We’re back with more early findings from what will be our third edition of the Connected Student Report, which will be coming later this year. We interviewed cross-functional higher education leaders across the globe to understand how they’re approaching the future. They shared their new ways of working during the pandemic and how they’re now capitalizing on this experience to find a new modus operandi and transform how they deliver education. At the heart of this transformation are the values of flexibility, impact, and belonging/inclusion. We have three trailblazing institutions that are living and breathing these values, and we aim to inspire you by sharing their stories!
1. Flexibility and Leveraging Hybrid to Sustain Growth: INSEAD
Hybrid is not only a matter of survival. For INSEAD, it is also an unprecedented opportunity to curate unique learning experiences and collaborate more efficiently.
“Today, the 20,000 participants of our in-person and online programs come from all over the world. It is critical that no matter where they are, they have a unified yet personalized experience with INSEAD,” said Séverine Guilloux, chief marketing officer of INSEAD Business School. “We’ve been laser-focused on driving digital capabilities to grow new revenue streams and run our business in a more agile way.”
“With Customer 360 for Education, we can deliver connected learning journeys with a personal touch and create long-lasting relationships with our constituents beyond graduation. We’ve built many integrations with existing systems to gain a 360-degree view of our constituents and monitor our KPIs in real-time. Our teams, who can now log and track all their activities in one place, are pleased with the new way of working. Last year, we were able to grow our open online programmes revenue by 75%.”
2. Impact in Career Readiness: SWPS
Career outcomes are now a key differentiator on which students and the broader community evaluate SWPS. “Our vision is to help students’ dreams come true, and early on, we knew that achieving such a vision would require a professional CRM,” shares Olga Kożuchowska, head of career services at SWPS.
“With Salesforce, we capture extensive information and have automated many manual processes, which has allowed our career coordinators to be trusted advisors and real experts of the job market. As our students progress in their studies, they discover more about themselves and what they aspire to become,” she said.
Olga continued, sharing how helpful a centralized and integrated platform is for her team: “Having bespoke tools to help them build their professional profile, understand their options, and eventually find a job is a game changer. Within the first week of going live, thousands of students logged in, which demonstrated how valuable the platform is for them. Employers also have a place to easily and quickly submit open positions without having to create an account. Everything is smartly integrated with and centralized in Salesforce which gives us a 360-degree view of their entire history with us.”
Before Salesforce, Olga said that her team didn’t know how many positions they received, whether or not students were applying, and what were the most popular business areas. “Now we have real-time visibility into all of these numbers and can build trusted relationships with both students and employers.”
3. Belonging From the Beginning: University of Minnesota
Students who have a great onboarding experience are 35 times more likely to have a great student experience. This is why the University of Minnesota has a dedicated team to ensure students feel at home from day one.
Carrie Otto, director of enterprise constituent relationship management at the University of Minnesota, said, “Our office helps students familiarize themselves with university life. We run programs to ensure they transition to campus smoothly and stay engaged throughout their studies. Each program has multiple tracks with events students can sign up for. We manage everything from registrations and schedules to personalized student communications with Salesforce.”
She continued, saying, “Our students have access to the Transition Experience Hub, an Experience Cloud site where they can access their event information and knowledge articles, and get in touch with University services. Salesforce dashboards help us get a holistic view of our student interactions and understand the impact of our services and programs.”
Their annual welcome week event saw huge growth in user sessions this year, explained Melissa Shugarman, assistant director of Marketing & Communications, Orientation and Transition Experiences, “This year, we saw over 59,000 user sessions on the Experience Cloud site during our Welcome Week event. We also efficiently handled over 3,400 cases through the entire student onboarding process coming from phone calls, emails, and live chats.”
Learn more about how the University of Minnesota streamlines university services with one go-to place for students. Relive highlights from all of the Education Summit sessions via the event resource page!
Maëlle is a senior product marketing manager at Salesforce.org. Focused on the European market, she explores trends within the education sector and builds inspirational content to support the higher ed community on their journey to learner and institution success.
Navneet is the director of industry marketing for higher education at Salesforce.org. Prior to joining Salesforce, Navneet was a solution director for higher education and research at SAP, and a senior analyst at Ovum, where she led research on the use of technology in higher education. Navneet’s passion for education and technology began when she was teaching in the further education sector in the U.K. for several years before moving to the U.S.
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