Episode 82: Enrollment Management Challenges and Software Solutions with Lawrence Levy, Founder, and President of Enrollment Rx
Lawrence founded Enrollment Rx in 2008 after he identified the growing need to improve upon traditional CRM technologies in the Higher Ed sector. Lawrence is committed to helping colleges and universities maximize the Salesforce Education Cloud.
Lawrence earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Speech Communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Science Degree in Electronic Commerce from National Louis University.
Similarities and differences between higher education and corporate marketing
There are a lot of similarities between corporate marketing and the higher education approach to customer acquisition. The biggest differentiator between higher education and corporate marketing is the requirements specific to higher education within a software system that might be different from the corporate sector. For example, a CRM system is built very well for the corporate sector and is designed to manage the sales process from initial inquiry through securing an opportunity to closing a contract. In the higher education sector, it is a bit different. We are talking about nurturing an inquiry and converting it into an applicant and nurturing that application to an enrollment decision. The complexity could be very different across undergraduate and graduate institutions. For example, the medical school might make decisions and the application process might be very different from the business school. The software system has to be able to account for that and serve those various constituents appropriately. In the corporate sector, as an example, the sales team is the sales team and they are selling one or several products but they are doing it in a more standardized method.
Strengths of customer relationship management systems and what can be done better
There is no doubt that colleges and universities are certainly adopting customer relationship management (CRM) type technologies and increasing levels which at a bare minimum, is far better than the paper records and the shared spreadsheets that were very common. To remain competitive and relevant in the digital native world, institutions must move towards digital experiences for their external constituents like prospects, students, parents, alumni, and their employees and staff. Colleges are still having a challenge where institutions are attempting to piece together multiple solutions that are not necessarily designed to work together. This forces the stakeholders to use multiple systems to complete the task. We hear all the time that admissions staff were being forced to use CRM-type tools alongside their student information system (SIS) to manage admissions. This means the staff will have to log into multiple systems to see a complete picture of the prospect’s journey from initial inquiry through application and decision. A much better practice is to manage the entire recruitment admissions and decisions (RAD) process entirely in the CRM system and recruitment, then the admissions staff should not need to access multiple systems to do their jobs.
Enrollment Rx and its features
Enrollment Rx believes fundamentally in the process of delivering compostable software right to the industry. Compostable software is best defined as the type of software that empowers operational staff to take control and ownership of their enterprise system without relying on a team of software developers or vendors for every change. The people on the operational level know their requirements best. They should be able to make the decision in their software systems without necessarily translating the requirements to a third party for customization. Everything that Enrollment Rx provides is designed to make it easier for our client’s operational teams to be in control of their CRM systems. Salesforce also delivers a course compostable software as a part of the platform and Enrollment Rx leverages that. Half of the battle in terms of CRM and providing that type of functionally, but the other 50% that is unique to higher education, that is the part that schools either would need to go custom build or for clients, they do not have to go custom build. They adapt to Enrollment Rx products and compostable software that makes the transform salesforce into that resolution.
Contact Lawrence Levy:https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawrence-levy-0bb4856
Learn more about Enrollment Rx: https://www.enrollmentrx.com/
Subscribe and listen to the podcast at IlluminateHigherEducation.com
This episode is brought to you by N2N’s Illuminate App, The iPaaS for Higher Education.
About N2N Services
Founded in 2010, N2N is committed to serving educational institutions and helping them figure out how to serve their students, faculty, and staff using the most innovative technologies and solutions available in the marketplace. Over the last decade, N2N has served over 300 academic institutions and enabled their student success journeys.
N2N Services Inc. is a leader in enterprise application integration and strategic advisory services for higher education, At N2N, we are committed to providing the highest quality solutions and collaboratively building student-centric solutions.
Learn more at https://illuminateapp.com/web/higher-education/
Subscribe and listen to more episodes at IlluminateHigherEducation.com
