George Mason University Boosts Student Satisfaction and Enrollment With Automation.

Mason sees recruitment and student satisfaction gains by embracing automation.

2 min read

Products Used

Named the most diverse university in Virginia, George Mason University hits record student satisfaction numbers by reimagining its student experience with Salesforce.

In a nutshell

To better reach students from all backgrounds, George Mason University aimed to create a more efficient, student-centered experience with data and automation. Mason used dashboards for real-time goal tracking and behavior-based models to scale up recruitment. Recruiters can now reach thousands of students instead of hundreds without extra cost.

Why it Matters for Students

This new student experience increased student and staff satisfaction, allowing Mason to reach students in new ways and provide support to students who may not have accessed it in the past. It has also helped scale its recruitment and build personal relationships with thousands of prospective students – all with little or no increase to recruitment staff thanks to nudge-based communications and behavior-based modeling.

We've engaged in a long-term project with Salesforce to make our student experience more automated, more efficient, more student-centered. We’re confident in the choices we've made with the product and confident in our ability to pull it off.

David Burge

Vice President for Enrollment Management, George Mason

What the Salesforce difference looks like for students:

Before Salesforce enabled the creation of a one-stop shop for student services, students had four separate offices to look to for guidance when it came to solving financial aid, enrollment or registration issues. Oftentimes, the staff would not have readily-available information, and the student would have to return or wait for next steps via email.

Here’s what help looks like now:

Using Service Cloud, Mason created a one-stop solution for student services. Data supports students throughout their lifecycle at Mason, from registration to grad school.
Each student has their history available to staff, documenting the issues they’ve had in the past so anyone they approach has the background information needed to help.
Real-time data enables staff to support students at every step. Mason can see those who are asking for help and students who are struggling but will not reach out.
CRM Analytics allows staff to see where problem points are forming in real time. They can direct resources to these issues to reduce wait times and student frustration.

Enrollment and recruitment saw gains as well:

Behavior-based modeling and nudge-based communication allows recruiters to scale their relationships to potential students, from hundreds of contacts to thousands of contacts.
Targeted strategies enable recruiters to reach individuals with personalized messages that address what they care about from higher education.
Real-time dashboard tracking allows updates of recruitment goals and live monitoring of territory strengths and weaknesses.