Post University Streamlines Admissions

Over the past four years, Post University has grown from 1,200 online students to more than 5,000. By constantly talking with students, the admissions counselors have helped the Waterbury, Conn., university grow.

But the student information system, which includes a customer resource management system, can't keep up. Before IT Director Mike Statmore came to the university four years ago, the system hadn't been updated.

He and his team built some solutions in house to help, but kept their eye on a customer resource management application.

“We have definitely squeezed as much life out of an 8-year-old system as we possibly can,” he said.

This academic year, they decided to switch to Oracle Customer Relationship Management (CRM) on Demand to help them generate reports from real-time data, automate much of the admissions process and integrate student information across multiple departments.

Now when potential students decide to go to Post University, they print an intent to enroll form, sign it and fax it to the school. A couple of days later, the admissions counselors, registrar and student accounts personnel build a record for them in the student system and clear them for enrollment. 

With the in-house solutions the IT team built, the process takes about four hours. But the new CRM combined with student portals from WebQA will allow staff members to spend their time more efficiently and provide customer service that makes the university stand out.

Financial aid representatives will speak with students sooner, student accounts personnel can get their accounts set up, and admissions counselors will connect them with advisers faster.

“Having CRM on demand will allow us more time to serve our students and less time serving our systems,” Statmore said.

The candidates will speak to an admissions counselor, and if they say they want to enroll, the counselor will give them a login and password for the portal. They'll read the intent to enroll form online and click "yes." 

That electronic information will be transferred to the CRM and recorded in the system, which will alert the student accounts and registrar staff that they need to do certain tasks. The managers will be able to see how many tasks are in the queue and how many each employee completes. The real-time data will allow them to generate powerful reports.

Everyone will be working in the same system, including admissions, student accounts, the registrar, advising, student services, finance, IT and other departments that need to access the data.

“All of those groups will be using it because it will allow us to give each of those departments a 360 degree view of what’s going on with the student," Statmore said, "and it’ll give the managers a 360 degree view of what’s going on with the pipeline.”