Enrolment in UAE schools is at a record high! Rising oil prices leading to a budget surplus, combined with the country’s strong bounce back following the pandemic and an influx of new parents due to changes to visa rules this September, there are even more families arriving in the UAE looking for the best schools for their children.
Though there are more students available, with new schools popping up all the time and the rise of UAE’s alternative private education offerings, competition between schools is fierce – leading to schools reviewing the way they approach admissions processes, offering a tailored approach to prospective parents and streamlining the administration required in the admissions team so that they can spend more time selling the benefits of their school to parents.
I’ve taken some time here to highlight 5 ways an admissions CRM can help your school capitalise on the opportunity that presents itself, and why it is important to investigate using one if you are struggling to meet your enrolment goals.
1) An office that’s always open
An admissions CRM, especially one with a front end portal for parents like HUBadmissions, allows prospective parents to enquire, apply and fill out important forms on the go, whenever they have the time. Parents are busy, and not all of them are around during office hours to speak to you on the phone – what’s more, the world is changing, some parents are used to never chatting on the phone.
With an admissions CRM, parents kicking back at the end of the day, on their lunch break or at the weekend can log in and fill out important information to continue with the application process when the admissions office is closed.
2) Parents like having it easy
With nearly 800 international schools to choose from in the UAE, and over 30 in the pipeline to be built over the coming years, competition is fierce between schools.
The schools that remove as many barriers as possible during the admissions process are going to reap the rewards. Parents are time poor, as mentioned in my first tip, so if they can’t decide between a few schools they’re most likely to choose the one with the easiest admissions route. Using a tool that allows them to progress in their own time, will allow you to boost your conversion rates and minimise the drop offs in your admissions process.
3) Targeting your campaigns
We all love personalisation and a brand that understands us.
There’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach to marketing, and using an admissions CRM allows you to target your campaigns in a granular way. It’s important to be separating campaigns by type of applicant in order to maximise personalisation and bring in more leads, convert more applicants and ultimately meet enrolment targets.
4) Minimise time administrating
If you minimise the time spent administering, you maximise the time your staff can spend selling the benefits of your school to prospective parents. I don’t think there will ever be a replacement for an admissions manager selling the benefits of a school to a parent on the phone. Your most important asset is your team, not fancy websites or technology employed. Allowing your team to automate processes with inbuilt forms functionality, document uploads and progress updates, allows your team to get back to what they do best, engaging and interacting with prospective parents.
5) Adapt your sales process with intelligent analysis
Its essential to know when and why your applicants are dropping off in the admissions process, where your best leads are coming from so you can direct your marketing spend, and forecast placed for the new year.
Many teams use spreadsheets to manage this process which are effective, but take an age to prepare, update and present back to the management team.
With an admissions CRM like HUBadmissions, you can automate a lot of analysis, provide live views to management team (to remove the need of preparing a board report each month) and ultimately direct marketing spend with intelligent analysis of conversions by lead source – all at the click of a button.
In summary
The opportunity available for schools in the UAE to maximise their enrolment is huge, but if this isn’t approached in the right way schools may fail to meet enrolment goals.
Simply enrolling one additional student the first year’s tuition fees can often pay for an admissions CRM for many years over, it’s really a no brainer to investigate one further.
Find out more about HUBadmissions here.
Book a meeting at your school with Will here.
About WCBS
The HUB product range is the most technologically advanced software for International Schools, having received almost £10m in investment.
With the first of the range, HUBmis, successfully launching in 2020 (shortly followed by HUBadmissions and soon to be joined by HUBincome) HUB is bringing International Schools the User Experience, Technology and Security they deserve, across the three core areas of MIS, Finance and Admissions.
HUB is available across the globe on any device with an internet connection, and is currently available in English, Arabic and Mandarin with more language expansion on the cards for the future.
This blog was originally published by Will McNeil on LinkedIn here.
