Without a doubt, the educational sector has gone through a rough phase during the pandemic. Lockdown has entirely changed the work methodologies of almost every industry, including education.
Consequently, this has compelled the educational sector to redefine its working process and teaching methods.
Whether it is about e-learning or admission and enrollment, educational institutions encounter several challenges every now and then.
As a result, they have to face lower application and enrollment counts from students.
But if institutions have reliable and effective communication channels in place, it becomes easier to overcome every challenge and ramp up applications and enrollments.
Challenges in Educational Institutions and their Solutions
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People’s Unfamiliarity with E-learning Concept
Educational institutions are encountering a massive shift from offline to online teaching.
But as students and parents are not adept at e-learning, it is getting difficult for educational professionals to increase registrations and enrollments for online classes.
So, this is where the need for effective communication channels emerges to engage with students and parents and convince them to opt for e-learning.
Solution
Rather than advertising or sending marketing messages, it is better to send quality videos of online classes or a sample video explaining a particular topic.
This would help parents to understand the concept of e-learning and opt for online learning for their children.
To do so, institutions can count on Salesforce text for education and use MMS, WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat, or Facebook and send media-rich content to intrigue parents.
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Fewer Applications due to Ineffective Branding
As competition has increased fiercely in the educational sector, this is again posing problems for educational institutions.
This makes it difficult for them to increase admissions due to various educational institutions available in the market.
Thus, institutions need strong marketing and engagement strategies to present their brand more concretely and stand out from the competitors.
Solution
Before approaching any student, it is vital to qualify prospective students at scale.
Thus, you can count on Surveys and Questionnaires to automate the process of student qualification at scale. This is one way to use text for education operations.
This would help to collect information from students and find out which student is fit for your institution.
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Limited Reach to Prospective Students and Parents
It takes up a lot of effort to make people familiar with a brand and drive engagement.
Educational institutions use various marketing methods like TV advertisements, banners, billboard advertising, social media ads, etc.
But these sorts of marketing techniques do not ensure sure-shot visibility of ads. Many times these advertisements are seen and many times not.
Solution
98% open rate of text messages makes text for education the most reliable and effective means of advertising.
Without any need for internet accessibility, you can reach out to people using the most basic handsets instead of smartphones.
With the help of text marketing, not only you can market educational courses but let your customers know about the program offerings at scale using bulk message broadcasting.
This way, you can reach prospective students right on their ubiquitous devices and ensure readership of information.
On the other hand, educational institutions can use MMS or WhatsApp to send visual content like brochures, achievement videos, campus tour videos, etc., to innovate marketing strategies and attract more enrollments.
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Delayed Responses to Incoming Inquiries
When a new academic session is about to begin, prospective students, explore many educational institutions to find which one is for them.
They check reviews, programs, courses, fee structure, etc. This raises several new questions in their mind, and they enquire with institutions to get their answers.
As a result, admission and enrollment teams get bombarded with calls and incoming inquiry texts. This leads to delayed responses or mishandling of calls as professionals get exhausted.
Solution
One of the best solutions to elicit an instant response is automated Salesforce texting.
Thus, educational centers can count on chatbots to answer the most frequently asked questions 24*7.
Besides, they can use triggered texting to respond immediately in the event of an incoming inquiry.
Also, agents can get into the one-on-one conversation for personalized interactions and resolve inquiries faster.
Another way to respond to more inquiries is by reducing the chat session time.
Agents can send self-help article URLs to cut back on long chat sessions using Salesforce SMS for education.
To reduce increased call volumes, educational firms can opt for CTI for better call handling and reduced support calls.
With advanced capabilities like call routing, call transfer, call conferencing, etc., agents can handle calls better and resolve their inquiries in a single call session.
This would prevent students from making repeated calls and reduce support calls for agents.
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Time-Consuming Document Collection Process
Admission and enrollment teams call back and forth to collect documents from the students. This drains a lot of time for the teams as one member can call only one student at a time.
Also, if any document is missing, they have to follow up again. This reduces the efficiency of teams.
Solution
Instead of calls, admission and enrollment teams can opt for text for education. They can use WhatsApp messaging or MMS to collect documents.
This would save students from paying a visit to educational institutions.
More importantly, they can automate a follow-up text if any required document is missing and send reminders to submit desired documents on time.
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Delay in Fee Payments
Delay in fee payments is one of the major factors leading to admission cancellation.
Renowned universities have a limited number of seats for different programs and courses.
Thus, there’s high competition among students for seats also. So, the one who pays the fee first, the admission is confirmed for that particular student.
And the admission is canceled for the other students.
Solution
Renowned universities and education institutions can take the help of Salesforce SMS to send fee reminders and attract payments on time.
On the other hand, they can send on-brand fee payment URLs to instill trust in parents for fee payments, make the payment process convenient and improve brand recognition.
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Lack of Public Awareness of Educational Rights
Lack of awareness of educational rights in people leads to a lower literacy rate.
Thus, one of the crucial steps to improving admission counts is to increase public awareness of educational rights.
But you cannot rely on a door-to-door approach to spread awareness. This would limit the reach of educational institutions.
Solution
It is not easy to reach out to millions of people in one go.
But bulk texting can make it feasible for educational professionals to reach millions of people in one fell swoop.
This would help cut back on repeated efforts and spread educational awareness at scale without investing much time.
Text Use-case in Educations other than Application and Enrollment
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Lack of Engagement while Policymaking and Implementation
In the education system, policymaking takes place at the national level. And this involves a diverse group of people like international donors, the education community, stakeholders, etc.
Thus, institutions need effective communications with policymakers and stakeholders at different times in the formal education system.
Whether it is about setting assessment procedures or establishing budgets, effective communication is necessary at every turn for smooth processes.
On the other hand, implementation of educational policy is not possible without communicating and following up with subordinates.
Solution
Thus, institutions can count on reliable communication channels like calls, texts, or WhatsApp to exchange information or communicate their ideas. This would help to engage faster and improve the quality of policy formulation.
Besides, they can take the help of automated messages for follow-ups and cut back on time investment. They can use text for education to communicate with relevant departments and ensure the proper implementation of policies.
Also, while formulating policies, policymakers can get into group discussions at the conform of their home through WhatsApp messaging and discuss problems, solutions, etc. and make decisions.
Respond Immediately, Increase Engagement, and Ramp up Applications
Whether it is about admission and enrollment documentation, admission updates, internal communication with staff, campus announcements, or any other educational operations, text for education provides the most convenient channel for communication.
Even if it is about last-minute changes, text messages are the most reliable channel to pass on information about last-minute changes. More importantly, professionals can interact and engage with millions in no time.
Thus, users can use messages for any communication purpose, speed up interactions, improve engagement and help students with decision-making.
To know more about how you manage text operations more conveniently and faster for your vertical, reach out to our experts at care@360smsapp.com or contact us here.