SCORING 101: LEVERAGING INSIGHTS TO IMPROVE ENROLLMENT RATES

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1 SCORING 101: LEVERAGING INSIGHTS TO IMPROVE ENROLLMENT RATES Executive Summary Schools that compete for students know that not all student inquiries are created equal. Inquiry quality is determined by a large number of factors that can vary widely. Understanding what those factors are can give schools a significant advantage over their competition. This study looks at historical data, across millions of inquiries, to draw enlightening insights about key attributes that impact inquiry quality. Each of the results included in this research, on its own, can suggest a number of actionable changes to the types of inquiries that should be prioritized, the type of data that should be collected, and the best ways to handle different types of inquiries. However, the potential value of this data can be maximized when the combined effect of these attributes is used to acquire inquiries, produce or enhance inquiry scores, and determine optimal prioritization, distribution, and nurturing strategies within an enrollment management software solution. Background Inquiry scoring is quickly becoming an important aspect of enrollment management. Many of the leading private sector schools have already begun to experience the increased enrollment rates that can result from the effective use of scoring. There are many software applications and services out there that can help you score your prospective students, but there are also things you can do on your own to get started with the valuable process of identifying best fit students for your school and prioritizing your outreach to them. Scoring is simply the process of assigning a relative value to your inquiries according to the perceived and/or previously observed probability of them enrolling. The first step to scoring is to identify which attributes or char- Scoring Process 4 5 Analyze Performance Data Discover Quality Attributes Evaluate Scoring Model Distribute and Prioritize Inquiries According to Scores Dynamically Score Each Inquiry (as it comes in and as actions are taken) 3 Determine/Revise Scoring Criteria Survey Staff 1 Assign Points to Each Characteristic 2 1

2 acteristics make an inquiry more or less likely to become a student for your specific school. In order to do this, it is crucial to truly Study Methodology know your students. One way determining what attributes to use To aid in your inquiry scoring efforts, this report analyzes inquiry is to simply guess based on your knowledge and experience with your students. Most admissions departments have a strong understanding of the common attributes their successful students share data across a large cross section of Velocify customers in the education based on the cumulative knowledge of admissions staff and those industry. Both intrinsic and extrinsic that regularly interact with students. Your guesses and your staff s characteristics were selected based perceptions may in fact be correct, but even if wrong, they re a on common frequency of use across starting point. Similarly, data that provides insight on inquiry performance across the private sector education industry, such as the multiple clients. Each characteristic was then evaluated to measure its data provided in this report, can supply an alternative or complementary foundation. impact on enrollment rate. In total, millions of inquiries were examined Ideally, you also have access to historical enrollment data that can in this study. be analyzed to help you validate your guesses. Student data may We identified common data fields, also help you uncover attributes you may not have thought about. actions, and statuses that were Analyzing historical data on successful and unsuccessful enrollments won t only help you verify that you re looking at the right cri- captured by a significant number of clients and determined how they teria, but it will also help you identify the actual effect of each characteristic on the probability of enrolling. For example, you might each contributed to the likelihood of a prospect enrolling. Most findings realize that age is an important factor in determining the likelihood reported in this study are based on of a prospect enrolling, but you may not truly understand how important of a factor age might be and whether older is always better performance from thousands to hundreds of thousands of inquiries that than younger or vice versa. Looking closely at your data should share that same data attribute. In order to be included in this report, indi- help you answer those questions. Once you have a good grasp of the criteria you d like to use for vidual data entries had to be shared your scoring model and the impact they have, you can begin assigning points to each of them to arrive at a final score for each by at least 100 inquiries. inquiry. Each inquiry s score can be just a raw number, such as the sum of all points assigned, or it can be a letter grade or any kind of quality scale you might want to use. An important distinction you may want to make is between extrinsic and intrinsic criteria because each of those cumulative scores can influence the way you choose to take actions on each of those inquiries. Extrinsic criteria include facts about your prospective student, which are typically provided by the prospect or acquired through data appending services. These facts will likely tell you if a prospect possesses the characteristics that typically make an inquiry more likely to apply to your school. Intrinsic characteristics are better indicators for the seriousness of your prospects and their readiness for enrolling because intrinsic data is based on observed behavior or inferred from data that may not be directly provided by your prospects. The combination of both intrinsic 2

3 and extrinsic data will result in the most reliable scores. Some schools keep these scores separate, using intrinsic factors to determine urgency and extrinsic factors to determine level of persistence. The scores you calculate and assign can be used to prioritize your inquiries, to distribute them to the right admissions advisor, or to determine the necessary type and modality of follow up. Enrollment management software like Velocify helps you implement the prioritization, distribution, and nurturing strategies you want based on business rules you can customize using scores as well as hundreds of other criteria. 3

4 Education The external attributes analyzed for the education industry included: Home State Education Level Enrollment Intent Marital Status Home State One of the extrinsic characteristics analyzed was the prospect s home state. It is interesting and valuable to note which geographic regions seemed to have the more serious student candidates. Figure 1 shows both the eight top and eight bottom performing states and regions in terms of enrollment rates. Interestingly enough, the two regions that showed the highest probability of enrollment are outside of the U.S. Prospects from Canada had enrollment rates that were almost four times higher than the average prospect, and prospects from AE (the abbreviation for the Armed Forces in Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Canada) had enrollment rates that were almost six times greater than average. Results from Canadian inquiries have been left out of Figure 1 because a small number of Canadian schools accounted for the vast majority of Canadian prospects. Reporting on them alongside mostly American schools did not seem practical, especially because that information is not actionable for American or Canadian schools. Fig. 1 - Education: Home State 100% 476% Top 8 Performance relative to average enrollment rate 75% 50% 25% 0% -25% -50% -75% -100% MILITARY OVERSEAS 54% 50% 45% 45% 44% 43% COLORADO RHODE ISLAND MISSOURI UTAH NEW JERSEY KANSAS 37% KENTUCKY OREGON WASHINGTON, D.C. -24% -27% NEW MEXICO ARIZONA NORTH DAKOTA OKLAHOMA SOUTH DAKOTA IDAHO -33% -36% -36% -39% -40% -46% Bottom 8 4

5 Address The geographic home regions above suggest that military prospects perform very well in terms of enrollment. It is therefore no surprise that addresses with an MIL domain name also enroll at the highest rates when compared to prospects with addresses using other domain names. Figure 2 shows the eight top performing domain names as well as the bottom eight. The top eight domains include prospects who might be slightly more tech savvy, such as Mac users with me and mac domains. In contrast, the bottom eight include prospects with domains that are losing popularity, such as Netscape and NetZero, a possible indication of prospects lower levels of familiarity or comfort with new technology. Fig. 2 - Education: Address Enrollment Rate 100% 157% Top 8 Performance relative to average enrollment rate 75% 50% 25% 0% -25% -50% -75% MIL 57% MAC 34% ME 16% 15% 12% 10% 10% YAHOO INTL. GMAIL OPTONLINE HOTMAIL ROCKETMAIL CABLEONE COX VA.GOV JUNO MAIL PEOPLEPC NETZERO NETSCAPE -38% -40% -40% -47% -56% -56% -57% -65% -100% Bottom 8 5

6 Fig. 3 - Education: Address Volume Figure 3 shows the total distribution of domain names. In education, almost 90% of all inquiries provide addresses, much higher than in the other industries. Those that don t provide an address have an enrollment rate that is almost 16% lower than the average. Blank 11% Hotmail 10 % All Other Domains 12% AOL 5% Live 2% MIL 1% Comcast Gmail 17 % 1% MSN 1% Yahoo 40 % Education Level The completed education level reported by education prospects also proved relevant in regards to their potential for enrollment. Figure 4 shows that prospects at the extreme points of education levels, those with less than a high school diploma or with doctorate or professional degrees, are considerably less likely to enroll than most prospects that have a level of education that falls somewhere in between. The size of each bubble is proportional to the number of prospects that fell within each category. Most programs offered at for-profit schools don t really target those who already hold professional degrees, and those who don t have a high school diploma may not be quite ready to handle the academic demands of many of these programs. It is not surprising that inquiries at those opposite extremes of education levels have the lowest enrollment rates and also account for the smallest percentages of total inquiries. Performance relative to average enrollment rate Fig. 4 - Education: Education Level 40% 20% 0% -20% -40% -60% -80% -100% -59% Less than High School 2% High School 4% Some College -30% Associate s Degree 14% Bachelor s Degree -8% Master s Degree -59% Professional Degree 6

7 Enrollment Intent We analyzed over 3,000 prospects that provided enrollment intent information and found that inquiries that provided this information were 366% more likely to enroll than those that did not provide enrollment intent information. This does not necessarily suggest that collecting enrollment intent information will automatically boost your enrollment rates, but the data does indicate that prospects that provide that information and/or schools that collect that information have considerably higher enrollment rates. The reason for the significant increase in enrollment rate may be that this piece of information is generally collected when a prospect has gotten further along in the application or qualification process. Nonetheless, it may be valuable for schools to collect this information earlier in the process because as Figure 5 illustrates, prospects that intend to enroll part-time are considerably more likely to enroll than those interested in enrolling full-time. The size of the bubbles is proportional to the number of prospects that fell into each category. Fig. 5 - Education: Enrollment Intent Performance relative to average enrollment rate 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% -10% -5% 49% Part-Time -20% Full-Time 7

8 Marital Status As was the case with ethnicity, the nearly 3,000 education prospects whose records contained marital status information tended to enroll at significantly higher rates. They actually enrolled at more than triple the rate of prospects that did not include that information in their inquiries. However, in this case, there was a more significant difference in enrollment rates between the three groups. Divorced prospects tended to enroll at almost half the rate of single or married prospects. In Figure 6, the size of the bubbles is proportional to the number of prospects that fell within each category. Married prospects make up the largest group of prospects that provide marital status and they enroll at a higher rate, perhaps because they are more likely to have the stability and support in their personal lives that allow them to begin a new study program. Fig. 6 - Education: Marital Status Performance relative to average enrollment rate 30% 20% 10% 0% -10% -20% -30% -40% -50% -60% -47% Divorced -5% Single 11% Married Actions Taken (Intrinsic Criteria) Velocify clients in education seem to have more uniformity around intrinsic values, which reflect actions taken with or by a prospect, than do clients in insurance and mortgage. Figure 7 highlights ten such intrinsic values that have both positive and negative effects on the likelihood of a particular prospect s enrollment. One of the somewhat surprising results of this analysis was that the one action that resulted in the greatest improvement in enrollment rate was contact follow up. According to our analysis, prospects that have a contact follow up action assigned to them are 470% more likely to enroll than prospects that never have that action as- 8

9 signed. It might not be surprising that those prospects are more likely to enroll because they have shown some interest by asking someone to follow up with them, but perhaps what is surprising is that they actually enroll at a higher rate than even prospects who are interviewed. (This latter group still enjoys a 290% boost in enrollment over the average education prospect.) The ease with which Velocify s clients can set follow up reminders and track appointments within the enrollment management software probably contributes to the success of enrolling prospects with follow up actions at such a high rate. Figure 7 also shows that prospects are more likely to enroll when schools receive inbound s from them, when admissions advisors make a comment in a prospect s record, and when a prospect enters our system either manually or through an imported Excel or CSV file, as opposed to through an automatic import from a provider or Web inquiry form. Fig. 7 - Education: Impact of Intrinsic Criteria on Enrollment Performance relative to average enrollment rate -150% -100% -50% 0% 50% 100% 150% 200% 250% 300% CONTACT FOLLOW UP INTERVIEWED INBOUND COMMENT MANUALLY ENTERED LEADS -28% -50% -66% -68% -69% CALL: LEFT MESSAGE NURTURE CALL NO ANSWER SMS OPT-OUT CALL BUSY 168% 158% 263% 287% 471% On the negative side, we see that when Velocify s clients call inquiries and they get a busy tone or no answer, prospects become almost 70% less likely to enroll. The same goes for prospects that choose to opt-out of text messaging. Although prospects that have been left a voic (Call: left message) or have been put into a nurturing status also experience a lower enrollment rate than the average prospect, we see that the decrease isn t quite as drastic, perhaps highlighting the value of leaving a message when calling a prospect and the value of having a well thought out nurturing plan for prospects that may not enroll as quickly as others. Just as companies in different industries collect different sets of data on their prospects, companies within the same industry can also collect different information on their prospects. Even within the same company, not all of the same information is collected for every prospect, especially when certain actions or attributes don t apply. Therefore, the data presented above includes different sample sizes depending on the number of prospects that had this information across all education clients included in the study. 9

10 When a prospect originally enters a lead management system, its lead score is usually exclusively determined by its extrinsic characteristics. After an inquiry s status changes or after actions are taken with or by that prospect, the prospect s potential for enrollment can either increase or decrease (as illustrated in Figure 7). Therefore, the prospect s score should be adjusted after the status or action changes their disposition. Intrinsic characteristics not only illustrate the importance of re-scoring based on actions and statuses taken on inquiries, but perhaps more importantly, they also remind us that we need similar dispositions for our prospects. For example, if you don t currently use or track contact follow-ups maybe you need to make that action available to your staff or you need to remind them to use it more frequently, especially since it currently results in almost six times the enrollment rate for prospects that do have it assigned. Application for Education Velocify s enrollment management software allows institutions to easily prioritize, distribute, and take actions on their inquiries based on every one of the characteristics included in this study. System managers can set up a number of business rules that consider these and any other tracked characteristics about an inquiry. Based on the results of this research, institutions should consider collecting some of this information about their prospects if they re not currently doing so. Using these results to make the most out of each inquiry is not only useful for those doing lead scoring. Benefits can definitely be gained by applying this newfound industry-wide knowledge using the basic, yet sophisticated tools already built into Velocify s enrollment management software. Nevertheless, for those interested in fully pursuing scoring, we highly recommend working with a reputable company that provides scoring services. Velocify s enrollment management software is both highly configurable and ready for real-time integration with just about any scoring vendor or with proprietary scoring engines. To begin exploring scoring on your own, the following should serve as an example of how select data presented in this report might be used by a school to begin scoring prospects: Fig. 8 - Education: Extrinsic Scoring Home State Education Level Enrollment Intent Marital Status Military Overseas +2 MIL +2 Part-Time +2 Married +2 CO or RI +1 AZ, ND, OK, SD, or ID -1 Mac or Me +1 Mail, Peoplepc, Netzero, or Netscape -1 Professional Degree or Less Than High School -1 Full-Time +1 Any Marital Status Information Entered +1 10

11 Fig. 9 - Education: Sample Score From Arizona -1 For instance, using the criteria shown in Figure 8, a new education prospect entering the system with the characteristics shown in Figure 9 would be scored a +3. That inquiry should be placed ahead of prospects with lower scores and might be distributed to an advisor who is better at enrolling high quality prospects. Married +2 Total Prospect Score +3 MIL +2 Enrollment Intent 0 High School Grad 0 Fig Education: Intrinsic Scoring + Positive Attributes Contact Follow-Up +2 Interviewed +1 Inbound Negative Attributes Call Busy -1 SMS Opt-Out -1 Call No Answer -1 Most intrinsic critera would be added once an action has been taken on a prospect. The prospects initial score might change depending on the actions taken. For example, the prospect previously described would receive a new score of +5 if a follow up action (+2) were to be added to that prospect s record. 11

12 Conclusion Understanding your prospective students and the attributes that make them more or less likely to enroll is critical to running a successful admissions department. The data provided in this report should provide some insight to begin adjusting your enrollment management practices to maximize enrollment yield. It is important to note that most of this information is not easily actionable without the right enrollment management tools in place. In order to truly benefit from this type of information, organizations should have an enrollment management system that effectively includes: Automated inquiry importing Optimal contact velocity Automatic inquiry assignment based on intelligent, highly customizable, and easy-to-configure prioritization and distribution rules Built-in workflows that reflect best practices, but are easy enough to customize Real-time admissions performance insight Comprehensive reporting and analytics (that help assess inquiry quality) Automated and text messaging nurturing capabilities The combined effect of all of the insight gained from this analysis -- and what can be added from the analysis of each organization s own data -- is best captured through an inquiry score, as described in this report. Working with a reputable scoring partner or developing your own scoring engine in conjunction with a top-of-the-line enrollment management solution is the best way to capitalize on all of the benefits scoring offers. To implement a full scoring process, an enrollment management system should also include: Customer-defined data fields that can accept and store score data Automatic, real-time integration with scoring engines in order to immediately take appropriate actions on incoming inquiries or prospects according to scores Dynamic scoring capabilities, as new data is added to a prospect s record Distribution, prioritization and communications based on a score Happy scoring! WPLM1012A 12