Missing starts and redireting budget
Our college missed our January start, at the rate we're going, we're scheduled to miss the April start as well. Our leads are on schedule with budget. Where else can we look for possible causes?
How are conversion numbers looking? If the lead flow is where it is supposed to be are the admissions reps converting where they are supposed to be? Are the reps accountable for a number of personally developed or referral leads and is that where the deficit is coming from? Were the missed starts from January added on to the total for April and the lead numbers not adjusted for the shift? I would start by looking into the conversions.
The other thing to look at is are they hitting lead goal overall or by source. They may be getting a different mix of leads than they need and even though everything is converting where it should be they will miss if they have too many leads in low converting spots and not enough in high converting spots.
Show rate also is something not enough people look at and they only look at lead to enroll. What if you got enough enrollments, just didn't keep them committed.
Overall we convert at about 14%. I'm not that involved with the individual Rep performance so I cannot factually answer the above question. I've been looking at overall lead goals, vs. individual media. But I can say that we're under lead budgets on TV and over in Internet inquiries. Also, we've got a pretty high cancel and withdrawl rate.
Marci
I bet part of the issue is that TV converts higher and you may have not had enough Internet inquires to make up those starts. How far prior to a start do you enroll? That may be why there are a lot of cancels and withdrawls. Do you have a student success coordinator that helps with those issues?
TV does convert higher but we are converting Internet at about 11%. We begin enrolling immediately following the previous start. So for instance our next start is April 11 and we begin enrolling for the July start on April 12. Or sooner, depending upon when the student wants to start. No, we do not have a student success coordinator but we are making several changes so maybe someone responsible solely for retention will be added.
Thank you!
