February 6, 2024 – This week marks ten years since Santa Fe College (SF) began its partnership with the worldwide leader in customer relationship management (CRM).
Salesforce, a multi-billion dollar company, has long touted Santa Fe College as one of its top success stories in higher education, a status that reflects how far the college has come in putting CRM technology to use for students over the past decade.
“We’re the example Salesforce uses when its reps talk about how a CRM can start small, like we did in a single office, to now being integral for more than 40 different departments and academic advising units,” said Quinten Eyman, director of Recruitment and SF Achieve and the college’s primary Salesforce administrator.
Eyman got Salesforce up and running in Admissions in 2014 focused solely on student recruitment, with a handful of licenses to use it. Now more than 130 individual users are active in the CRM, which manages student data from various sources, including SF’s student information system.
“What all these users have in common, whether they’re focused on prospective, incoming or current students . . . is providing great service. International Student Services is doing amazing things with Salesforce, so is Financial Aid, High School Dual Enrollment and many more.”
Eyman says ease-of-use and the ability to innovate has a lot to do with that, since Salesforce focuses on “clicks not code” to develop new apps and new functionality within the CRM.
“Very little IT involvement is needed. It’s very much do-it-yourself.” Salesforce is also designed to integrate with other digital systems, which is meant to harmonize as much data as possible.
Eyman says Salesforce also helped the college get through the COVID epidemic. When the college went all-remote starting in March 2020, digital lobbies built in Salesforce helped offices in Student Affairs offer virtual check-in, in some cases, overnight.
Even now, when prospective students or parents fill out online forms to request information about programs or events, the data goes directly into Salesforce and tasks staff to take immediate action. Events like next month’s Open House on SF’s Northwest Campus depend on the Salesforce platform and the functionality it provides.
“Programs like SF Achieve couldn’t work without the CRM. It centralizes all of our data with students and allows us to engage through email and texting campaigns,” Eyman said, noting that student engagement in the past few years has tripled with the Salesforce Ecosystem.
The Salesforce community has noticed. Santa Fe College has twice won Salesforce’s highest award in higher education, the Summit Award for Excellence and Innovation in 2019 and 2023, SF has also been a finalist for the award a record seven times and Eyman now serves on Salesforce’s Higher Education Advisory Council, a group of 30 education leaders who help provide insight to Salesforce and to users across the world.
“A lot of people in the CRM world abbreviate Salesforce as ‘SF.’ Seems appropriate.” More institutions like Santa Fe College are offering courses to help learn Salesforce skills in what some have dubbed “the CRM economy.” To learn more about how the college is using Salesforce or how your department can leverage it, contact Robert Gregory, coordinator for Recruitment and CRM at robert.gregory@sfcollge.edu.