Support Admitted Students with Service Cloud

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you'll be able to:

Discuss ways in which Service Cloud streamlines the admissions process.
Understand how one-stop services support prospective and new students.

This module provides information about the managed package version of Education Cloud. As of March 2023, new or migrated customers use Education Cloud integrated platform solutions instead of managed packages. For information about the integrated platform solution, go to our Education Cloud Documentation.

New student populations are diverse and their needs are varied. These needs will differ by institution, recruiting class, and many other factors. There is one thing all prospective and newly admitted students have in common though. They all have a ton of questions about what life will be like at your school. Inquiries run the gamut from courses and financial aid to residence halls and student life. With Salesforce, your school can interact with students and answer these questions from the start of the student journey.

One-Stop Services for Seamless Support

With Service Cloud, you empower your students to communicate with your institution on any channel: email, social media, online communities, chat, text, and more. Service Cloud transforms those communications into cases, the Service Cloud object for a student issue, request, or support ticket. Then you assign those cases to “service agents”, the Service Cloud term for employees at your institution who respond to and resolve student support issues.

Service Cloud vocabulary recap

One-stop = a single hub for communication

Cases = the Service Cloud object for a student issue, request, or support ticket

Service agent = the Service Cloud term for employees who resolve student issues

The one-stop approach helps your school manage admissions and onboarding in a way that’s smooth and efficient for students and staff. With omni-channel capabilities (meaning cases can originate through many different communication channels), submitted cases reveal the details of a student’s unique situation and needs. Whether a student is reaching out for information about financial aid or shows an interest in research, your teams can address specific concerns with the right guidance. You can also anticipate questions for future admissions cycles based on what you learn from the current one by analyzing case volumes and case topics. Armed with these insights, institutions can plan info sessions, admissions counselor training, and articles for the Knowledge base to make sure students are getting support right from the start. Take a look at the chart below for a review of the different channels your students can use to submit cases.

Case Origin	Examples of Case Creation Scenarios
Web-to-case	A prospective student goes on the Admissions webpage and clicks the ‘Contact Us’ button.
Message-to-case	A newly admitted student sends a question about dual credit courses via Facebook message to the Cloudy College account.
Email-to-case	A prospective student writes an email asking a question about the application process to admissionsinfo@cloudy.edu.
Social-to-case	A parent tweets how difficult it is to find useful information on applying for financial aid, @mentioning Cloudy College.
Phone-to-case	A newly admitted student calls the Admissions office because they have a question about on-campus housing. The Admissions office staff creates a case for the Office of Residence Life to respond.

At Cloudy College cases are helping the school support its new students, who have recently had a lot of questions about orientation activities. When Cloudy admissions counselor Tia Parker sees multiple cases coming in with questions related to which orientation activities are required versus optional, she makes a note to include this information in the students’ welcome packets and clearly mark required sessions and activities. With the insights she gains from cases, Tia can simultaneously support Cloudy’s current class of new students and improve the experience for future Cloudies by enhancing the welcome packet materials.

Case Management and Routing

It’s wonderful to have a tool that empowers your students to reach out for assistance and support. But once you open these channels of communication, how do you effectively manage all the inquiries? This is where list views can really save the day. You can create list views for cases in Service Cloud so your school can organize received messages into categories that maximize work efficiency. Categorizing within list views allows your case agents or advisors to start their day with what’s most pressing. Imagine how great it would feel to have a running start on helping prospective and new students feel at home in your campus community. Admissions counselors at Cloudy College know that feeling well. They created a list view for cases considered “Urgent” so each counselor can prioritize the urgent cases in their queue.

Follow these steps to create a list view for Urgent cases (Optional).

In Salesforce, click the Cases tab.
Click the List View Controls button ( ), then click New.
In the Name field, enter Urgent Cases.
The system automatically generates a List API name.
Determine who can see the new list view.
a. Choose Only I can see this list view for sensitive information or test list views.
b. Choose All users can see this list view for list views that don’t include sensitive information.
c. Choose Share list view with groups of users when the list view should only be seen by particular groups.
Click Save.
In the Filters column, click Add Filter.
From the Field dropdown list select Status.
From the Operation dropdown list leave as equals.
From the Value dropdown list select all statuses you want to flag as Urgent. The Cloudy team selected Waiting on Response, Escalated, and Attention.
Click Done.

Case Management Tools

In addition to list views, Service Cloud provides several case management tools that recruitment and admissions teams can leverage to support prospective and admitted students. Take a look at the chart below for a description of some of these tools and examples of how schools use them. Then keep reading for details on how Cloudy College approaches case management with Salesforce.

Case Management Tool	Description	Use Cases for Recruitment & Admissions teams
Queues	Lists of cases organized by case type that allow service staff to select the cases they have the skillset to solve	Cases can be queued by advisor type and department so residence hall cases are addressed by the on-campus housing team and degree requirement cases are addressed by academic advisors.
Chat	Chat support staffed by live agents who can provide individual assistance in real time, no appointment needed	The admissions office uses live chat to assist transfer students who have questions about transfer credits for courses completed at a different institution.
Einstein bots	Automated chat support with predetermined answers that can help resolve common questions instantly	A bot for the admissions team is preloaded with answers to common questions about application deadlines and fees, dates of upcoming campus visit days or orientation sessions.
Knowledge base	A searchable FAQ of vetted articles that users can consult 24/7 to access information that is organized by topic	Without making a phone call or waiting for an email reply, prospective students can find answers to questions like how to accept their admissions offer and what meal plans are offered with campus housing.

The Cloudy College recruitment office employs case queues, chat, and Einstein bots to streamline their work.

Case queues empower Cloudy College to route cases appropriately. As a recruiter, Marquis Bryant is often the first and most familiar point of contact for new students, but he’s not always the best person to field every question sent his way. With queues, he can route a question to the appropriate person so they can pick it up and provide the highest level of service to the student. This comes in handy when students send Marquis questions about degree or program requirements, which happens often. When Marquis sees a new student has sent an email message asking about prerequisites for an honors program in the school of engineering, queues allow him to redirect the question to an academic advisor in the engineering school.
Chat and Einstein bots provide a level of on-demand support that Cloudy students have become accustomed to when interacting with their favorite retail companies. Cloudy has implemented it in several offices on campus, including the admissions office. Live chat agents field admissions questions about various steps of the application process, registration inquiries for campus visits, and explanations about school-sponsored scholarships.

Einstein bots offer quick answers like chat, but are not staffed by live agents. Instead, Einstein bots can anticipate responses to common questions and provide pre-populated replies to students’ common questions. Pretty cool, huh? Plus, Einstein gets smarter with each interaction, continuously learning to provide the most relevant information. At Cloudy, like all institutions, prospective and newly admitted students have many questions about student life. Cloudy’s recruitment and admissions team knows there is a set of questions they must field over and over again, so they work with their Salesforce admin to create an Einstein bot to assist.
A prospective student gets his questions answered via Einstein bot and Chat.
Einstein definitely lives up to its genius reputation, but even geniuses need some study materials when learning something new. When Cloudy’s recruitment and admissions team was ready to build the bot, they decided on their list of questions and then taught their bot the answers.

Student Question	Einstein Bot Reply
When is the admissions application deadline for a first year student?	The admissions application deadline varies depending on the school or department. Here is a list of all the application deadlines.
How do I sign up for a campus tour?	Campus tours are offered multiple times a day. Click here to sign up for an upcoming date and time.
When is the registration deadline for a transfer student?	The deadline for registration is the same for transfer students as it is for first-year students—three weeks after the beginning of the semester.
Do you provide study abroad programs?	There are many opportunities for Cloudy College students to study around the world. For more information, visit the Office of International Programs website.
Do you grant credit for AP and IB scores?	Yes, we accept scores of 5 on most Advanced Placement (AP) exams and of 7 on certain International Baccalaureate (IB) Higher-Level examinations for credit.

Provide Additional On-Demand Answers with Knowledge Base

Cloudy College also uses Knowledge to put answers to popular questions right at their students’ fingertips. Knowledge is a component that allows you to create a searchable FAQ via articles that answer common questions. Students can self-search and staff members can link to articles that provide detailed answers to questions they receive in chats and emails.

All of these tools help Cloudy provide the level of support and service that their prospective and new students desire, and save students and staff valuable time in unnecessary appointments and lengthy email threads. With Service Cloud, schools can keep students and families informed so they can be confident that the institution cares about their wellbeing and success as they begin their student journey.