FloStack Webinar | Product
The Future of High-Response Technology
Product

The Future of High-Response Technology

FloStack is the revolutionary new tool that streamlines the student’s - and your - experience. It creates a rich information flow that instantly provides the student with an intro to a personal advisor and a customized vision of their school future with you. You enter the conversation with a stronger understanding and a more reliable mechanism for campus tours, visits, and enrollment. And that’s just the beginning. FloStack’s going to be a game changer for many institutions. Mickey Banes and Sasha Peterson, experts in the Higher Ed space, breaks down why.

Summary

This webinar unveils FloStack, a high-response technology revolutionizing higher ed enrollment. Hosted by Loren Ellison, experts Mickie Baines and Sasha Peterson highlight enrollment tech gaps—outdated systems and lack of innovation. FloStack replaces generic email responses with instant, personalized microsites, keeping students engaged from the first inquiry. It seamlessly integrates with CRMs, builds rich student data profiles, enables curated journeys, and simplifies campus tour scheduling. By transforming the “messy middle” of enrollment, FloStack empowers admissions teams with real-time insights to foster meaningful student relationships.

  • LeadSquared introduces FloStack during a NACAC webinar hosted by Loren Ellison, featuring higher education marketing experts Mickie Baines (president of Kennedy and Company) and Sasha Peterson (CEO of Science Interactive), who shared their extensive experience and insights on enrollment technology challenges.
  • The experts criticized current enrollment technology for its lack of innovation, describing it as “necessary but not exciting” and noting that tactics used today are largely unchanged since the early 2000s, consisting primarily of mass emails and text messages that fail to meaningfully engage prospective students.
  • FloStack addresses these issues by providing instant, personalized microsites when students submit inquiry forms, leveraging the critical moment of student interest rather than relying on follow-up emails that often go unread. Mickie Baines shared real-world data showing his college-searching son opened only 3 out of 107 recruitment emails received over two months.
  • The technology creates curated student journeys with customized content based on student interests, streamlined campus tour scheduling, and simplified access to academic department visits—addressing the poll results showing that responding to inquiries faster and getting more students to book campus tours were participants’ biggest challenges.
  • FloStack integrates with existing CRM systems without requiring institutions to replace their current platforms, which the experts emphasized is crucial since the prospect of changing enterprise systems is daunting and unnecessary when point solutions can connect with existing infrastructure.
  • The platform provides rich student data profiles that help admissions counselors better understand prospects’ interests at different stages of what Baines called “the messy middle of the funnel,” enabling more informed and relevant conversations that move students from 75-80% interest to the next enrollment stage.
  • Both experts stressed that while AI and technology are evolving rapidly in this space, their purpose should be to empower human connections rather than replace them—technology should reduce basic Q&A tasks so counselors can focus on building meaningful relationships with prospective students and helping them find the right institutional fit.

Speakers

Mickey Baines
Mickey Baines
President and Chief Revenue Officer
Sasha Peterson
Sasha Peterson
CEO
Loren Ellison
Loren Ellison
Expert, Enrollment Technology

Chapters

  1. Introduction and Product Overview
  2. Introduction of Guest Speakers
  3. Poll: Biggest Admissions Challenges
  4. What Isn’t Working in Today’s Enrollment Technology
  5. Why FloStack Is Different
  6. The Importance of Instant Response
  7. Getting Students to Book and Keep Campus Tours
  8. Real-world College Search Data
  9. High Response Tool Preferences Poll
  10. Keeping Students Engaged Throughout the Enrollment Arc
  11. Integration with Existing Systems
  12. The Future of AI in Enrollment
  13. Closing Thoughts
  14. Q&A Session

Transcript

Loren:  Thank you so much, Frances, and welcome everyone. Thank you to NACAC for having us today. I am Loren Ellison. I’m gonna be your host and moderator, and I work at LeadSquared, and I support our largest higher education customers in North America. And if you’re not familiar, LeadSquared offers a product suite to help you manage your admission admissions journey. So our software empowers your teams to proactively reach out to prospects and students at key milestones to positively impact their student experience. We’re here specifically today to highlight our newest product, which is called FloStack, and FloStack is really the future of high response technology. Thanks, Richik. We designed FloStack to respond to the biggest problems that admissions folks tell us they have from your website form through enrollment. If what you hear today sounds amazing, we invite you to take the FloStack tour. That’s where you’ll be able to see the details of how this technology can upgrade your work life. So you can scan this little QR code in the bottom right to learn more. And don’t worry. This is gonna appear on future slides as well.

But grab your smartphone, scan that QR code, check it out. This is big news. One second after the student fills out his website form and clicks submit, he’s contacting your advisor on his personalized welcome microsite. He’ll see prioritized scholarship options, courses he’s interested in, favorite campus activities, and more. These are all customized to his individual college dreams.

It’s a fast and powerful experience that puts you in the front of the queue. Immediately after his first chat with her adviser, the student gets a campus tour microsite that puts her in charge of the whole tour experience. She can look at campus maps, walk walk to courses, meet friends, play sports, graduate, and get her dream job. It’s a tour date she’s very likely to keep. Richer, faster data will help you focus your time on the students most likely to enroll and succeed.

You’ll get them on campus more reliably, and if they’re a good fit, enroll them, and redirect your resources towards additional prospects. There’s much more to FloStack, and in the next hour, you’ll see how FloStack can help get you your students from what’s your name to congratulations. We know it’s a satisfying journey. We want to invite you to take the FloStack tour. Please go ahead and scan the QR code and check it out.

But first, I would like to introduce you to our esteemed guest. We have two wonderful experts in higher education marketing, and both are fascinating speakers. So in alphabetical order, the first of our experts is Mickie Banes. Mickie has twenty six years of experience building, implementing, and leading enrollment and student success systems and teams. He’s currently the president of Kennedy and Company, which leads growth related colleges and university universities across The US, Canada, and The UK.

He oversees the growth and consults with institutions like yours on CRM technologies. He lives and breathes this world. In recent years, he’s become very focused on the use of AI to support enrollment and student success. And last year, he spent months with his family in their RV visiting colleges for his 16 year old son. Check out their new podcast, The College Compass, which helps families in their own college search adventure.

Sasha Peterson is a heavy hitter in marketing technology. First, as president of technology at Hobson’s, where he helped introduce the first CRM widely used in admissions. Next, as CEO at TargetX, where he transformed the company into a comprehensive student life cycle solution and the largest provider of enrollment solutions on the Salesforce platform, then at the leading enrollment management company, Liaison International, where he was the chief product and revenue officer. He’s now CEO at Science Interactive where he’s expanding STEM education through online science programs. While he doesn’t have an RV, he does have a child who is a freshman in college right now. We are very glad to have Sasha and Mickey here today.

Frances, can you launch the first poll for us, please? Perfect. So we realize you might have a variety of challenges associated with your admissions journey. But out of the four we have here, what is your biggest admissions challenge?

Is it responding to new inquiries faster, getting more students to book campus tours, getting students to keep their campus tours, or getting the student to enroll after their campus tour. Wait a couple seconds and let people respond. The winner so far is getting more students to book their campus tours. Oh, it’s a dead heat. So it looks like two the two biggest challenges are responding to new inquiries faster and getting more students to book campus tours.

So that’s really great insight. If you if you all have specific questions or challenges, like, please feel free to throw those in the chat or in the QnA, and we’d be happy to discuss them as well. Perfect. Francis, can you end this poll, and then we’ll pop up the second one again later? Okay. Great. Thank you. Alright. Let’s get into the conversation. First question.I would love Sasha to chime in on this first, but what isn’t working in today’s enrollment technology?

Sasha: Well, thanks, Loren. Thanks for having me. Thanks, NACAC, for for hosting us today. It’s really exciting to talk about new things in enrollment management technology.I think that comment, new things in enrollment technology, is probably my main answer to what’s wrong with it today, which is it’s not really evolving. As you kindly introduced me, I’ve been involved with, this space longer than I than I think I’ve been a professional. And if I think back about the core functionality that we launched in the early 2000’s, that’s not too different than what most platforms are talking about today. And as you alluded to, my daughter, was was recruited in the last couple years, and the tactics that were used there were not that different than what I got when I was in college. And if I’ve been working for a long time, you can imagine how long ago it was that I was in in college. And so I really have been a little bit disappointed by the the pace of evolution in our space that there’s a lot of me too. There’s a lot of companies that are doing great stuff and all and and don’t get me wrong. The things that are being done are core to what needs to be done. You gotta send emails. You gotta send text messages.You gotta send out brochures. You gotta send out letters. You gotta answer the phone. All those things are necessary, but none of them are interesting, and none of them are exciting and engaging. And so when when I think about what the industry needs, it’s something different.And we’ll talk a little bit more about it later on, and and I think AI is, you know, it’s different for everybody. But that also is something that’s easy to just jump on and say, oh, we’ve got AI somehow, throw up a bot and call it a day, and that isn’t that different either. When I think about what people need, it is how do you differentiate the campus that you’ve got, and how do you create a great experience for a prospective student from the outset that can give them that hint, that kind of taste of what it might be like to be on your campus and have that same experience there. So that’s what I think is is wrong with it is just lack of change or maybe pace of change is a better way to think about it.

Loren: I love that. And I love the way you said it’s necessary, but not exciting. And how can we get to that point of it being exciting? Mickey, in your opinion, what’s what’s not working today with enrollment technology?

Mickey:  Well, I agree with what Sasha said and and going through the experience now, with my son. It’s it is the same, I think, Sasha. Other than when we went to college, there wasn’t an email yet. It’s true. Since the since the evolution of email, we, you know, we’ve been emailing and we haven’t changed a lot. We’ve added SMS, but it’s not necessarily exciting. I think that’s a great way, to to describe it.

I would say, you know, a little more tactically, it’s it’s still not connected when we think about a remote technology. There are still point solutions, even platforms that just aren’t connected and integrated with other tools. And so there’s so many opportunities to make it exciting that we’re missing by not taking advantage of some of the fundamental pieces like connecting, the technology. Training teams not just on where to click in the technology, but what are really I don’t like this word, but I’ll use it best practices. I like to think of them as better practices because best means it’s already occurred and you’ve reached the peak and we are not even close to it. And even when you get close, it’s always should be growing and evolving and technology does do those things, so I would call it a better practice. But we train on where to click. We don’t train on better practices for understanding what we see in a student record for our admissions team so they know how to have a conversation even if that’s through an email or an SMS or phone call or in person to inform and guide those conversations. We don’t do a lot of those things, and it and it just forces us to miss opportunities.

Sasha: I think if I can just jump on to that point about training, I hadn’t thought about it from that perspective, which is a really good point also is that I think the way you phrased it is super true. We train where to click, which means we train to complete a task. And I don’t think people think comprehensively enough to say, the task you have right now to respond to that email, to respond to that phone call, to respond to text, that’s almost irrelevant. The task that you’re really driving for is finding the right fit for that student who’s on the other end. And, hopefully, it’s the institution at which you work, but I think people lose sight because of all these systems on delivering the information that that student needs to really make the choice on whether or not this is the right institution for them because they get so caught up in the, like, I gotta get my email inbox down to zero, which isn’t really the point.

Mickey: So, Loren, I know you’ve got a bunch of questions, but I wanna keep going for just one more moment on this. his. Please. Because what Sasha described is really, I think it’s poignant. So we have those conversations to get something out of the task off the task list, now the inbox. But but even for the counsellor, like, I wanna help this student may find the right fit. They have this one conversation with someone, and the next conversation is not necessarily continuation, it’s starting it over or starting it from that next question that the student brings to you. We don’t get to take that and continue it, and and that is an example of of not having systems connected. And systems can be a pieces of technology, but also processes also connected so that it can become a fluid and continuous conversation with that that prospective student. And we’re that’s some of the opportunities that we’re missing. And so even if it is you know, we’re getting task out the inbox, but for the I know it’s I talk to so many counsellors and they wanna help students, but all they can really do is help the students based on that student’s question in the moment. And it’s not connected in in any real way, or at least, strategically connected. It’s almost like a shotgun approach. Like, oh, I can maybe I can connect it here. Maybe I can’t. But it’s dependent upon that one person to make that connection.

Loren: Yeah. I hear you.

Mickey: So I I can digress all day on these things. And so but when Sasha is like, yes. That’s right. That’s right. Sorry.

Loren: No. That’s perfect. And I I always just like to say too, the technology should really empower the humans to do what they do best is building these relationships with the students. Right? And understanding, like, what their their dream career is, what’s gonna be a good match, what’s gonna be a good fit. Right? And so if we’re just training to the click, great, but, like, well, how can you use this information to to build that relationship? Perfect. Yes. I think we could talk about that all day. I would love to know, though, why are you excited about flow stack? Maybe why is it something different that you that you’ve seen before?
Sasha: Is that for me?

Mickey: Well Sasha, go ahead. Sasha, take care of it.
Sasha:  So I was gonna say to to your point, Loren, what people are great at is connecting with people. That that’s something that can never be replaced. Even you can have the the best chat with chat GPT you’ve ever had. At the end of the day, you still know it’s a machine, and maybe twenty years from now, it’ll be better, but but it’s not there yet. No bot can replace a person with the context and the empathy and the connections that that humans create. And so what part of the reason why you you don’t always get to leverage that with people is because of what we’re just talking about, which is there is the task at hand, which is responding to a very specific question. And in a world where most enrollment today is sort of kind of blast information, I’m gonna try to get, you know, the most generic majors and the most generic pictures and the most generic activities out to all the students I’m recruiting, which is a very, very big net at the moment, it’s gonna be difficult for me versus you versus Mickey to be like, oh, that’s really connecting with me. So I might send you an email that says, “Hey, do you have rock climbing walls in your recreational sports facility?” What FloStack allows you to do is get really precise information instantly. And that and you and not everything, obviously. Right? Otherwise, you’d have an infinite scrolling page of of information. But if if you ask the right amount of information from the inquiry, from the prospective student, and get them targeted information right away that answers, do you have the programs looking for? Do you have the activities I’m looking for? Am I gonna find my people on that campus? Can I afford the campus you’re going to? And how do I get there? How do I get more information? If all that is kinda taken off the the the plate right away, that then allows it provided that you’ve got this connected system like Mickey was talking about, that the next conversation can be actually more meaningful. And they are not answering these, like, very, very basic questions over and over and over again and getting into the detail about what is that one additional piece of information that they needs to know whether this is the right thing or not. So that’s what excites me the most is that number one, it’s different. That’s kinda what I said at the very beginning that everything now is kinda the same. This is a very different experience that campuses just don’t have right now. And more importantly, it supercharges the real powerful recruiters that are on that campus and gets them off of the basic q and a and into the more specific information that’s really gonna help get that student excited about getting on campus.

Mickey: Here’s what I like about it, and I’m gonna, I think, continue a little bit with what you’re saying, Sasha. I mean, the the instant piece is is important. You know? Everything we know about consumer behavior, but a lot of what we know about human behaviors is we want instant gratification. When we fill out that form as a prospective student, it’s because they have an interest in that moment. We want to extend that moment. And extending the moment isn’t filling out a form and waiting a few minutes for an email in inbox because by the time that in email comes, even if it’s instant, by the time I toggle over to the inbox, guess what? I just got distracted by another email, and that’s me as an adult.

Guess what the teenager’s not doing? Going to their email after they submit a form. Like, we need to provide opportunities to extend the conversation, and that is one of the things from the student side. That’s what I really love about it. From the staff side, you know, the one of the conversations I’ve I’ve had for many years, probably every year I’ve been consulting is is trying to understand each prospective student’s journey.

What we what I call the messy middle of the funnel. Not my term, but it is a term I leverage daily because what we really wanna do is understand what a student is interested in that moment. And I I think was it yesterday or sometime this week? I actually posted on LinkedIn about this. I got a question for someone, like, you know, if, you know, we’re talking about emails that that we might get from a student.

Well, what are the emails that would get my son interested? You know, and I responded with, like, here are the questions he wants right now. But that’s the thing is, those are the questions right now. If you were to ask try to email him four weeks ago, the questions would have been different. And so what do we know about the student right now?

So if I’m engaging with them now, what their questions are and what to answer. We need to learn more about that. And that’s what FloStack opens the door and allows us to do So that when we have that conversation, again, regardless of the medium, when we have the conversation, we can have a guided conversation, that’s more informed and helps that student where they are right now today. That is so important, and we need tools like FloStack for that purpose.

Mickey: Yeah. And if I could just add one thing there, I think the guided conversation is is really important also because the other thing that FloStack gives you is a guided ability to tell people what they should be interested in. Right? We can we know Yep. What it is about your campus that you wanna highlight. What is the great new professor you have, the great new program you’ve got, the great new financial aid program you’ve got. How can you elevate that? Because the problem with the innovations of AI is it depends entirely on the user knowing what to ask. And and that’s great in some cases because they do wanna know what to ask, but sometimes you wanna create a curated experience where you’re walking them down a road and you get that information very quickly and then allow them to get deeper down the line.

Loren: Yes. I love that. I mean, they often don’t know what they don’t know. Right? So maybe you wanna show them what you know, the life is like in, in the life of an athlete or something through a video and have, like, a testimonial on the page, and they can picture themselves there. But these are the common questions that we find people like you are asking, and we’re here to help you answer them. So I think we touched upon it a little bit, but we hear so much about this instant response concept. Why do you feel like it is important to be instant or have a quick response to to someone inquiring? Mickey, can you take that one first?

Mickey: Yeah. So I think I started to steal your thunder that question when I was talking earlier. It it’s we want to extend that conversation. And it is important because we wanna continue the conversation with the questions the student have in that moment. And when we let someone fill out a form and then we send an email that says, thank you for contacting us. Here’s some general information that anyone can find on our home page, that you’ve already looked at on our home page or maybe two pages deep, with no extra little thing. And, oh, and maybe we’ll be in touch in a few days or a few weeks, or we’re gonna start sending you a lot of emails. That doesn’t build a relationship in any way. And so the instant response is instant gratification as a prospective student. I’m feeling if I’m going to give you information about me, I want something in return of value, and I do want it now. That’s a part of the trade of a form. Every exchange we have with a student, we’re they’re giving us something and we have to give something back that’s greater than what they gave us. So even if they only give us their name and email address, I need to give them something significantly more back. And an email that comes three minutes later says, oh, thank you. Here’s a link to our web page, does not do that. However, if I know just as you said, Loren, that, hey. Here’s a student athlete, and I’m gonna take you to a video testimony of a student athlete talking about their experience with us. Now that’s something more value because it’s relevant to me as a prospective student athlete. That’s what we’re trying to do. And providing that instantly is really important because, again, if it goes to the email, a teenager’s not gonna be looking at that. The parent may not be looking at it because a parent’s gonna fill out some of those forms. But if they’re actually giving their students email address, they may not have access to that email account. So they’re not gonna be look at it looking at it either. And so we’re trying to keep that conversation going, and that’s really where the instant, portion of that response matters.

Sasha: And I’ll take that to a more macro level. Why has TikTok taken over the world? It’s because it was introduced with forced short clips, and that, for better, for worse, has translated our entire consumer experience. Right?

Everybody now, whatever video platform you’re doing, is introducing shorter ones. So it’s not just about the context of the student search experience, which I think I totally agree with all your points, Mickey. But if you step back and think about kind of the macroeconomy in which we operate, all of us have lost the ability to have patience and and to dig deeper into it. We want information very quickly. We want instant gratification at least at the preliminary stages. Then you might dig deeper, then you get into conversations that we’re talking about that this kind of technology facilitates the campus to do. But this is a problem that has practical implications that that Mickey talked about and then a environment in which that behavior is just perpetuated over and over and over again.

Loren:  Yeah. And I love the the concept of the instant response as well because just like Mickey said, you know, you fill out a form and then you get a nice thank you page. It’s like, we’ll reach out to you. I’m like, oh, okay. But if you fill out a form and then you get this customized microsite that has your name and maybe a picture of the counsellor you’re gonna be working with and videos, and all of a sudden you’re still engaged with that page. Right? And you’re not looking at the next shiny thing yet. So very cool, and thanks for your insight there. I know one of the main concerns of our audience was getting students to book campus tours. How do you feel like FloSstack can help reverse this trend of students being slow to book tours or not showing up at all? Sasha?

Mickey: Are we saying students sign up for our registration and don’t show up? Why is that you know, first off, we’re I’m gonna keep going with instant response as part of this. It’s because what the instant response says is start to build a deeper relationship even if we’re not directly involved human to human yet, but it starts that process. The more committed and interested they are, the more likely they’re gonna show up. And when we can continue the conversation, we’re building up that interest that will then, guide them or keep them into the point where they wanna show up. So I would say that’s the first, key piece that I would throw in because that’s it’s all about relationship. And if I have no relationship and I’m just filling out forms, I’m not gonna remember what I signed up for when, and we’re this is from a family coming off.. we visited 20 something campuses. You know, and there was not a single tour that we didn’t show up for, but I will tell you that there were some that we couldn’t sign up for, because our schedule well, it’s May. We don’t really start our June schedule yet till another week and a half. Like, I don’t I need to schedule it now because I’m traveling through town. I can’t wait till the day before the tour to sign up for the tour. You know, those like, so from a user experience, I’m looking for someone who does seem to care. And, again, that instant response shows me a bit more care, and it gives me opportunity to really learn more and buy in and and build that interest. I’ll hand that to you.

Sasha: I would say this also goes a little bit back to the kind of curated experience that that I was talking about earlier. I would argue that one of the least innovative pieces of enrollment technology is tour scheduling. That I mean, if and if you look at kind of some of the leading providers of tour scheduling software, oh my gosh, does it feel like you’re using Internet technology that was built before the Internet actually existed? And so you if you can find a way to get something that we all know is like a crucial step in the enrollment journey. Right? We know you show up on campus, you’re gonna the likelihood of you coming to that campus skyrockets. So this is the most important thing that you can do, and yet most of the attention goes around, you know, getting emails out, you know, a couple hours or a couple a couple days later. So what I think as Mickey was saying, the instant response, the instant ability, and as we were talking about earlier, the sort of curated environment that doesn’t require you to spend five minutes, which as we discussed earlier, people won’t do to find where you can actually register for that tour. If if I submit an inquiry and it tells me, hey. Here’s the information you were just looking at. I’ve provided you context based on what I’ve just learned about you, about information that I know you may not know you are wanting, but I know you’re gonna want. And by the way, here’s a super fast way to register for a tour, and this is the person that’s gonna help you get there. That’s a nice experience. Right? I I always like to talk to whether it’s enrollment professionals or people on my team that the best way, I think, to think about all of this stuff is put yourself in the consumer shoes. And maybe we don’t know what the consumer shoe as a prospective college student is today because it was so long ago since we did that. But we know what we’d like when we call a bank. We know what we’d like when we call our utility company to say, why is my electricity off? Those same kinds of instincts are what everybody’s got. That’s just human nature. You want it to be easy to solve what it is that you wanted that moment. And as we said earlier, sometimes you don’t know everything you want in that moment. And if we know these types of questions, these types of topics typically lead to a student tour, then why not show them a really simple way to get that done right there in the in the immediacy of asking the first question?

Mickey: And to and, folks watching this are, okay, tired to hear me say or get tired of me saying this, but, you know, if I wanna continue the conversation right away, do you you know, I don’t know. 22 tours in campus tours in right now? And I will say the number of them that have a campus tour and an academic tour or meeting with, you know, with the academic college or school that you’re interested in, the number that have those as separate options are really high, especially larger institutions. The number that actually put those two events together in a campus tour page, single digits. One hand can count them on. And so if I sign up for a campus tour and I can get directed and say right away, oh, would you like to also see the school communications while you’re here? I don’t I haven’t received a piece of communication from from a school that says, “Hey. You’ve signed up for a campus tour. Have you also done this? Would you like to do this?” We don’t get that, but you have the ability to do that. And if I can do that instantly, then I can sign up for it and get it all lined up. Otherwise, I will say our first tour and, you know, I’ve worked in this field for twenty six years, and I will say, I didn’t even think to sign up on our first tour to also look at the school of communications to sign up. And my my wife happened to find it, and we added it. But, you know, we would have missed a part of the tour that we would have ruled that school out had we not done that second part. Like, that school was ready to be cut just based on the campus tour. But the academic tour said, you know what? We’re not gonna cut it yet. We’re gonna leave that on the list and really look at this school. And so if you had that because I know if we happen to find it, a lot of folks still aren’t. Continue that conversation, making that offer, and giving them an opportunity in the moment, you can save a lot of potential, prospective students there.

Loren: Yeah. And creating that curated journey. Right? Like, this is you’re gonna book a campus tour, and then your next thought’s probably gonna be, what about my specific major? Because maybe you didn’t even know on the campus tour, you wouldn’t see that building or have something related to academics. Right? You don’t know what the campus tour includes. So this is going to be your next question.

Mickey: And we can say well, let me just continue for just a moment because we can say, well, as an institution, I’ve got emails going out reminding them. Like, we’re gonna communicate with them about this kind of stuff. But here’s the thing. And I’m I’ve just pulled up to kinda look at this this post. So because I work in this industry and we’re doing the college search, I you know, we set up a special inbox for our son to actually see what schools are emailing and what they’re saying. And I will say, the only emails we actually open in any regular that he opens is I just monitor what he does, is when he needs to send us information about a tour. But, we’ve received I’m looking at 49 emails, between December 1 and January 31 that landed in his inbox. 49. Another 58 he was sent, but from these schools that landed in a a different tab, not a spam folder, but a different tab. So that’s a hundred and seven is that like a hundred seven emails? He opened, like, three. Three. So when you think about what you’re selling, they’re gonna look at it. He opened three in one zero seven. And a hundred and seven, that’s over two months, including the holidays when he’s off and he had nothing to do and he still only looked at three. So they’re not paying attention to that type of information. So that’s why you want to extend that and and give them that moment to keep that going.

Sasha: And that’s why something different is needed. Yes.

Loren: I’m loving this real life data too. That is great. Okay. Perfect. And I I know we’ve talked a little bit about this high response tool concept. We did have our second poll. It looks like people responded to it, during the first poll, so I’ll just recap. The question was, what would you like most from a high response tool? So, we consider Flowstack a high response product. Most people are saying faster responses to students and richer data profiles.

The other two options were faster identification of top prospects and better campus tour scheduling support. So they’re really looking for for being able to respond to students quickly and build out these richer data profiles, which really aligns what we’ve with what we’ve been talking about as well. So we have all of this high response data flowing. We know that, Mickey, like, just like you’re experiencing now, the arc for enrollment can be very long. Right? Like, you see a college, and then maybe a year and a half or two years later, you’re actually attending the college. Right? How can you keep the student engaged and allow the advisers to connect with the students from inquiry to enrollment?

Mickey: It’s it’s gonna go to that messy middle. It’s relevant. And what is relevant that I see in 98% of communications is relevant by luck, not by informed, communications. And so what I’m looking for are tools, technologies, strategies that allow a student to engage and for my team to be informed on that engagement. So if I’m engaged with FloStack and I know what someone’s, what we know about someone that I can present to them to keep that conversation going, and I can see how that conversation continued. If I can see from a chatbot what else is might be someone’s asking, and I can see the answers and the follow-up questions, and I can see where what website pages they go to. All of those pieces of data help inform, our team to understand where a student is in their journey and what questions they may have in that moment, and those are the communications that I want to have with them to give answers to the questions. You know, twenty, how many years ago? Eighteen years ago when I was still in higher ed working with the team, you know, one of the things that we always try to do from not prospect well, prospective students, but also current students is and this was a kind of our concept. If we know what question a student’s gonna have and when they’re gonna and when they’re gonna have the question, and we can actually answer it right before they ask it, like, that experience is a phenomenal experience. They don’t know that they just got a they got a little extra bit of value because they didn’t even know they’re about to have the question. You know? And, the easiest example I have for a current student would be, like, you know, we used to get emails from questions about, from students, with questions about graduation. When am I getting my graduation tickets? Well, we, like, sent it to them in course 13 of 16. All we started doing is sent to them in course 12 rather than course 13. Like and all these questions dropping, people are much happier.
But if I know that at this point, the prospective student journey is when they start asking about scholarships or when they start asking about degree requirements for that major and I can start answering it right before that question comes, I’m transforming that experience. But the only way we can do that is just have a better data strategy that knows what information we can get from a student and engages them in a way so that they want to give it to you. And sometimes I wanna get it without saying, “Hey. Tell me this.” I just wanna monitor. I wanna give them opportunity to engage and see what they’re engaging with and that might inform the next set of communications where, again, regardless of medium, SMS, email, phone call, in person, whatever, but I can use that to help inform that next piece. But we have to have that strategy in place to collect it. And we need, again, we need other tools that lets us start doing it, like a tool like FloStack that lets us start collecting that information to do it.

Sasha: Well, I’m I’m gonna give you a a the the other perspective of that. That that’s a a push approach, which I think is important. Sometimes you wanna pull, and sometimes you stay connected by knowing who to be connected with. I get probably twice a year an email from some random dude who’s my new Verizon account executive. Do you know who I’ve never talked to and never in my life will talk to is my Verizon account executive? When I go to a hotel sometimes, I’ll get a little card that says, hey. If you need anything, let me know, and that’s the general manager of the hotel. That’s someone I’m gonna want to talk to, particularly if I’m there for a period of time when something goes wrong. And so by putting front and center who your adviser is and being able to make that connection instantly based on where you’re coming from or your last name or the program of interest you have or whatever it is that your campus uses to determine who the recruiter is that’s gonna be working with that student, getting that in front of that student right away, that’s a way you get the student connected. Not a year later when you’re trying to dig through the meet the admissions office website, get the person who you want them communicating with out there in front when they’re thinking about it, when they’re active about it, and I think that’s another way to stay connected with the campus.

Loren:  Yes. Perfect. I love that. And I just wanna jump back a little bit to something Mickey mentioned at the beginning of the session where where things are just not connected. Right? Whether it’s technology or departments or anything. There’s a lack of connectivity here. Right? And now I’m interested in FloStack. I have so much equity invested in older technology, all of these unconnected systems. How does FloStack merge with the tools that I already have, that I wanna keep, that I love, or at least I sort of like? How can FloStack fit into my landscape there?

Sasha: Yeah. So this I should have said this when you asked me what I like about FloStack, you know, half an hour ago also, is I think part of the reason why nothing is changing much in enrollment technology is because the idea of change is daunting. If I’ve spent the last year or two or longer implementing my fancy new CRM, or if I’ve been using the same CRM for the last decade and I’m and I’m perfectly happy with it. The idea of saying, I’m gonna do that again. I’m gonna migrate all this stuff over into a new system because there’s one new feature that this new product has.

That just sounds crazy. Like, more power to you if you have the the money and the desire to do that. But I think most people for enterprise systems are pretty content and are saying, okay. I need something really different in order to to make a change. And don’t get me wrong. Those are out there. Like, there are plenty of places where you can have something very different, but it’s a big lift no matter how you look at it if you’re talking about enterprise platform. Something like FloStack sits on top of whatever you’ve got. Whatever platform you’ve got, whether it’s, you know, one of the the custom builds or whether it’s one of the enterprise builds, and we all know who we’re talking about. Those guys all have easy ways to integrate data into, and that’s what FloStack does. It sits on top of it, bolts onto whatever platform you’ve got. And and that, to Mickey’s point, is crucial. If you have this just as another stand alone product, then it’s probably not worth your time. Like, don’t add another system that’s gonna sit by itself. It’s just gonna frustrate your prospects. It could frustrate your staff. You gotta get systems that integrate. And the beauty of FloStack and LeadSquared, frankly, is the commitment that that the company’s got to say, hey. We need these systems to be talking no matter what the back end is. Whether it’s the LeadSquared CRM or another CRM that’s out there, FloStack can integrate with it, and that, I think, is one of the things that is exciting about this this platform as well.

Mickey: You’re here. Alright. To steal to steal all the thunder. That is exactly what I would say, and it’s so important. You know, whether it’s the the the point solutions we’re at a point where where we’re seeing more point solutions emerge in the market. AI is definitely playing a part of that, and we we need them because changing a CRM because of one little feature or function is a big lift, and it’s evolving rapidly. And I think that that we’re gonna see that continue. But if we don’t have these systems connected, all of these personalizations and all the relevance that we’ve been talking about, you cannot achieve it at scale if they don’t connect. You just can’t. But you also won’t engage at another level if you don’t get that data and get it connected. Hear. Hear.

Loren: And the lack of connectivity too breaks up that relationship. Like, maybe the admissions counsellor spend a lot of time building a relationship with the student. Right? And they’re handed off to student success. They have no background on what happened. The relationship’s totally gone, so gotta connect those systems. Perfect. Sasha, you mentioned this earlier, but everyone is talking about AI, right, and using it or trying to figure out how they can use it. What is the future of AI in our world? Why is FloStack well suited to these technological and social changes that we’re experiencing daily?

Sasha:  Well, that’s a big question. We’re gonna spend the next hour. Big news. We’re extending the webinar an hour. So it it is it just kidding, everyone, just to be clear. We’re you know, AI is is here. It’s happening. It’s all around us, and there’s a bunch of different flavors that people are throwing around whatever industry you’re in. Ours is not, you know, unique in in that we’ve got a bunch of stuff out there. Most of the use cases, that have come out and, again, whether we think about it from a consumer landscape or we think about it from, you know, a very targeted enrollment management landscape, are chatbots that give you access to information that’s otherwise available in a more efficient way. Right? That’s the heart of the AI use case today. There are other applications. I think those will emerge and evolve over time, but this is what’s here today. It’s what’s easily digestible, and, frankly, it’s pretty useful. I think what what FloStack and yeah. So what that gives you is what we’ve been talking about for the last forty three minutes. It gives you instant access to information that you don’t otherwise have. Sometimes, you know, very targeted, sometimes wrong, but, usually, robust information crafted in a way that’s easily digestible, that’s like the exact same proposal that FloStack offers you. I’m gonna give you targeted content that is that is digestible, that it’s relevant, and that it’s instant. And what FloStack gives you is we were just talking about a few minutes ago about the the campus tours is a jumping off point. And so if you’ve got a great AI use case, whether it’s a chatbot that exists today or whether whatever is gonna come next year, what the FloStack platform gives you is is an easily accessible place to act as a jumping off point for this really, really great technology and an easy way to distribute it out to to people. So I think that that’s the other thing that’s really powerful about FloStack is it gives you a lot of capacity to really put in front of people what you want them to have. And if that’s a new AI tool, great. Let’s let’s do that. If it’s not yet, that’s fine too because we’re giving you the same kind of information as before. That doesn’t address your question about what does the future holds. I’m gonna sit on that for for the next time. But in terms of the kind of immediacy of where AI can benefit students in enrollment with FloStack, that’s that’s at least where I’m thinking about it. What do you think, Mickey?

Mickey: It’s changing just really rapidly. We’re not used to seeing things change this fast, and I think by the time you start to get your head around it, you think you feel comfortable with it, it’s actually completely changed. And so that that presents, some bigger challenges. I was just looking at the poll again, and I I know one of the options and some folks said, you know, one of the things they’re they might be looking for is faster identification of the top prospects. And AI can help you with that beyond, you know, bots and agents and those things. It can it can help you with that, but I’m gonna come back to this. The only way it’s gonna help you is if it has data. And we need these other tools like FloStack to help feed that data because that helps us understand who the top prospects are so that we can say, okay, If Mickey is the admission counsellor, I can log in to my CRM in the day and say, okay, I’ve got an hour to start connecting with some students. Who? Who? Like, I need to know which ones. I if I if I have to go find which ones, I’m gonna take my hour or forty five minutes an hour to go build that list to figure out who it is, and then I only have fifteen minutes left to actually contact, and I don’t get through all of them. And so that’s we want to expedite that. The way to expedite that is to have more information about the students and where they are because I don’t wanna be contacting because this is what counsellors are doing when they have that opportunity. They’re finding that the folks that are 99% there at the stage of the enrollment that they are in, not 99 not 99% ready to enroll or likely to enroll, but 99% likely to move to the next stage. Could be inquiry to applicants, whatever applicant to deposit. But the 99% people that that score, that’s not who I need to be talking with. I need to talk to people who are about 75 or 80 because that’s where I can actually move the needle to actually make them to move that. The 90 person at 99 is already gonna be there. We don’t know how to pull the 80. We need AI and tools like that to help us, but the AI needs the data. And we need tools like FloStack to help feed that data.

Loren: Yeah. I love that. How can we continue to support that murky middle, the messy middle that we’ve been talking about? Exactly. Perfect. Well, thank you so much. This has been amazing. Just before we open up to audience questions, is there anything I’ve forgotten to ask you both? Any final thoughts you’d like to share with the the group? And, Mickey, you can kick that off.

Mickey: I think well, you know, I I think we probably hit a a home on a few things today between what Sasha shared and what I’ve shared, and hopefully that’s resonated and people at least understand maybe where their gaps are. You know, in you know, we can talk FloStack, we can talk CRM, we can talk AI. You know, realistically, you know, we’re not talking technology for the sake of technology. We’re saying we need to enroll students as part of our job in admissions. We have a number likely that we that’s been given us that we need to go out and find and enroll that number of students. We have strategies in place to help make those connections and and engagements and build relationships to get to that number. The technology is just there to support that. We’re not using it to use a CRM. We’re not using FloSack to use FloStack. I’m using it to build a relationship so that I can execute the job I have to do from admissions to then build the relationship with students to have them enroll, to give them that right information.

And so what we have to start to do from an enrollment management standpoint is identify where are the gaps, where are the barriers, where’s the friction in the process that are preventing our staff from doing it and then solve for those gaps. I will say today, I don’t know how you’re really gonna do a whole lot of solving for it without technology should do it, but it’s not doing it for technology. It’s doing it to meet the strategy and goal. And so once you find those hurdles and those gaps in your process, then you can really start to align the technology to those gaps. And I know one of the big ones one of the big ones is that first connection point, and that’s why I like FloStack so much.

Mickey: I almost don’t wanna add anything because I think that’s really well said. I would just add a more generic comment, which is there has not been a lot of really with the exception of AI, which sort of took on a life of its own, there’s not been a lot of, like, real technological innovation and change. And so it’s fun to see that happening. And as Mickey said earlier, I think there are a number of point solutions that are that are kinda popping up, which is cool and exciting, but I just think it’s it’s we owe it to ourselves. We owe it to our industry. We owe it to our prospective students to take a look at the new stuff. And not everything is gonna be perfect for everybody, but there’s some stuff that just feels pretty obviously right, and this to me is one of them.

Loren: Yep. Perfect. Thank you so much for those final thoughts. I’d like to open it to up to the audience. If you all have questions for Mickey or Sasha or about FloStack, we’re happy to answer them. You can put them in the chat or in the QnA, and we can answer those live. Rich is asking, what exactly does a student see on their phone after they make contact or book a tour? Is it like a customized website that talks about their interests?

Loren: I can take that one from LeadSquared. Yeah. So, essentially, what happens is the student would be filling out the form on your website. And then instead of the regular thank you page that says we’ll be reaching out to you, they are taken to a customized website based on all of the interests that they may have completed in the form. Right? And it also allows them to book a campus tour if they want. They can make a callback. They can schedule an online appointment with you. It will introduce them to their counsellor and then any other customized content you want to include like we’ve been discussing during the session. So, you know, a day in the life of video, campus maps, that kind of thing. Mickey and Sasha, anything to add there?

Mickey: One thing I think the mobile component is important to to realize. I mean, you know, 90 I don’t know. 98% of those forms, I don’t I would assume. I don’t know the exact number, to be fair. But I’m assuming around 98% of those forms are gonna be filled out on mobile, unless they’re by a student’s parent who might be filling out while they’re at work at a desktop or a laptop. But, you know, most of those sort of be fit in mobile, and I think knowing that it’s a mobile, type of response, and experience is is critical there.

Loren: Perfect. Great. Alright. Well, we’re happy to answer any other questions that you might have. Thank you so much to Sasha Peterson and Mickie Baines for your wisdom and insight. We’re all very inspired after this session. And thank you to the audience for participating. LeadSquared is very pleased to share this new technology with you, and we look forward to making your life and your students’ experience richer and more enjoyable. And I hope we have the opportunity to show you, the FloStack tour. So we’d love to work with you and have a great rest of your day. Thanks, everyone.

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