How follow-up moved from up to six weeks to the next business day
How follow-up moved from up to six weeks to the next business day
Floodgate helped IIE Rosebank College – now Rosebank International – replace a slow paper process with a digital lead journey. The lead-management technology and lessons refined through that work now underpin LeadAdd: a simpler way for education teams to capture enquiries, alert the right adviser and see what happens next.
For education providers, every enquiry represents a prospective student who may be comparing several institutions. The campaign may have worked. The question is whether admissions can respond while the interest is still warm.
BEFORE
Up to 6 weeks
Previous maximum to first follow-up call
AFTER THE USSD JOURNEY
Next business day
Earliest follow-up enabled by the original USSD journey
TODAY
Real time
Current lead-data availability
Real time refers to lead-data availability, not a guaranteed response time.
THE EDUCATION LEAD PROBLEM
Student enquiries rarely arrive in one tidy place
They come from campaign forms, websites, social platforms, messaging channels, open days and campus activity. Different teams may be responsible for different sources.
Without a clear process, an enquiry can be seen by several people and still belong to nobody. LeadAdd helps education marketing and admissions teams bring enquiries into a visible process, alert the right person and track what happens next.
WHAT THE ROSEBANK STORY PROVES
Enterprise proof. A practical lesson for every education provider.
Rosebank needed an enterprise-scale solution. Most schools, colleges and training providers do not. LeadAdd packages the same core lead-handling principles into a lighter solution: capture the enquiry, get it to the right person quickly and make follow-up visible.
WHAT ROSEBANK EXPERIENCED
WHY IT MATTERS FOR LEADADD
Paper and manual queues delayed lead movement
Digitise capture and get new enquiries into a visible process
Enquiries sat across separate channels
Bring incoming leads from different sources into one view
Follow-up depended on handovers and queues
Notify the right team quickly and make ownership clearer
Enterprise integration solved an enterprise problem
Give education teams a lighter starting point, with CRM connection available where needed
THE CHALLENGE
The interest was there.
The follow-up was not.
Before 2016, Rosebank student advisers visited high schools and collected paper lead cards from interested learners.
A field trip could last up to three weeks. The cards then entered a manual data-capture queue that could take another week or more, introduce errors and only then move into the call-centre queue.
For a learner at the first school visited, the maximum time to the first follow-up call could reach six weeks.
The problem was not generating interest. It was the gap between interest and action.
THE OLD ROUTE, STEP BY STEP
School visit
up to 3 weeks
Paper lead cards
collected by hand
Data-capture queue
a week or more, errors
Call-centre queue
waiting to be dialed
School visit
up to 3 weeks
Paper lead cards
collected by hand
Data-capture queue
a week or more, errors
Call-centre queue
waiting to be dialed
First call
up to 6 weeks (maximum)
A data-light journey built for real schools
The solution needed to work in rural schools, on feature phones and in places where learners had little or no mobile data.
2021 CONTEXT
~200,000
prospective students per year
In 2021, Rosebank reported communicating with around 200,000 prospective students per year. That figure describes the scale of the prospective-student audience at the time—it is not a count of applications or enrolments.
HOW THE SOLUTION WORKED
Four steps, no mobile data required
Unique scratch-card code
Each learner received a single-use code linked to an airtime or data incentive.
USSD journey
Learners captured their own details, study interest and preferred campus on a feature phone or smartphone, without mobile data.
Cleaner digital capture
The process removed boxes of paper cards and reduced the errors and delays created by manual data capture.
Faster system movement
Lead data was first uploaded at around 2 a.m. each day. The current integration makes it available in real time.
Floodgate replaced a paper-based process that could delay first contact by up to six weeks with a USSD journey that made lead data available overnight—and now in real time—enabling student advisers to follow up as early as the next business day.
USSD
A short interactive mobile session that works on feature phones and smartphones without mobile data.
Overnight
The original lead file was uploaded at around 2 a.m. each day.
Real time
The current integration makes lead data available immediately; follow-up still depends on operating hours and adviser action.
THE RESULT
A shorter route from enquiry to action
- Next-business-day follow-up became possible instead of a maximum wait of up to six weeks.
- Lead data is now available in real time, subject to follow-up during operating hours.
- Manual data-capture delays and errors were reduced.
- Teams gained better visibility of adviser activity, outstanding conversations and channel performance.
- The USSD journey remains in use roughly a decade later because it is simple, reliable and data-light.
“The scope of the Infobip platform has generated a remarkable improvement in IIE Rosebank College’s lead management and closure rate.”
Kevin Bassett, Founder and CEO, Floodgate Communications — 2021
THE NEXT PHASE
From separate channels to a connected view
As Rosebank added WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Live Chat, those conversations were initially handled in isolation.
In 2020, Floodgate introduced Rosebank to Infobip, an international cloud communications provider. The channels were consolidated through Infobip, while Floodgate handled the bespoke integrations, including APIs and webhooks into Rosebank’s CRM and back-end systems.
Floodgate also added reporting around airtime and voucher use, lead volumes and student-adviser activity.
2016 USSD journey replaces the paper lead-card process.
2020 Channels consolidated through Infobip; Floodgate builds the CRM integrations.
2026 The live lead flow included USSD, WhatsApp and Meta/Facebook, with captured leads routed into the CRM.
LEADADD TODAY
The same lead-handling lesson,
built for education teams
Rosebank is a Floodgate enterprise proof story, not a typical off-the-shelf LeadAdd implementation.
LeadAdd packages the lead-management technology and lessons refined through Floodgate’s enterprise work into a simpler, more affordable solution for schools, colleges, training providers and education groups.
Bring new enquiries from different lead sources into a more visible process.
Alert the appropriate admissions, recruitment or campus team quickly.
Make lead ownership and follow-up status easier to see.
Reply and track activity without beginning with full enterprise contact-centre complexity.
Connect with an existing CRM where a larger institution already has one.
LeadAdd does not create student interest. It helps education teams act on the interest their marketing and recruitment activity has already generated.
TAKEAWAYS
For education decision-makers
- More student leads will not fix slow follow-up. First make the delay visible.
- The best technology fits the conditions people actually work in.
- Fast response begins with the enquiry reaching the right adviser, campus or admissions team with the right context.
- Marketing and admissions need shared visibility of what arrived, who owns it and what happened next.
- A smaller education provider may not need a full CRM first. It does need a simple, accountable way to handle prospective-student enquiries.
Prospective students are already raising their hands. How quickly are you responding?
Prospective students are already raising their hands. How quickly are you responding?
LeadAdd helps education teams see new enquiries, get them to the right adviser and track follow-up before interest goes cold—or the student chooses somewhere else.