Managing Communication Plans Using Task Management :Students and Customers

In my earlier post, we discussed the CRM task management functionality for appointment requests and marketing event-related tasks. In this post, we will look into managing communication plans for prospective students and customers.

The term “communication plans” refers to the various ways information is gathered, stored, and distributed during the course of a project or business process. The plans below are examples of the “on-boarding process,” which consist of some of the tasks that are performed in steps, when sending information to new prospects.

Communication Plan-New Prospective Students

1. Send a thank you letter after the student submits an inquiry, attends an event, or calls the institution.
2. Send an informational postcard on the next steps to be taken by the student or provide links to relevant programs/plans/courses.
3. Send an information packet which includes marketing materials.
4. Send an email with a link to the application based on known information (e.g. career, graduate/undergraduate).

Communication Plan-New Prospective Customers

1. Send a thank you or welcome letter showing appreciation.
2. Based on your business, send an informative email containing current clients, testimonials, direct help lines, products and services, etc.
3. Provide information on getting started with new product(s) or service(s) they have purchased or are planning to purchase.
4. Send an information packet which includes marketing materials.
5. Request completion of a survey to gauge perceptions of the business relationship with them.

Managing the Communication Plan Using CRM

• Create a model category and label it “Pre-App Process” for students and “Pre-Order Process” for customers.
• Within these models, create “stages” using the communication plan steps mentioned above.
• Tag the prospect with the appropriate stage.
• Create a task with the description of the stage, so it shows as a task and is assigned to a worker in the system.
• The assignee receives the task notification; once he/she completes the task, the stage is changed and so on.

Advantages

• At any given time, you can view the exact stage a specific communication plan is in with reference to a prospect.
• Since tasks are assigned, which are in tangent to the stages, no action item will be left pending or missed out,
• A list of all prospects at a particular stage can be viewed.
• Reports can be generated based on this information, which in turn, can be used to calculate your conversion rate with reference to time and resources.
• No step in your on-boarding process will be missed, so the response time or the customer service image of your organization will always be intact.

Identifying and getting new prospects is tough, but sustaining them is the greatest challenge. What we have discussed in this post is, perhaps, the most critical part of your on-boarding process for students in higher education and customers in the corporate world. In order to seize the opportunity to convert prospects to enrolled students and customers to actually buy or place orders, the tasks of welcoming them are very critical to your business and the image of your organization.

Thank you!

Girish-

Email-prabhuconsult@gmail.com

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