4-page Case Study - Posted 10/26/2006

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Ivy Tech Community College

Community College Improves Enrollment Forecasting, Positions to Meet Growth Goal

With campuses located throughout Indiana, Ivy Tech Community College is the only community college in the state. The college receives state funding, and the staff works hard to ensure that Ivy Tech graduates contribute to Indiana’s growing workforce. Wanting to boost student enrollment and retention, the Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech set a goal to increase its student body—from 15,000 to more than 25,000 students—by 2010. To help measure Ivy Tech’s progress toward the new enrollment target, the community college partnered with Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Crowe Chizek to implement Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0. Microsoft CRM allows Ivy Tech to better forecast enrollment, increase student inquiry response time, and generate targeted, streamlined communication.

Situation

Ivy Tech Community College is the second largest school in Indiana. More than 100,000 students attend college at Ivy Tech’s 23 campuses. Students can obtain two-year associate’s degrees and one-year technical certificates in more than 40 programs, ranging from business, to health sciences, to technology.

The community college is funded by the state, and Ivy Tech’s administration focuses on preparing its students for the local and state job markets. However, Ivy Tech had no formal process or plan in place for recruiting its students. In fact, recruiters would go to job fairs or high schools, hand out brochures and reply cards, but have no way to track or follow up with the prospective students to help them with the enrollment process.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM helps me spend less time reacting to change and more time making positive changes within the community college. Tracy Funk, Director of Admissions, Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech Community College

The Central Indiana region also couldn’t view student information that would help the staff with marketing efforts to reach prospective and current students. “Marketing to students would help us increase enrollment of new students and retention of current students,” says Funk.

Additionally, the Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech had a higher than average number of students dropping out, and it wasn’t able to track dropouts as they occurred. The community college wasn’t sure how staff could help ensure that students completed the year. The national noncomplete (or dropout) rate is around 30 to 45 percent, but at the Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech, the rate was a bit higher: 40 to 45 percent.

According to state funding regulations, when a student drops out of Ivy Tech, the community college does not receive state funding for that student for that semester.

To mitigate its enrollment and student participation issues, the Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech set an extremely aggressive enrollment goal: To grow student enrollment within the Central Indiana region from 15,000 to more than 25,000 students—by 2010. Phase 1 of the goal involves the admissions department recruiting more freshman students, while phase 2 of the project involves identifying at-risk students and helping to ensure that they complete their education at the Central Indiana region from fall to spring semester. The community college calls this second phase “student persistence.”

Solution

To help the Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech meet its aggressive growth goal, the college implemented Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0 on February 13, 2006. The community college had also evaluated ACT!, Goldmine, and Salesforce.com prior to its decision. Approximately 30 Ivy Tech staff who work in admissions, marketing, and the call center now use Microsoft® CRM.

“We evaluated other customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, but Microsoft CRM was the perfect fit,” says Rich Huss, Director of Computing and Technology Services for the Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech Community College. “We already use Microsoft Office Outlook®, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server™, Active Directory®, and other Microsoft products and technologies. Microsoft CRM integrated perfectly with our technology.”

Ivy Tech also wanted the ability to customize Microsoft CRM. The community college wanted to be able to develop its own reports and customize application tabs so that call center employees wouldn’t have to switch screens when taking calls and entering data at the same time.

To deploy the solution, Ivy Tech Community College partnered with consulting firm Crowe Chizek. A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Crowe Chizek specializes in helping clients improve their business processes through the use of technology, such as Microsoft CRM and Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly Microsoft Business Solutions-Great Plains®). Crowe Chizek worked with the Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech to understand the specific needs of the community college pertaining to student enrollment and student persistence, and the possible impact of having a proactive recruiting tool.

The partnership between Ivy Tech’s IT department and admissions department also made the implementation go smoothly. The coordination between these two departments helped staff adopt the solution quickly and easily, and the IT department was able to provide valuable support and guidance. “This was a seamless implementation—Microsoft CRM looked and felt familiar, so staff knew how to use it immediately,” adds Huss.

Integration with Microsoft Office Outlook
For the Central Indiana region, the strong integration between Microsoft CRM and Office Outlook enables the staff to work in a familiar environment to look up student information, set up appointments, and track goals and progress.

We evaluated other customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, but Microsoft CRM was the perfect fit. Rich Huss, Director of Computing and Technology Services, Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech Community College

“The mobility features of Microsoft CRM in Office Outlook allow our recruiters to gather important information while they’re recruiting at an event or high school, then synchronize their data when they return to the college,” says Huss. “The technology is hidden from the recruiters, allowing them to gather recruiting information on or off campus without worrying about the technology.”

Sales Recruiting Process
In its recruiting, the admissions department of the Central Indiana region now uses a structured sales process. The step-by-step process enables recruiters to track, on a daily basis, the student candidate as a prospect, applicant, and finally, student—all within Microsoft CRM.

“Recruiters use Microsoft CRM each and every day,” says Funk. “Recruiters look at how many prospective students were assigned to them, as well as how many contacts they have and how many students are coming into their pipelines. Recruiters can also track communications with high schools and other agencies.”

Student Persistence Management
Microsoft CRM helps Ivy Tech address student persistence. Now, Ivy Tech staff can identify and track risk factors for the students who are more likely to drop out. “Microsoft CRM gives us a way to monitor high-risk students to help build relationships with them,” says Funk. “This allows us to be proactive and ensure that students’ needs are being met and that they’ll make it to graduation day.”

Marketing Methods
The Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech changed its marketing strategies. Instead of using outdated databases and systems to send out mass mailings to all students, now the Central Indiana region uses the e-mail and direct mail capabilities within Microsoft CRM. For instance, admissions staff used to use a label maker printing system for mailed fulfillment pieces and a separate mass e-mail delivery system. Now, admissions staff use a direct e-mail template to compose the marketing piece and identify the mailing’s target audience. Marketing staff also use individualized form letters to send printed mail.

Call center employees—who speak with interested students every day—are particularly involved with Microsoft CRM. When a call comes in, a call center employee simply enters the information into Microsoft CRM. A recruiter is assigned automatically, and the call center employee clicks a button to send an application to the prospective student.

“We now send 6,000 pieces of mail per month out of our admissions call center,” says Funk. “We’re reaching out to students and prospective students in a targeted, proactive way to let them know what’s going on at Ivy Tech.”

Reporting Capabilities
The Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech has access to 10 distinct reports for all levels of admissions staff. The admissions director and the dean of student services can see the enrollment pipeline early on in the process so that each has an idea of how many students will be attending in future semesters. Recruiters can now see exactly where their leads are coming from and can see how effective they are in managing their given territory. This allows recruiters to improve their efforts in various areas in time to meet the goals.

“We can look at our lead source effectiveness to know where leads are coming from; view our top 10 educational institutions, so we know which schools are sending the most students our way; and pull reports on at-risk students before they even sit in our classrooms,” says Funk.

Benefits

With Microsoft CRM, the Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech is poised and ready to meet its goal of increasing student enrollment and improving retention by 2010. Better visibility into its pipeline of prospective students helps increase forecast accuracy, and the community college decreased the time needed to respond to student inquiries by one-third. Additionally, Ivy Tech has automated and streamlined its marketing efforts for maximum efficiency.

“This year we were named the nation’s fastest growing community college by Community College Week," says Dr. Carol D’Amico, Executive Vice President of the Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech Community College. “The work of our student services team, recruiters, faculty, and staff has not gone unnoticed. The implementation of Microsoft CRM is an exciting addition to our recruiting and retaining efforts.”

Huss adds, “Microsoft CRM provides us with a single solution platform to meet our enrollment and retention goals. We customized the application to meet our specific needs in higher education. We have greater visibility into several key metrics of our strategic plan using CRM-based reports and custom dashboards we developed.”

Increased Enrollment Forecasting Accuracy
Previously, the Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech had difficulty forecasting student enrollment for the next semester or year. With Microsoft CRM, Ivy Tech administrators have gained access to enrollment information and can make more accurate predictions.

“The enrollment pipeline is critical to my job. I was never able to see a clear picture of what my recruiters were doing each day in the field. With Microsoft CRM, I can see every phone call, e-mail message, and appointment logged into the application so I have a good picture of the overall progress,” says Funk.

Funk adds, “Microsoft Dynamics CRM helps me spend less time reacting to change and more time making positive changes within the community college. Management and recruiters have greater control, visibility, and analysis capabilities, and those are critical factors in meeting our goal of increased enrollment.”

Decreased Response Time to Student Inquiries by One-Third
Ivy Tech staff now knows exactly when an inquiry from a prospective student is submitted in Microsoft CRM, and when an application is sent out to that candidate. Even more importantly, this process that used to take six days, now only takes four days—or one-third less time than before Microsoft CRM.

“Now that we can measure fulfillment, we know when an interested student is requesting an application, and exactly how long it takes for a piece of mail to go out to that applicant,” says Funk.
 
Streamlined Targeted Marketing
The Central Indiana region of Ivy Tech can now market to potential students with ease. “Now that Ivy Tech has Microsoft CRM, we can take a database of applicants or potential students, track their interests and academic records, and more accurately market to them—instead of mass-producing ineffective campaigns on outdated systems,” says Funk.

Additionally, with the previous solution, the call center would have had to add two to three more staff members to keep up with student growth. Now the staff can handle the increased enrollment without requiring additional resources.

“Even though our previous system was outdated and very difficult to use, it still contained thousands of valuable prospect records. We were able to import all these records into Microsoft CRM from the old system and continue marketing to these existing prospects without skipping a beat,” says Huss.

A strong benefit of Microsoft CRM is that Ivy Tech can take a more automated approach to its marketing. “Microsoft CRM will grow with Ivy Tech—they won’t have to add additional resources or systems when they add students,” says Todd Hubbard, Account Executive with Crowe Chizek.
 

Microsoft Dynamics
Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what’s most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems that your company already has implemented. By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes, and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success.
 
For more information about Microsoft Dynamics, go to:
www.microsoft.com/dynamics 

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For more information about Crowe Chizek products and services, call (866)-662-7693 or visit the Web site at: www.crowechizek.com/microsoft

For more information about Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana products and services, call (888)-IVY-LINE or visit the Web site at: www.ivytech.edu

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