Learning Center

There’s no shortage of leads coming to your higher ed admissions department every day, but your team still struggles to grow new student enrollment. 

They are overwhelmed and stressed. There’s overall dissatisfaction among your employees, which looks like high turnover or counselors with decades of seniority who now function as little more than seat warmers. They dislike being on the phone all day, making and answering calls.

They say they’re being asked to do work they weren’t hired to do. They’re bored, resentful, and desperately want the bandwidth to do the work they’re passionate about: counseling potential students and leading them to enrollment. 

You’re not sure what to do next or where to turn.

“When enrollment is up, praise marketing. When enrollment is down, blame admissions.” 

If you’ve heard this quip on your higher ed campus, chances are there is a strained relationship between those two offices. At most colleges and universities, the admissions office and marketing department are separate, having two distinct functions. 

The main goal of the marketing office is to generate awareness and interest for the institution’s brand. The focus of the admissions office is to engage with prospective students and cultivate those relationships throughout the recruitment and enrollment process. 

Some institutions have worked to correct this problem of division, either establishing a recruitment marketing function within the enrollment management division, or having the vice president oversee both enrollment and marketing. However, even with this setup, there can still be friction between the two offices. 

In order to hit new student enrollment goals, though, your higher ed institution needs both departments functioning optimally and working together. 

It may not seem obvious, but the request for information (RFI) forms on your college or university’s website can make or break your new student enrollment goals.

Each of your RFI forms is one of the first interactions a prospective student has with your institution. They should: 

• Be easy to locate and clearly marked
• Be quick and easy to navigate and submit
• Collect only pertinent information 
• Have correct information and be functional

The information gathered from RFIs on your site is crucial to converting website visitors into active inquiries. If the RFI isn’t functioning properly, your outreach is affected, and new students are lost. 

You’re working hard to lift enrollment numbers. You’ve identified the problems in your admissions process, and you’re ready to work with a partner who can help you. 

You’ve built excitement around a solution but are shot down when you seek purchase approval: “That’s too expensive! Can’t we do this in-house?” 

Maybe you’ve heard this before from leadership. 

How can you convince your leadership that change is necessary?

You can hope that you are able to do enough without investing in additional resources. 

But, hope is not an enrollment strategy.

Institutions have thousands of leads and wonder why they don’t turn into students. The answer is that the institution doesn’t build a relationship with each lead. Colleges and universities flood prospects with email, one-off calls, and print pieces designed to inform the prospect about the institution. When there’s no consistent, systematic approach to building a relationship with those prospects, then the “relationship” that’s built is simply transactional (e.g., Apply Now! Complete your FAFSA!). Think about it. In your regular life, that me-centered approach is not how you get a date. It’s not how you make a friend. How does it make sense, then, for one-way, transactional communication to create enrollments? EB knows that this just isn’t the most effective way to create long-lasting relationships.   

Here at Enrollment Builders, we’ve worked with many traditional and non-traditional institutions, and we know what it takes to engage your prospective students. In the end, you need to provide each prospective student with an engaging, consistent experience. To stabilize the admissions funnel and ensure that no interested prospective student is missed, Enrollment Builders has created cadences.

Being down in enrollment causes panic for any admissions executive. During this stressful time, any number of thoughts run through your head. You’ve either heard it said or thought to yourself: “If we had more leads at the top of the funnel, we would have hit our goals.” Sure, because more in equals more out, right? 

As the person ultimately responsible for ensuring enrollment growth at your institution, you will be challenged with “defending” and advancing any changes to existing plans. You may find yourself wondering ..."What will leadership (and my team) want to know about my plan to introduce a Contact Center partnership?"

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could guess what questions might be asked of you before these presentations?

Well, look no more!

This Contact Center Guide contains all of the answers to common questions you may be asked.

You work hard to generate leads so your institution can grow.

Despite the increases in marketing budget and lead volume (not to mention the long hours you’ve poured into the project), you’re still struggling with your enrollment goals.

"The truth is, we didn’t realize at first how working “aged” leads would make such a huge impact for our clients who are trying to grow academic programs. We had a thought that if we combined two established practices, aged lead follow-up and outbound contact strategies, it would redefine the way our higher education Contact Center operates. It wasn't until we saw it in practice that we noticed how significant of a game-changer it was for our partners. By placing the prospective student's experience at the forefront of our strategic proven process, we uncovered a whole new way to drive growth."

Jennifer Goode / CEO of Enrollment Builders