A Single Source of Truth: How Sofia University Improved CX
In business, we all know the value of data in terms of knowing and understanding customer needs. However, we also know that the way we manage data, apart from collecting and storing it, plays a significant role in customer interactions. When used correctly, data management protocols and tools can offer a competitive advantage to organizations leveraging them. This was also the scenario Sofia University found itself in. Sofia University is California’s leader in transformative, transpersonal education. Since 1975, they have sought to encompass the full range of the customer experience (CX) while encouraging students to become experts in their desired fields. The university offers graduate programs in psychology, counseling, business, computer science, and more.
Issues That Led Sofia University to Switch to Sugar
Like many organizations today, Sofia University faced a generous tech stack. But the tech stack didn’t do the University much of a service because it didn’t offer a centralized view of the customer – its students, in this case. To reach potential students in the recruitment process, the organization was using HubSpot, Constant Contact, Eventbrite, and Element451, which unfortunately don’t have the ability to share data or talk to each other. As a result, tracking down student communication and interactions was growing difficult. The necessary time to manually track conversations increased as the tech stack grew. It became inefficient.
Today, there is a recent movement across enterprises and organizations—tech stack simplification. The reason behind it is simple: the fewer and more powerful systems a company uses, the less time it takes to handle tasks manually.
In this scenario, Sofia University found automating those tasks virtually impossible. The university spent too much time manually tracking and cross-checking information across its used platforms. So, Ashley Simon, Senior Admissions Counselor at Sofia University, started to search for a CRM and marketing automation platform that could offer a centralized view of their students and marketing interactions.
Why Having a Single Source of Truth Is Important and How Sugar Contributed
Striving to offer students unique experiences and aiming for a centralized view, Ashley contacted the SugarCRM team. The university wanted a platform with easy integration capabilities. With about 10,000 students in their system, they needed a CRM and a Marketing Automation Platform that would work together. Sugar Sell and Sugar Market seemed like a good pair that could address the organization’s data and marketing interaction management struggles.
“When I was looking at the recent automation additions that were put into Sugar, as well as the changes in Sugar Market, it was not a difficult sell for me that the user interface is incredibly wonderful to use. With SugarCRM, I have the power to create my business processes and other systems, where normally I would have to basically have someone else do that for me or someone in their IT department would need to assist me. But I wanted to learn to set up the automations and lead protocols myself. And that’s really what made Sugar stand out to me in particular”.
– Ashley Simon, Senior Admissions Counselor, Sofia University
The Results
With students at the core of its business model, Sofia University has been able to see results in some of the most important business areas:
- Foster more interactions per individual student.
- Create greater transparency with how frequently they communicate with students.
- Increase automation capabilities, freeing up time in their day.
- Generate robust reporting with accurate, trusted data.
- Uncover new metrics and KPIs to track.
- Increase conversion rates for some of their programs due to frequent communication.
Ashley and her team could see improvements in many areas where these were necessary.
Why Should Organizations Strive to Achieve a Single Source of Truth?
“A single source of truth” has recently become a cliché in business settings. But like all cliches, it naturally works well to secure a better market position and gain a competitive advantage.
Here’s why a centralized view of the customer can transform how marketing, sales, and service teams access and leverage data across business operations.
Improved Sales Operations
Being able to meet customer needs across all devices quickly offers benefits not only to support teams but also to sales teams. Empowering your sales reps to access data on the go, whether in-office or dealing with field tasks, is mandatory for dynamic business settings. It also allows other team members or departments to access sales data in real time as soon as a sales rep updates a record within your CRM.
Improved Customer Service
Cloud storage and a single source of truth can tremendously improve customer support processes. A single source of truth is the best way to improve customer experience across the customer journey. When Marketing, Sales, and Support teams have access to the same data in real-time, they have context-rich views of each customer, allowing them to adapt their approach as needed. As for customer support, cloud storage and flexible CRM tools offer reps access to transactions, communications, and other activities relating to that customer. Viewed instantly, it allows the customer service reps to resolve issues immediately.
Improved Cross-Organizational Collaboration
Many organizations turn their attention to sales enablement to achieve the desired performance. However, sales enablement is only possible with quick and easy access to the same customer view. But a single source of truth is more than facilitating sales enablement. It also facilitates case resolution for customer service and offers insights into KPIs, trends, and reports to management teams.
Wrapping It Up
A single source of truth is one of the easiest ways to ensure you foster the collaborative environment that will accelerate business operations across all departments. It facilitates sales enablement, improves customer experience, and allows your organization to use data at its full potential.
Interested in learning more about how Sofia University streamlined their tech stack to achieved optimal sales efficiency? Watch the full conversation here, How Sofia University Delivers Human Experiences with CRM + Marketing Automation.
Or, want to learn more about the topic? Visit our Blog section! We have many resources discussing it, or contact our team!
