University Business - October 2012 - (Page 3)

sponsored case study Purdue University and prospective students benefit from improved admissions process Hobsons education solutions streamline communications and recruiting on the Indiana campus A admission. Prior to using Hobsons, t a school the size of Purdue Unistaff would jot down notes from the versity, just scheduling campus call, then manually update the sysvisits by prospective students tem—eventually. could overwhelm an admissions depart“The immediacy of the student ment. Add accepted student receptions data in Telecenter, as with all of our and recruiting events, and the pressure communication, is critical,” Derflingcan seem worse than for a high school seer said. “It would be very poor cusnior awaiting an acceptance letter. tomer service if we were encouragThat’s precisely why Hobsons’ soluing students to accept their offers of tions, including its Education CRM Suite, admission if they already had.” made sense to Purdue, which has about Not only are calls now current, 30,000 undergrads in its 11 colleges and “We believe this greater they’re plentiful. “The first year we schools in West Lafayette, Indiana. had Hobsons, we were making two “The Events and Interviews product reefficiency has contributed to to three times the number of calls ally made Hobsons stand out from other an uptick in the number of than we did previously, mainly bevendors,” said Dan Derflinger, senior ascampus visitors, and ultimately, cause people making the calls could sistant director of electronic communiquickly process the call and move to cations in Purdue University’s Office of in student enrollment.” the next one,” he said. Admissions. “Now students can register The efficiencies Purdue has built into communication and directly for any of the four daily campus visits or for the over 120 special events we host throughout the year. We believe this outreach extend to the website, where visitors can use Hobgreater efficiency has contributed to an uptick in the number of sons’ Answer to get information based on questions they type. And the Group Chat product allows Purdue to host conversacampus visitors, and ultimately, in student enrollment.” Hobsons has built its reputation on helping colleges and tions between prospective students or parents and university universities streamline the application, admissions, and com- representatives such as current students, faculty or financial munications process. Purdue uses multiple Hobsons products to aid personnel. “Ultimately what led to our roll-out success was the two improve efficiency throughout its campus. pilot colleges saying ‘The product’s great! Yes, it was a little bit The Purdue roll-out began in August 2009 in Admissions and with two Purdue colleges. The next August, the other nine col- of work in the beginning, but the benefits were enormous,’ ” leges joined, and in August 2011, core recruitment and yield of- Derflinger said. Those benefits include: fices—such as Financial Aid and Orientation—were added. • A 3 percent increase in campus visits from 2009-2010—when it The university now has about 400 regular Hobsons users ranging from people entering prospective student informa- was piloted at two colleges—to 2010-2011. tion into the system, making or taking calls, creating or sending • A 7 percent increase in campus visits from 2010-2011, when all colleges started using Hobsons, until 2011-2012. emails, monitoring chats and more. Each college has one person who actually sends emails or • 2.4 million emails sent during the 2010-2011 recruitment cycle, letters generated by others at the school. They use enrollment 400,000 of which came from individual colleges. management-built filters to avoid mishaps, such as inviting a To learn more about Hobsons education solutions, please young man to a Women in Engineering reception, for example. The efficiencies don’t end there. Take Telecenter, for example. visit http://www.hobsons.com. Purdue staff call prospective students to offer help with applications, answer questions or encourage them to accept an offer of http://www.hobsons.com http://www.hobsons.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - October 2012

University Business - October 2012
Contents
Editor's Note
College Index
Ad Index
Behind the News
Viewpoint
Human Resources
Venue 365
Not Your Parents’ Campus Bookstore
CRM Grows Up
Where the Workers Are
The Payment Plan
Education Innovators
Money Matters
What's New
End Note

University Business - October 2012