News & Updates

How to Handle Contacts Who Are Not Yet Customers

By Paolo Dona — Oct 13, 2010

Every school deals with a certain amount of communication with prospective students before they sign up for a class.

This usually involves sending e-mails, talking on the phone, and following up with more information.

Every school has a different way to track these interactions, but information is usually kept in e-mails or Excel spreadsheets.

Today, we are releasing the first in a series of improvements to let you handle your contacts directly in NiftySchool.

We have added a new status: ‘Contact’. Contacts are people you interact with who are not yet customers.

To create a contact, simply use the ‘new student’ link, and select ‘Contact’ from the status dropdown.

When a student is flagged as ‘Contact’, his dashboard will be replaced by a single text area in which you can store notes about him.

The contact’s notes will be shared among your staff so that everyone is always up-to-date. The contact’s phone numbers and email address will also be displayed for quick reference.

You can search for contacts using the ‘Contacts’ filter on the right hand side of the student’s dashboard or by typing the name in the search box, as you do for your regular students.

As you can do with any other search results, the list of contacts can be downloaded in Excel format. You can then use it for marketing or statistical purposes.

As soon as you change the status to one of the standard ones, the Contact will be treated as a normal student, and the dashboard will switch back to the default behaviour.

All of your contact notes will be preserved in the student file.