DeVry University

Implementing Salesforce To Craft An All-Inclusive Commitment To Students

DeVry University has been a Salesforce customer since 2005, with a focus on delivering a full- service approach to student wellbeing and success. What started with Salesforce Sales Cloud has grown over the years to include Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, Einstein Analytics, Marketing Cloud Engagement, and Marketing Cloud Personalization.

DeVry CARE Formula is an inclusive approach to services and support that enables students in their educational journey and career goals. It not only comes from faculty and advisors that interact with students every day but it is baked into their processes and technologies to further that commitment. By providing support to students from enrollment to career outcomes, and all the steps in between – like attendance and tutoring – DeVry has created a community of personal support and academic motivation.

Early on, DeVry saw the need to champion its growing student population. Now, DeVry is at the forefront of technology adoption to support students through their entire student lifecycle.

Ambitions Held Back By Inflexible Technology

In the early to mid 2000s, CRM platforms were considerably different than they are today. As an early adopter of CRM technology, DeVry struggled with their existing CRM because of its static user interface and limited customization of capabilities. DeVry saw the need to find a more suitable solution that would elevate rather than limit their business processes.

DeVry started its Salesforce journey with an “out-of-the-box” implementation of Sales Cloud to better administer University partnerships. Partnerships included businesses, branches of the military, and community colleges from which students wanted to advance their education or career.

While the “out-of-the-box” product was a nice introduction to Salesforce, the team needed a more customizable, long-term solution to fit their ambitious objectives. After documenting university processes, outcomes, and metrics, DeVry was able to develop a more relevant version of Sales Cloud for the teams managing and growing these partnerships.

These partnerships are even more relevant today to understand the skills employers need in the workplace and to close skill gaps that result from the increasing pace of technological change. This Salesforce org was recently upgraded to lightning, which provided the IT team another opportunity to streamline and consolidate the configuration to align with objectives.

Flexibility and Customization Lead to Positive Student Experience

The ease of working with Salesforce for university partnerships led DeVry to implement the suite of CRM products to enable their Formula of CARE across the full student journey.

Before implementing Salesforce, advisors could only visualize limited student information and had restricted batch-type processing capabilities that led to delayed response times. DeVry wanted to ensure advisors were providing timely and consistent outreach. Using Sales Cloud, DeVry was able to greatly accelerate the time from when an interested student requested information to when an advisor reached out. What used to take hours was reduced to minutes.

“Our admissions advisors love Salesforce. It is so much easier to use than the tools we had in the past and it’s customized to their needs,” said Karen D’Amico, IT Director at DeVry University.

After seeing the Service Cloud Console, the Admissions teams requested their own console view within Sales Cloud. They really like the ability to see their list of students and all the relevant information when working with a student on one screen.

During the transition to Salesforce Lighting, the IT team built a custom page to visualize all the milestones students go through during the enrollment process. Rather than sifting through dashboards or fields on a page, advisors can easily view and understand steps as they are completed. Now, progress and areas of opportunity are seen in real-time to assist students who may be struggling and need additional advisor CARE to navigate the process. Before implementing Salesforce, advisors could only visualize limited student information and had limited batch type processing capabilities that led to delayed response times. DeVry wanted to ensure advisors were providing timely and consistent outreach. Using Sales Cloud, DeVry was able to greatly accelerate the time from when an interested student requested information and when an advisor reached out. What used to take hours, was reduced to minutes.

“Our admissions advisors love Salesforce. It is so much easier to use than the tools we had in the past and it’s customized to their needs,” said Karen D’Amico, IT Director at DeVry University.

After seeing the Service Cloud Console, the Admissions teams requested their own console view within Sales Cloud. They really like the ability to see their list of students and all the relevant information when working with a student on one screen.

During the transition to Salesforce Lighting, the IT team built a custom page to visualize all the milestones students go through during the enrollment process. Rather than sifting through dashboards or fields on a page, advisors can easily view and understand steps as they are completed. Now, progress and areas of opportunity are seen in real-time to assist students who may be struggling and need additional advisor CARE to navigate the process.

Innovative Tech Strengthens Core Values

DeVry is intentional in making sure the ethos of CARE also extends to under-represented student demographics, first generation students, and working adults, to make sure they have the support needed to reach their goals. DeVry offers resources for both academic assistance and personal support outside the classroom. When reaching out to different student groups, DeVry knew it was important to be able to reach them when they were available and receptive.

“So many students are working adults and full-time caregivers,” D’Amico said. “The struggle may not be about how to finish homework but instead ‘how do I find the time?’”

DeVry uses Marketing Cloud journeys to power its Digital CARE system, which employs multiple communication channels to reach students where they are and when they need it. For example, in 2021, DeVry saw a need to increase awareness and usage of free tutoring services available to students. By using academic data, DeVry identified students who would benefit from tutoring. The messages were personalized to come from named faculty or advisors to reach students with a trusted voice. They were also optimized to find the best weekday and time of day to deliver the messages with highest engagement to reach students when they were ready to act. As a result, these messages consistently saw high open rates from 51% to 76%.

By personalizing these Marketing Cloud tutoring “nudges” and focusing outreach at the right times, DeVry has seen 80% of these students improve their grade after struggling previously.

“Marketing Cloud is extremely good at knowing what time a student is most likely opening their emails, and prioritizing communication on their terms,” said Tara Lapinskas, Senior Manager of IT at DeVry. “We don’t want to make it a hindrance for students when we reach out.”

By utilizing Salesforce technology and its Formula of CARE approach to helping its students, 96% of DeVry students who received “nudges” and used tutoring were successful at reaching graduation or persisting into the next course.

About DeVry University

DeVry is proud of its long history of innovation through technology, and how the services and the support it provides is helping prepare students to thrive. The university continues to look at new ways to innovate and extend CARE for its growing and diverse student population. Fostering an inclusive community that feels challenged and empowered, with programs driven by the tech-centered needs of tomorrow’s industries.