Press releases

School implements CRM to improve customer service and engagement of local business community and working professionals

Bethesda, MD – March 1, 2011 – Intelliworks, Inc., a leading provider of relationship management solutions for higher education, today announced that the University of Houston Continuing Educationhas selected Intelliworks’ CRM platform to improve its customer service and communication with working professionals.

University of Houston Continuing Educationoffers a broad range of certificate programs, courses, workshops, conference, online courses, and custom-designed training to working professionals throughout the Greater Houston metropolitan area.  As University of Houston Continuing Educationlooks to expand its career enhancement and corporate training services to a variety of industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, legal and energy, the institution views CRM as an integral component to driving student success and customer care.

According to Guy Felder, Program Director of Professional Development at University of Houston Continuing Education, “Becoming a customer-centric organization is about much more than improving yield and revenue.  It truly is about customer satisfaction and hopefully one of the outcomes of that will be increased registrations.  However, we see an opportunity to extend the reach of the University of Houston’s mission and brand to the larger business community by offering better, more responsive service to working professionals interested in our corporate training and professional development offerings.”

With Intelliworks, University of Houston Continuing Educationwill gain insight into day-to-day interactions with students, enhance online inquiry response and email marketing efforts, as well as generate reports on the effectiveness of their communications with prospective students.  This data-driven approach to student service will help the institution find the right types of students for its programs.  “Our students will tell us what they want,” said Felder.  “If someone gets to the point where they’ve gotten all the information about our programs, but decides not register, we want to know why.  Is there something we could have done better or differently in the future?”

The majority of the programs at University of Houston Continuing Educationare high-consideration purchases that could have a tremendous impact on students looking to make a career change, enhance their job prospects or move on to a full-time graduate program.  However, like most high-consideration purchasing decisions, selecting the right program often involves multiple interactions with the institution.

“We wanted to ensure that every individual that expresses interest in our programs receives some level of personal attention when they speak with someone at University of Houston Continuing Education,” said Felder.  “We saw a CRM tool as necessary to helping us provide prospects with a consistent experience no matter whom they speak to at our institution because we’ll now have a record of all those conversations in Intelliworks.”

The institution had originally explored managing these interactions using its registration system, however, “We realized that our registration system was not built to handle your typical enrollment funnel,” said Felder.  “When we looked at Intelliworks we saw it was made to handle this type of relationship marketing activity, and we saw a tremendous value in this type of system.”

“As state schools across the country look to get more revenue, continuing education programs are at the forefront of the conversation,” said Todd Gibby, CEO, Intelliworks.  “Organizations like University of Houston Continuing Educationrealize that as their importance to the institution grows, there is a need to implement scalable relationship management processes and technologies that will allow them to reach more students and prospects efficiently, in order to help the institution keep pace with the increasing demand for their services.”

###

About Intelliworks, Inc.

Intelliworks enables enrollment and admissions professionals to make purposeful connections with students through its Web-based relationship management, marketing and recruitment software and services. Leading institutions around the globe leverage Intelliworks' relationship management solutions for higher education to increase enrollment, enhance marketing performance and improve operational efficiency.  For more information, visit http://www.intelliworks.com.

About University of Houston Continuing Education

University of Houston Continuing Educationresponds to the professional education needs of a growing community of learners through certificate programs, courses, workshops, conference, online courses, and custom-designed training.  In addition to holding courses and training at the UH campus, University of Houston Continuing Educationoffers programs in the Cinco Ranch, Texas Medical Center and Clear Lake areas for the convenience of professionals who reside or work there. University of Houston Continuing Educationalso responds to requests from businesses and corporations to deliver on-site training.  For more information, visit http://www.uh.edu/continuingeducation/