Victoria International

Goals

• Maximize conversion of prospects to enrollees
• Maintain 16% international student enrolment
• Grow post-graduate programs

Achievements

• Conversion rates from offer to enrollment improved by up to 40% 
• Cost-effective delivery of highly targeted information to prospects worldwide 
• Improved insight into market issues drives smarter messaging and tactics

About Victoria International

Victoria University of Wellington was founded through an Act of Parliament in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebration, and named in her honor. It is home to more than 20,000 students distributed across four major campuses located in the center of Wellington, New Zealand’s capital. The University offers academic programs in more than 90 subjects at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Like most institutions of higher learning, Victoria University of Wellington must continue to convert prospects into enrollees despite ever-increasing competition for international students (the University is trying to maintain a rate of 16 percent of its students hailing from overseas). And it is trying to bolster its post-graduate programs, which are critical for growing its portfolio of funded research.

The challenge for the University is how to deliver highly personalized information to diverse recipients within its tight cost constraints. Using RightNow, both the University’s own staff and its overseas contractor-partners can maintain an ongoing, content-rich “conversation” with prospects across multiple communication channels—significantly increasing the likelihood that anyone considering Victoria University will ultimately choose it.

In many cases, a prospect’s first contact takes place via the web when he or she looks for answers in the University’s RightNow-powered self-service knowledge base. At this point, the prospect typically “opts in” to the University’s email program, which is also powered by RightNow. Once a prospect is entered into the University’s RightNow database, every interaction with that prospect is tracked. So, over time, the University learns more about the prospect and can monitor where he or she is at in the decision-making process.

In addition to providing complete insight into its individual prospects, RightNow has helped the University better understand the differences between the various geographic markets it serves. Malaysia exemplifies the University’s overall success. Before implementing RightNow CX, the University’s conversion rate for the country had dropped to around 30 percent. With RightNow, that rate has jumped to 42 percent—an improvement of 40 percent.

The University is further leveraging RightNow by extending it to the telemarketing partner it hires to support international recruiting efforts. This partner is provided with relevant applicant information from the University’s RightNow database, so they can have well-informed phone conversations with their target prospects.

Victoria University Homepage