesforce 6

Eight game-changing facts 7

Are you ready for the brave new world? 14

What Salesforce offers for education 17

Find out more today! 25

5

About Salesforce

If you are reading this, it probably means you have heard something about Salesforce. You may be wondering if it’s a serious opportunity or just a fad?

Having watched the development of various technologies over recent years, we believe that Salesforce offers compelling advantages for non-profit organisations.

Salesforce is many things, including: a global technology platform software as a service in the cloud a multi-billion-dollar corporation a business ecosystem a philosophy for engagement

But what are the key factors that make a difference to colleges,

universities and schools, and how can these help you to engage better with prospective students and alumni? Read on …

Purple Vision | Next Generation CRM

6

“The world’s most innovative company”

Forbes

Eight game-changing facts

1. A platform, not a point solution 2. Non-profit pricing and discounts 3. It brings people together 4. Plug in best of breed tools with the AppExchange 5. The cloud is not the same as hosting 6. Social through and through 7. One place for data and intelligence 8. Simple, flexible reporting

7


Fact 1 A platform, not a point solution

Most of us are familiar with the old approach to IT – on-premises servers, closed data architectures, set features and lock-in relationships with software vendors.

Salesforce is different. It is an open platform, not a “black box”. It incorporates powerful foundations of data, social, mobile and web – all deeply integrated, so avoiding the menace of duplication.

On this platform, Salesforce has encouraged an active community of independent partners and developers. This has led to a wide range of services and applications becoming available for all business needs, including student recruitment and alumni relations.

Fact 2 Non profit pricing

Salesforce’s CEO Marc Benioff has committed to give 1% of his company’s product, equity and time to charity.

Any recognised non-profit organisation is eligible to receive 10 free licences with full access to the company’s top-of-the-range CRM solution.

This donation has been accepted by more than 20,000 non-profits globally.

Some development partners have followed suit and offer their services with significant charity discounts.


8

Eight game-changing facts Fact 3 It brings people together

Anyone who has struggled to encourage their team to adopt new software knows that an unfriendly interface with poor usability is the curse of a technology project. Salesforce deals with the data and empowers people to do their jobs.

Perhaps the best thing about Salesforce is that everyone likes it. Back-office techies and front-line users alike all love the way it works, from search and data entry through to self-service dashboard reports and “chatter” private social networking, all optimised for your desktop, mobile phone or tablet.

Fact 4 Plug in ‘best of breed’ tools with the AppExchange

Just like Apple’s App Store or Google Play, the Salesforce AppExchange contains thousands of business applications from approved partners including Eventbrite, Google, Just Giving, and Mailchimp.

In fact, most of the tools you already use are there. The difference with Salesforce is that they are already integrated so, just like your mobile phone, all you have to do is download the app and it works straight away.


Salesforce platform architecture

10

Users experience the interface(s) of apps using a web browser – on PC, mobile phone or tablet

Choose a combination of

apps to suit your business

needs

Third party developers publish their services as apps on the AppExchange

Salesforce manages

underlying services –

servers, upgrades, security, backup

Force.com is the developer toolkit

for building custom

applications

Optimised across platforms – data, mobile and web, and in multiple languages and currencies


11

This leading University in the South West of England needed a technology platform to help them manage enquires from prospective students - enquires received via multiple channels, from multiple global locations, and involving a number of staff, agents and university partners.

With Purple Vision’s help to identify the right mix of apps, configure the system and provide training, the team now use their Salesforce system to handle: ● Enquiry Management – managing correspondence, mainly by email , from prospective students enquiring about courses at this institution.

● Outreach – helping the department record and manage details of meetings and connections with prospective students – often from face-to-face discussions at events and exhibitions.

● Segmented email marketing – communicating with prospective students, school counsellors, agents and other contacts with rich segmentation, in-built analytics and trail bounce-backs and click-throughs.

● Lead management – taking leads from external web portals and agents, and managing subsequent communication .

● Social media monitoring and engagement – identifying, engaging and nurturing contacts via social media as prospective students.

● School Liaison – managing the processes and data related to school contacts and counsellors – including communications.

The team have also discovered additional benefits too – they now have total control over data visibility with partners and agents, and as a result have a higher degree of transparency in their processes with them.

.

“This institution needed their Salesforce system

up-and-running urgently to help support the

busiest time of the year.”

Case Study: managing international student enquiries


Fact 5 The cloud is not the same as hosting

Salesforce pioneered the concept of SaaS (Software as a Service), also known as Cloud Computing. Their systems are secure and reliable.

SaaS means that you pay to rent the services you need and log on with a web browser. It feels a lot like using Gmail or Facebook, but it’s your contact database.

It’s easy to think of this as the same thing as hosting of traditional apps in a data centre but true SaaS is different:

Multi Tenancy: Just like a serviced office, thousands of customers share the same software so the cost for maintaining and updating the system is reduced.

No IT: With SaaS, the provider takes responsibility for upgrades, backups, failovers, and lots of other stuff that you don’t need to think about!

Scalable: SaaS means you can adjust your usage, both up and down, to cope with short-term needs and business changes. You pay for what you use.

Fact 6 Social through and through

Salesforce is a new technology for a new generation – an online socially-connected generation. Everything the company does is based on this guiding philosophy.

In the past 18 months, Salesforce has invested over $1bn in new technologies for social media monitoring, customer engagement, collaboration, performance management, social marketing and content automation.

Social tools and connections are hard-wired into Salesforce, extending its capability way beyond sales. Think fundraising, recruitment, staff and community collaboration, market research, alumni relations, partnerships …


12

Eight game-changing facts Fact 7 One place for data and intelligence

Salesforce is attractive because it provides a low-risk way to progressively integrate data across the whole organisation.

A growing number of non-profit organisations are adopting Salesforce, with combinations of applications from HR and finance through to recruitment and events. They realise the benefits in economies of standardisation, reduced complexity, universal information and lower risk.

This means the long-held ambition of a 360-degree or “single customer” view has finally evolved from a dream to practical reality. No other solution can deliver this in such a comprehensive, flexible and affordable way.

Fact 8 Simple, flexible reporting

Perhaps the single biggest complaint about most CRM systems is the difficulty in tracking and using your own data. You take care to follow procedure, loading, coding and cleaning. But when you need the information there is no easy way to analyse or report.

Some people say users need to be more tech savvy but, with Salesforce, you don’t need to be. It’s easy to build your own reports, create personal graphical dashboards, and even schedule them for regular delivery to colleagues by email.


14

Are you ready for the brave new world?

Talking about you – but not to you.

Prospective students, alumni, staff and even your competitors and partners are all talking about you. They’re doing it online using social media, in private and in public. They’re using mobiles and tablets: blogging, commenting, reviewing and sharing. And, as they do, they’re shaping the future of your organisation and determining your success

The explosion of social media, together with the growth of mobile internet access, has amplified the voice of every stakeholder. We are empowered to take greater control of the relationships with the organisations and movements we choose to support.

Despite these changes, the model of relationship management in use by most schools, colleges and universities remains focused on the organisation rather than the prospect. Who decides what the key messages are? Which people might be interested? When to send communications?

In the past, if a potential student wanted to find out about the course you offer, they visited your website. If they wanted to chat about the course or visit, they called. If they wanted to complain, they wrote you a letter.

Now they do all these things, without you even knowing!

15

“90% of online consumers trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust unknown users, 27% trust experts, 14% trust advertising”

Erik Qualman – Socialnomics


What’s changed? The old-fashioned, one-way approach is

evolving to become a dialogue. A democratic and social activity.

Education establishments that understand this seek to respond with openness and integrity. They build on the best of what has been achieved in the past to create enhanced relationships that are interactive, personal and responsive.

Recruiters and alumni professionals now face the real and exciting prospect of breaking through to a whole new level of success.

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If the nature of relationships has changed, it follows that the tools and techniques to manage them need to change as well.

Salesforce is a unique and exciting set of technologies specifically designed to help organisations become “customer companies”. In plain language, that means actively participating in an online networked world.

If that matters to you and your organisation, Salesforce can help. If that doesn’t matter to your organisation, perhaps you should be asking why?

“We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in.”

Craig Davis - J Walter Thompson

Traditional Relationships •Monologue •Broadcast •Control •Owning •Segregated •Single channel •My ideas

Social Relationships •Dialogue • Interact •Collaborate •Sharing • Integrated •Multiple channel •Our ideas


What Salesforce offers for Higher and Further Education?

17

Student Enquiry Management

18

Enquiry

Correspond-ence

Outreach

Segmented Email

Marketing

Web to lead forms for

online enquiries

Agent or Partner Network

Leads

Prospect Enquiry Forms

School Liaison

Social Media Monitoring & Integrations

Managing student enquiries might best be described as harnessing a complex network of relationships, tasks and processes. Salesforce offers you a chance to achieve this, and engage all your audiences in a way you never have before. Data is easy to access and mange. Look up and report on your partnerships and leads with ease. Target prospects with bespoke messaging and campaigns. Add automation into the mix, and you can genuinely achieve more – more engagement, more results, more customer satisfaction.


Alumni Management

19

Alumni

Relationship Manage-

ment

Regular Giving

Events

Networks & Communities

Mentoring

Bursaries

Integration with other systems

Social Media Monitoring & Integration

Alumni managers are a pretty amazing bunch - who else do you know that can juggle fundraising, event management, communications, finance, administration and relationship management? Salesforce offers you a way to track, manage, engage, and automate many of the key tasks associated with your role. Allowing you to focus on the areas which most need your time – not the areas which take the most time to data input, or have the longest processes.


External Relations & Operations

20

External Relations

& Operations

Stakeholder Engagement

Business Development

Research & Knowledge

Management

Internal Collaboration

Reporting for Projects,

Boards and VCs

Volunteer and Ambassador Engagement

Campaign & Project

Management

Website integration & e-commerce

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that it’s not just what you know, it’s who you know. And it’s how – and when – you leverage those relationships that makes those contacts so valuable. Salesforce gives you the tools to manage your networks effectively – internally and externally. Collaborate, engage and communicate on long-running or discrete projects or campaigns. Then with one simple log-in, Salesforce will show you reports, KPI’s and results quickly and easily, all in the same place.


Scale-up with Salesforce Achieve results today that it has taken others decades to achieve using traditional methods!

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Internationally focused universities and colleges ●

●Manage overseas enquiries and partner relationships ●Real-time recording and reporting ●Social flow and integration ●Automation and communication

Loyal alumni networks ●Power-up networking with apps and integrations ●Build stronger relationships ●Smoother fundraising processes ●Manage events and communities

Schools and further education teams ●Manage domestic and international prospect processes ●Support alumni network development ●Integrate parent/guardian communication and response


Scale-up with Salesforce

22

Collegiate structures and satellite operations ●Manage multi-site processes and workflows ●Integrate systems, processes and tools ●Improve inter-departmental communications ●Simplify student record management approaches

Private colleges and short-course providers ●Build strong networks and relationships ●Track course up-take ●Promote personalised learning pathways ●Integrate promotion and enquiry handling

Placements – local and overseas ●Manage contacts with placement providers ●Provide ongoing student communication and support ●Collate vital paperwork and permissions processes ●Simplify feedback and reference processes with web forms


Early adopters Someone has to be first!

23

We are often asked who is using Salesforce. Small organisations or single departments of a larger

institution find it relatively easy to adopt Salesforce because they are agile and have limited business processes.

International organisations are recognising the enterprise-wide benefits of rationalising their IT strategies.

Pan-organisational introductions of Salesforce are

allowing whole-organisation information and standard processes to be ‘business as usual’.

Some organisations are taking their time and migrating team by team, or department by department. Progressive migration is a longer project. It suits those who want to take time to learn and adapt between roll-out stages. Some even want to use the time to radically overhaul or rationalise processes, and refocus on strategy goals.

How quickly you benefit is down to you!


Good Question! If Salesforce is so good, why aren’t more people I know using it?

1. The name - “sales” is misleading for some, especially in situations where selling is less important than building relationships and serving needs.

2. Specialisms - specialist functionality takes time to develop – tools developed for the US market take a while longer to be adapted for the UK and European markets as development needs to account for key differences in the way we operate core business processes such as financial processing.

3. Size - the Salesforce Foundation is relatively small compared to other established software and database vendors on the market. And the foundation is a non profit too, so there’s less ‘hard sell’ than with other systems or providers.

4. Collaboration - lots of colleges and universities have different functions for communications, recruitment, alumni etc. The tools that support these (web and CRM) evolve separately and collaboration can be difficult.

5. Time – a new CRM is a big decision. It can take time to build a business case and make the decision to change systems. It takes a while longer to go through a robust procurement and selection process and then a little more time still to fully configure and implement a new system into ‘business as usual’.


Find out more today!

Visit www.salesforce.com Google Salesforce to see what other people say Review your current technology tools Revisit your strategies – fundraising, recruitment, alumni Speak to someone who uses Salesforce Browse the AppExchange Explore the education apps available Book a demonstration Call Purple Vision for independent advice

25

Get started with Salesforce Your work doesn’t stand still – neither should your CRM.

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For many, the non-profit Starter Pack provides a cost effective and flexible base to start with Salesforce – offering basic relationship tracking, financial processing and enquiry management.

What differentiates Salesforce is its seamless integration with thousands of best-of-breed tools on the AppExchange - and even your website.

By combining these on the Salesforce platform you can assemble a joined-up business system that is effective, easy to use and inexpensive.

Apps are available for specialist requirements across higher and further education. Simply plug in the ones you need!

Custom configuration and development is also possible – naturally it is more costly as it is developed just for you.

Either way, you’ll still benefit from regular system updates, new apps and products which are being developed all the time.


Purple Vision has been working with CRM for more than ten years. Our core team has extensive experience advising and supporting hundreds of charities, associations and education establishments with technology including CRM, databases, digital services including CMS, websites and associated business processes.

We share our clients’ frustrations when their ambitions for relationship building and efficient enquiry management are not matched by effective, joined-up tools. We also share the energy, commitment and enthusiasm for getting it right for the people that matter - your customers and beneficiaries.

With the technology that is now available to empower you, many of the familiar barriers are already becoming a thing of the past. No more fragmented systems, data silos, manual workarounds and inadequate reporting!

With tools like Salesforce you can achieve the long-awaited vision of ‘joined up’ relationship management. Everything you know about each enquirer, student and alumnus in one place. And the ability to build your relationship with them using multiple simultaneous channels.

We want to help you to be able to access this opportunity. If you want to discover more, find us at:

www.purple-vision.com


http://www.purple-vision.com/



Find out more about how Purple Vision can help you with Salesforce today. T: +44 (0)845 458 0250 E: [email protected] W: www.purple-vision.com 3.06 Canterbury Court Kennington Park 1-3 Brixton Road London SW9 6DE

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next generation education - managing student recruitment and alumni relationships with salesforce

Education

salesforce foundation

current crm

student enquiries

education providers

education organisations3

generation crm2

worldclass crm solution

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