EMAS Pro Case Study:
Sinclair Community College

Shared by: Coordinator, Communications Management

“At Sinclair, we were experiencing frustration with the lack of easy to use communications management functions from our SIS. Sending communications to prospective students was a labor and time intensive process, and personalizing these communications was nearly impossible. Instead of spending time working with prospective students, my staff and I were managing difficult data exports, and having to manually enter updates to individual student records in our SIS.”

The Search for a Solution

“We decided we just needed a better tool to help us reach out to prospective students and make our jobs and our enrollment process more efficient. Sinclair was in the midst of a complete shift in enrollment strategy - one element of which was our Admissions office moving toward a territory management model. We undertook a college-wide RFI/RFP process and interviewed a number of CRM vendors. The staff members involved in the search process served primary to analyze both what we needed a CRM to do, what features we could realistically expect based on the budget, and what features we could realistically implement based on the resources at hand. The IT staff also served a crucial oversight role in making sure whichever CRM product we chose adhered to college standards, was technologically relevant, and required minimal addition of hardware.

“Many products we looked at had similar capabilities, a few had extra bells and whistles, and some were more costly than others. Our decision to go with EMAS to complement Datatel was based on basic functionality and cost. At Sinclair, we were starting the CRM process from nothing, so EMAS had the basic functionality, ease of use and price point that really fit what we were looking for. The most important selling points for us were the telecounseling module, which we began to use and see results from right away, and the personalized and automated communication plans. ”

The Results

“Since the implementation of EMAS, we've seen increases in our number of enrolled students in every quarter except one. EMAS is helping Sinclair with enrollment by allowing us to more efficiently communicate with students, and to move them through the enrollment process faster. Also, with EMAS, our staff is able to use their time to make follow up calls and meet with prospective students, instead of spending time doing back end work with our SIS.

“Almost immediately we began realizing the benefits of being able to personalize communication to prospective students based on a variety of items and demographic information. The built-in Communication Plan function requires less maintenance and enables much greater flexibility than we had when using our SIS to communicate with prospective students. One of our favorite features is that we are able to communicate to students differently depending on which term they will be attending Sinclair, and once we've created this plan, we can copy it to the same term in the next academic year. This way, we are able to recycle an effective campaign with some timely updates, instead of starting completely over every recruiting cycle. The level of personalization we use within EMAS makes our communications seem more professional, if not more personal.

“Since acquiring EMAS, Sinclair has also seen improvements in office efficiency and the length of our enrollment cycle. The quick entry form in EMAS really improved our processing speed and accuracy, and we are able to run more specific queries to set up communications due to the number of fields of information we are able to collect. We've gained at least two to three man hours per week in this area alone utilizing EMAS.

“Previously, to add or perform a task as part of a prospective student communication plan, we would have to export files out of our SIS and then sort or highlight the records by hand, perform the task, then manually update the student records in our SIS. Now, we can easily set up a query in EMAS, and schedule automatic communications for students who fit the criteria we've queried. We can create HTML emails in EMAS, test it and send it in a fraction of the time we used to.

“EMAS actually helps us generate more enrollment related activity in our office. Our admissions officers are no longer spending time doing back end exports and imports, and can now make more calls and spend more time meeting with prospective students and their families. EMAS has helped our staff become more accountable, as we can report on conversion rate by admission officer. Admissions officers can come in each day, sign in to EMAS and see exactly what they have to do for the day - they are able to follow projects from start to finish and have responsibility over their own work. It's been fun to watch the admissions officers learn to use EMAS and then take so much pride in what they are doing through EMAS.

“Beyond general recruitment, Sinclair is using EMAS to streamline communications with our transient or guest/visiting students with success. We already had a great communication process in place for these students and transitioned it into EMAS to eliminate paper interest forms. Now we are able to handle inquiries more efficiently and improve the admissions cycle for these students who make up a large part of our campus.

“We are looking forward to the future of EMAS at Sinclair and are currently implementing EMAS at our satellite campuses to allow them to manage students in their service areas, and will be utilizing EMAS to help us reach our goal of increasing the number of students who apply for and are awarded grants and scholarships. For other schools considering EMAS, implementation can at times be long and challenging, but as soon as you get your staff members on board, you will begin to see results and get your money's worth from EMAS.”

About Sinclair Community College

Sinclair Community College, located in Dayton, Ohio, was established in 1887 and came under its current name in the late sixties. With locations in Dayton, Mason, Englewood, and Huber Heights - as well as over 40 additional off-campus locations, Sinclair enrolls over 20,000 students each quarter. Offering college preparation, job skill training, and adult education in addition to a traditional community college education makes Sinclair a staple in Dayton's education and business sectors.

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