Welcome measures

The admissions office has never been more important to independent schools. But how effective is yours? Jan Evans advises on how to integrate the office into the overall sales drive to help you secure more pupils

Over the past 10 to 15 years, the independent sector has understood the concept of schools as businesses and, as a result, most have realised that a professional approach to marketing is as essential as sound educational principles and good financial management. Because of these changes, the sector is relatively buoyant even in these difficult times (this is not an accident, as any commercial marketer will tell you).

However, before becoming too self-congratulatory, a question: how many schools have paid attention to their sales team? Let’s examine the concept of sales in schools. Increasingly, potential customers will make their first approach via a visit to your website. Just as in the commercial world, your customer will have looked at a number of other school websites and is deciding between them. If he/she were poised to buy a product and required further information after having visited the company website, he/she would telephone the company to speak to a member of a sales team. In this instance, the parent will telephone or email the school. This is the beginning of his or her relationship with your sales force. Your admissions manager is, effectively, your sales manager. And, of course, your receptionist or whoever takes the initial call is also a part of the sales team.

Lines of communication
Many (but far too few) schools have embraced the relationship between marketing and sales (customer care) and, as a result, admissions staff report into marketing. It is not an accident that in those schools the admissions team understands its role in the process and the exchange of information, customer-salesperson-marketer-management team and vice versa; it is an automatic part of the planning and delivery of the school “product”.

If that is something you have never considered, recall your best and worst customer experiences and then imagine the experience of your potential customers (or better still get someone else to mystery shop). Then:
• think about how much your customer will be worth to you during the life of their relationship with the school;
• how many of them are new each year? and
• how many more could there be? (Or how many more of a particular profile?).

Next consider your investment in the sales office:
• how much training has your front-of-house team members received in customer care and about their role in marketing?
• what is their working environment like? For example, is it conducive to holding a 40-minute telephone conversation with an overseas parent who speaks little English?
• assuming that they meet and greet visitors (if they don’t, they should), where is the admissions office located in relation to the visitor entrance? and
• do they have the right equipment to hand? (They need a good sales-tracking database and fast computer access if they are to deliver first-class customer care).

As in the commercial world, a small investment in your sales team can dramatically impact on your bottom line.

On hold
I am told by those that have them, that “everyone is used to telephone answering systems” (eg “press 1 for... X, 2 for... Y etc”), but have you met anyone who likes these systems? No? Then don’t use one.

Schools are about people. We owe it to our pupils and their parents (given their investment and their loyalty) to greet them with a friendly human voice and not a wretched machine.

All schools are trying to raise their game. If all else is equal, the friendly voice at the end of the telephone could make the difference between a potential customer visiting or not. If you don’t think so, call a few schools and see
how you are greeted.

In most schools, the conversion rate from visit to registration is high, so converting visitors is the best investment you can make. It is your sales team that will make this happen.

Jan Evans is the founder and managing director of RSAdmissions, which delivers bespoke customer care training and runs the AMDIS Certificate in Admissions Management course. 

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