The University of Huddersfield saves at least 3 hours per week and turns its data into valuable business insight

The University of Huddersfield saves at least 3 hours per week and turns its data into valuable business insight

University of Huddersfield Logo

“We’ve only just started using the Achiever CRM dashboards and already we are saving at least 3 hours a week just in our report production!” – Richard Noon, University of Huddersfield

The brief

The University of Huddersfield successfully implemented Achiever CRM software for Universities in 2015. Since then the software has been instrumental in helping the University manage its relationships with its prospective students. It is the only software solution in the University fulfilling this role.

Achiever CRM software gives the University the tools to track the complete student journey. This also includes managing the University’s open day events and its digital marketing communications.

Over the last 4 years, the University has extended and enhanced its Achiever CRM software for Universities to meet changes within the sector and the ways in which its prospective students receive and share information.

Richard Noon, University of Huddersfield says, Achiever CRM software for Universities is fundamental in managing our relationships with prospective students – it is our only system for doing so. The capability, adaptability and usability of the software means that we can deliver core business functions out of the box, and the team at Interactive Software are always ready to be challenged to improve and enhance the core product.”

Achiever CRM software had enabled the University to manage and capture its information in an efficient and standardised way. However, the University was using existing reporting tools to analyse the data.  This was proving restrictive from a licensing and access perspective – as well as being extremely time consuming. This was not helping the University’s aspiration to increase data and knowledge sharing.

The solution

Interactive Software Limited focuses on continuous product improvement and investment in tools designed to enhance the user experience. Its latest version of Achiever software (5.5) includes integration with the popular, industry-standard DevExpress platform. This powerful capability gives Achiever software users the ability to create graphical dashboards quickly and easily using information captured within the system. These dashboards are displayed on standard menus and screens in the software where access can be controlled by user role.

Achiever CRM software had already successfully helped the University of Huddersfield to deliver on and achieve its core business as usual activities and the University was keen to explore this new functionality.

Following a demonstration of the latest Achiever version, the University of Huddersfield decided to implement Achiever CRM software’s dashboards.

The outcome

After a one-day hand-holding training session, the University of Huddersfield was able to deliver commercially sensitive reports. They achieved this quickly and importantly, securely, in a standardised format. The University was able to remove its manual, repetitive reporting using raw data which had impacted their resources, led to inaccuracies and took a lot of time to produce. Also the information is now in real-time as the team receive it.

“The Achiever CRM dashboards are so simple and quick to set up. They just work!” explains Richard Noon, “We are so impressed that we can create dashboards to provide analysis at all levels for our team to use, from our Directors through to staff on the front-line. And they can drill into the data set – even individual records – to see more details.”

The Achiever CRM dashboards allow the University of Huddersfield to analyse its open day and event booking rates, campaign success rates and digital marketing sources to track return on investment. Using the Achiever CRM dashboards, for example, the University can track prospectus requests and open day bookings generated as a result of a specific Facebook or Twitter campaign.  This ensures the University is getting value for money from these sources.

Main benefits

Achiever CRM for Universities software has already helped the University meet its aspiration of successfully managing the student journey. Now it is aiming to improve its data and knowledge sharing.

The University of Huddersfield has already seen notable benefits since implementing Achiever CRM’s dashboards including:

  • Saving at least 3 hours a week on report production
  • A reduction in human error with more accurate reporting and analysis direct from real-time data
  • The ability to create new dashboards to analyse real-time data quickly and easily for better informed decision making
  • Empowering users to access data in a friendly format
  • Improving digital literacy across the University
  • Increasing consistency by presenting data in a standardised format
  • Increasing data and knowledge sharing across the University while still protecting commercially sensitive information