How Magnetism Implemented a Student Acquisition System for Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand

Megha Kainth, 09 June 2013

Magnetism provided the CRM assistance to Le Cordon Bleu to implement a student acquisition system to accurately capture, track and manage their leads, automate key workflows, and to acquire a clear visibility of sales pipeline for key stake holders.

In this blog post, I would like to highlight the key points of the Le Cordon Bleu case study.

Le Cordon Bleu NZ, the world's premier providers of culinary training and education has implemented Dynamics CRM solution which has enabled their sales and marketing teams to establish and manage a strong sales pipeline.

The Challenge
Le Cordon Bleu has over 40 schools around the globe and attended by more than 20,000 students per year, Le Cordon Bleu's name is synonymous with culinary excellence. Le Cordon Bleu (LCB) launched in New Zealand in 2012 and since then has been training students from all over the world.

Although the international LCB network of agency partners provided an established source of leads, aggressive growth targets meant that LCB New Zealand needed to quickly establish its own sales and marketing programmes.

These combined efforts quickly resulted in a growing pipeline of prospective applicants which rapidly overwhelmed the manual, paper and spreadsheet based lead tracking process in place. The decision was made to go to market for the right combination of CRM technology and partner that could rapidly deliver a cost-effective solution offering:

1. Simple, accurate capture of leads from multiple sources.
2. The ability to manage and track leads from initial enquiry, through application and enrolment, on to the management of student records and communications.
3. Automation of key workflows to ensure the process is both robust and simple to maintain.
4. Visibility of sales pipeline for key stakeholders.

To meet the needs of LCB, the solution also needed to have the following attributes:

1. Scalability: Would scale as LCB New Zealand grows.
2. Customisability: Could be customised to match the LCB business and language.
3. Integration: Works seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook.

The Solution
Le Cordon Bleu NZ selected Magnetism and Microsoft Dynamics CRM due to their combined ability to meet key requirements quickly and cost effectively.

Key to Magnetism's selection was their CRM Starter Pack, which offered the ideal combination of out-of-the-box functionality, useful add-ons (such as Magnetism's NZ Post Address Formatter), and Outlook integration, while Magnetism's ability to deliver the solution quickly, and with the required level of customisation made LCB's choice relatively simple.

Magnetism then customised key elements of the user interface such as terminology changes to the student-centric (e.g. from "Leads" to "Student Enquiries").

From there, workflows were created to automate key steps in the enquiry, application and enrolment processes, streamlining LCB's internal procedures and eliminating a number of manual tasks that had previously been a cause of bottlenecks.

This automation included a bespoke solution to streamline the capture of web leads. Magnetism's Internet Lead Capture system, hosted in Windows Azure, provides seamless integration between the web form on LCB's website (www.lecordonbleu.co.nz), and the CRM, thereby eliminating the requirement for time consuming, manual data entry.

Native Dynamics CRM functionality has also been used to improve LCB's communications with both prospects and students. Automated emails have been set up to ensure timely communication with applicants while they are being processed, while the use of CRM to manage a regular newsletter programme helps ensure students and the wider LCB community are effectively engaged.

Finally, powerful reporting functionality within Dynamics CRM was configured to give LCB management visibility of the sales pipeline right from initial enquiry to enrolment. This included key management reports that offered detailed and highly-segmented information used to measure conversion rates and effectively allocate resources.

The Results
Since its foundation in 2012, Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand received over 2000 enquiries from prospective students, has processed more than 170 applications and has a large and growing student roll.

The Dynamics CRM solution implemented by Magnetism has been a vital foundation for growth of LCB in New Zealand. It has enabled the sales and marketing teams to establish and manage a strong sales pipeline and the visibility that the reporting has delivered has allowed LCB management to allocate sales resources where they are most effective.

From an operational perspective, the system has ensured that once on board, student records are managed accurately, giving LCB staff the tools necessary to effectively manage student operations.

In addition, communications with prospective and current students have been vastly improved, with a cohesive and well-managed process in place to ensure applications are dealt with quickly and effectively, communications are timely, and a positive experience is delivered to students from day one.

Click here for the full Le Cordon Bleu Case Study

Click here for more information about Le Cordon Bleu

Click here for more information about Magnetism NZ Post Connector