As we in higher ed are all painfully aware at this point, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have and will continue to wreak havoc on budgets for the foreseeable future. While we’ve found creative alternatives to take aspects of the recruitment process online, doing so has required many campuses to invest in multiple systems to manage such outreach. While simultaneously, virtually every administrator is still being tasked with finding ways to trim excess spending. Travel budgets, vendors, software platforms, even staff members are potentially on the block. So how do we identify the right mix of what we have, what we need, and what we can cut?
Consider Your CRM
If your enrollment office uses Slate as your CRM, you are already a good deal of the way there – and you may not even know it. While it is often easy and effective enough to rely on one platform for email, another for digital, one for SMS, and another for phone banks or video, in the current environment of scarcity, have you inventoried everything you can do under one Slate roof? Combining both long-time standards like SMS and Inbox with newer features like Share webinars and Slate Voice, there is a long list of functionalities that may allow you to shift operations in-house that have traditionally required additional budget line items.
Partnerships Can Boost Internal Strength
While services and relationships with outside partners will almost always add value to your recruitment operations, the mechanisms by which these partners engage with your institution are evolving. Instead of partnering for a service executed on third-party platforms, you may now want to engage (at typically less of an investment) with a trusted partner for the expertise and acumen to get your internal system fully operationalized for your needs. Do you have camera-ready personalities for virtual visits and Slate? Then maybe you don’t need that additional set of video-conferencing licenses. Counselors ready to close the deal on the phone and have a long list of prospects to call, but lacking an integrated telephone operation for VOIP calling from home with built-in tracking? Maybe you only think you are missing the tech stack to pull it off.
Now is the time to take a close look at what you need, and just as critically, what you have when deciding where you can cut. Let us help you navigate the tools that may very well already be at your disposal within your Slate instance to maximize what you are already paying for.
For more information on optimizing your Slate instance, contact us at success@parishgroup.com.
