Challenge

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a major disruption in the way we learn, posing a critical challenge to schools and universities across the globe. In March 2020, the President of Columbia University announced a new policy to shift student learning from in-person to online interactions with tutors and mentors. This unprecedented change not only affected how students interact with tutors but also disrupted the entire scheduling infrastructure.

SUMO Scheduler, an automated scheduling platform, was the answer to the university’s unique problems. With a simple interface that empowers students and tutors to book their classes directly on the University’s website, SUMO became an answer to the crisis.

Before SUMO entered into production in April 2020, class scheduling at the university solely relied on educational coordinators. The process was time-consuming and prone to error as admins had to manually input requests and match personal calendars of students and tutors in order to make an appointment. This resulted in lost productivity and missed classes.

The administration expressed a strong need for an integrated platform that allowed students to self-schedule classes directly with the faculty while offering real-time access for coordinators to monitor the scheduling process. After hearing about SUMO’s success with educational institutions, the staff felt that the SUMO Scheduling Platform could help them streamline and improve its scheduling.

Solution

SUMO was the perfect solution for the university. It automated the process of class scheduling and allowed students to manage their own appointments with faculty. Real-time access for coordinators eliminated any need for double booking or missed appointments. In addition, SUMO’s reporting features gave administrators valuable insights into how many students had registered for online classes, who their instructors were, and which students needed additional support. SUMO’s scalability allowed the university to easily add new courses every semester without employing more staff.

Additionally, SUMO’s Email and Invite Feature gave admins the power to send personalized email invites that took the guesswork out of the scheduling process. Upon receiving an invite, students simply clicked their personal link inside the email to choose a time, and the meeting automatically appeared on everyone’s calendar. SUMO’s automated process streamlined the scheduling and freed up coordinators’ time, allowing them to focus on other important tasks.

Calendar API was another useful feature that helped faculty and staff save time and drastically improved productivity. Powered by REST API, the Calendar offers a number of unique services such as aggregating time availability in real-time. With the new calendar interface, coordinators were able to see a full list of booked appointments by the user, appointment time slot, and appointment type. Canceling and rescheduling were also done in real-time without the risk of losing valuable time slots or resources.

Finally, automated smart matching helped students meet with the right advisor, at the right location, and at the right time. This minimized scheduling errors and improved attendance. With automated email and text reminders, students showed up on time, ready to learn! Indeed, SUMO’s automation reduced no-shows, increased staff utilization, and improved student engagement.

Results

Today, the University has seen a dramatic increase in efficiency with manual tasks being eliminated across all departments. SUMO enabled over 20 teams throughout the university to effectively schedule appointments with students. The amount of appointments that were made online has increased by over 70% eliminating the game of back and forth and providing a robust infrastructure for online learning.

The University is grateful for SUMO’s contribution in helping maintain its infrastructure during this challenging time. The technology successfully met students’ fast-paced needs while automation provided coordinators and faculty with much-needed support and consistency. SUMO Scheduler has been a game-changer in the lives of Columbia’s students and staff.

Challenge

Facing the Challenge of Outdated Systems

Higher education has long struggled with obstacles related to digital transformation. Traditionally, universities have used a mix of platforms to aim for student support, including outdated manual systems and disparate tools. And today, it comes time for a change.

The University of Kentucky, a leading land-grant research institution, stated that many students didn’t receive the support they needed and had to make multiple phone calls to schedule an appointment with a coach. Frequently, students would be unable to reach their coach of choice, having them miss out entirely or attempt to make an appointment. This caused frustration among students and academic coaches.

University leadership issued an initiative to bring as many platforms as possible into their Salesforce as they were using a mixed bag of systems in the past: paper forms and emails for referrals, Outlook calendar for scheduling appointments, and yet another platform for signups.

The problem was that the recruitment and appointment-making process was time-consuming, tedious, and errors were often made due to the manual input of information into a third-party system from various sources. This created an extremely inefficient process for coaches and students. Additionally, appointment data had to be cleaned since students were having to manually register for accounts with their ID numbers, which led to duplicates and a consistent mess in an effort to keep the existing platform clean.

Solution

An Integrated Platform for Instant Appointment Booking

In response, Academic Coaching Team decided to recruit SUMO because its adaptive omnichannel scheduler has proven to eliminate many of the existing challenges they faced, especially having to use multiple tools that couldn’t be properly integrated with Salesforce.

SUMO didn’t disappoint. In record time, the implementation team established student accounts in Salesforce and installed a native platform that allowed students and coaches to book multiple appointments and receive instant email confirmations and reminders. To implement this feature in their existing system, they had to custom code and pay for a software developer. This integration process alone saved them substantial time and money!

SUMO’s ability to automatically link student-specific information in a single platform, with the option to include additional fields for IDs, phone numbers, and email addresses is exactly what they needed. Additionally, a fully branded and customized scheduling flow quickly and efficiently connected students with appropriate advisors via calendar connector and Outlook integration.

Results

Bridging The Gap Between Students and Coaches

With the introduction of SUMO, students can now use their standard school credentials to quickly schedule appointments with their advisors and receive instant confirmations and customized appointment reminders via email. And the best part is that the new scheduling solution allowed the university team to easily leverage native Salesforce providing full transparency into each account.

The ability to pass contact ID into SUMO’s Online Scheduler via a single sign-on system (SSO) inside Salesforce eliminated the constant manual cleaning process that was previously needed to keep records organized. Now, advisors and admins are spending more time focusing on working with students and less time performing tedious manual tasks.

Connecting students to advisors within a unified solution eliminated the need to switch between multiple platforms to book follow-up appointments. Administrators were amazed by how much time they are now able to save, which resulted in more time for meeting with students. Student scheduling was greatly simplified, which wasn’t the case before SUMO. What a success! With improved appointment flow, student scheduling experience was streamlined and challenges with the booking process quickly became the thing of the past.

Challenge

Getting On Board with Digitalization

In an age where digital literacy is a mandatory skill for students to learn, universities have been left behind. Traditionally manual processes have been a preferred way of conducting day-to-day tasks. However, the need for modernization, efficiency, and innovation prompted educational institutions to get on board with digital transformation.

Considered as one of the largest American universities, our customer was no different in this regard. Complete with over 24k students and 1,200+ employees, the university seemed like a tough nut to crack when it comes to digitalization. And yet here we are – introducing an automated appointment scheduling system that facilitates communication between staff and students.

Solution

A Tough Road to Success

The road to digital success began with the introduction of two major automation tools: Salesforce and Pardot. These tools were implemented to make processes more efficient for users across campus. While the University admins were happy with the functionality, they quickly realized that the legacy scheduling application didn’t quite fit in with the newly introduced digital mix. The most obvious issue with their legacy system was the lack of automated appointment reminders and email notifications. They knew they needed something that would cut down on manual work and increase visibility into schedule changes.

Lack of automation between the scheduling app and Pardot resulted in multiple issues with marketing campaigns and didn’t produce the expected ROI. Additionally, the use of Eventbrite for virtual/in-person events proved cumbersome, as it was time-consuming and difficult to manage. This customer eventually came to SUMO in search of an automated appointment scheduling platform that would securely integrate with their Salesforce and Pardot applications.

Results

Results-Driven Solutions

SUMO’s Appointment and Event Scheduling feature connected the dots with its native Salesforce integration which allowed newly acquired digital platforms to reach their full potential and improve customer engagement strategy. The automated appointment scheduling system streamlined the process of tracking appointments and reserving time on calendars for their faculty, staff, and students. With Appointment Scheduling, organizations can automate tasks such as phone call reminders, email confirmations, SMS notifications, automated follow-up for unconfirmed appointments/reservations by leveraging their existing login credentials.

The team deployed several customized and branded Online Schedulers across multiple websites, each focused on different use-cases specific to their website location. Students could book appointments in a matter of seconds, and in the process, choose the right advisor, calendar, and service. With automated appointment reminders, next-generation calendars, and follow-up reminders by phone or email based on user behavior history in the application, they’re able to reduce no-shows by 20% across all departments.

SUMO’s Events Suite brought appointment and event functionality under one roof in Salesforce, drastically improving user experience and maximizing calendar real estate. Double-booking became a thing of the past, due to SUMO’s direct calendar connection to Outlook which allowed advisors to spent far less time on scheduling activities, and more time on meeting with students.

Finally, SUMO’s Marketing Scheduling Links feature entirely automated data collection to help leverage event attendee information for future marketing campaigns. This allowed the university to communicate directly with event attendees from within their Salesforce account.

Looking Into The Brighter Future

The new automated scheduling platform from SUMO has been a major success for this university. While our customer has traditionally lagged behind other organizations in their adoption of new technologies, they have made up for lost time with a project that made automated scheduling a reality. Looking into the future, they plan on keeping the momentum going and continue its success with automated scheduling.

Challenge

Creating a Best-in-Class Digital Experience for the Youth

Sports organizations of all shapes and sizes face a major shift in the new economic environment where digital transformation calls for new opportunities in customer engagement and retention. Adopting agile technology that benefits customer service, streamlines operations, and drives revenue is the first step for achieving greater success.

PlayOn! Sports is a digital media platform that helps schools modernize the way they manage events. The company offers advanced capabilities in video production via streaming equipment that covers more than 30,000 high school sporting events per year. As with any digital media provider, PlayOn! Sports is extremely focused on continuous coverage expansion and strives to find new ways to improve customer engagement.

Solution

Automation with Precision

The first step in improving customer engagement and communication strategy was to find a solution that would automate the scheduling process for equipment installation at each school location. Previously, the company relied on outdated manual tools prone to scheduling errors and inconsistencies that often resulted in unhappy customers and missed revenue targets.

An automated scheduling platform seemed like the best way forward, and PlayOn! Sports narrowed it down to SUMO and one other vendor. The decision was made, and PlayOn! Sports signed up with SUMO.

“The Sumo Scheduler is helping us reduce the effort currently required to broker installation dates with our clients. It is also helping to accelerate our installation capabilities which needed to double over the past year.”
– Vince Maggio, VP of Operations

Customers are encouraged to self-schedule through automated email links that are seamlessly integrated with native Salesforce, so the management team can have full transparency into the number of installation appointments in a single pane of view.

Prior to the introduction of SUMO, blackout periods based on a client’s timezone were hard to estimate. This resulted in delayed equipment shipments and missed installations. With the help of SUMO, the company is now able to accurately calculate blackout periods and ship the correct equipment to the right school at the right time without having to rely on manual effort.

Results

Results from Day One

PlayOn! Sports started seeing the results of its work with SUMO almost immediately. Appointment automation made it possible to completely eliminate manual errors, thus improving client engagement. The introduction of automatic scheduling links streamlined the supply chain and dramatically reduced installation delays since they were sent out right after the equipment was shipped.

The company is now enjoying greater success with a more tailored approach to customer communication. Installation contractors can easily update their availability through the online community in a 360-degree view. Additionally, connecting schools with installers has never been easier with the new automated scheduling system which offers calendar integration and automated appointment reminders.

With SUMO staying on top of its product development, PlayOn! Sports enjoys the latest technology advancements in customer engagement technology including analytics, custom email templates, reschedule status, advanced phone options, and 24-hr support.

Looking into the future, the company plans to continue helping its clients connect with installers faster giving them clarity, confidence, and control over sporting events. PlayOn! Sports believes that the partnership with SUMO will allow them to continuously accelerate installation capabilities and connect with each customer in a highly efficient and profitable way.

Challenge

Seeking a Platform to Connect Students and Tutors

Educational institutions often find it difficult to streamline class scheduling and coordinate meetings between students and tutors while ensuring staff availability, enrollment, and engagement. Automated omnichannel scheduling software can help universities establish a consistent time table for each department, automate courses, secure classroom availability, and effectively connect students and instructors.

A top leader in postgraduate education, recruited SUMO Scheduler to address communication and appointment coordination challenges head-on through the implementation of cloud-based software. The technology has enabled the university to connect over 14,000 educators with students and faculty across 2,800 schools and resulted in significant improvements in the course scheduling, student engagement, and academic planning processes.

Solution

Flawless Academic Planning With SUMO

For a long time, faculty and administrators struggled to build a consistent schedule of classes. Time, space, and program constraints made it hard for the departments to prepare their schedule for the upcoming semester and ensure consistent progress. While existing rules and procedures were meant to alleviate some of the complexities, they lacked the ability to effectively distribute course sections and reach optimal enrollment goals.

The university administrators struggled to keep up with the manual assignment of courses, rooms, and individual meetings between students and tutors which lead to appointment conflicts and an inability to effectively organize students and resources. Implementing an automated scheduling software seemed like the best way to move forward.

SUMO Scheduler was selected by the organization’s leadership committee due to the platform’s balance of features and intuitive user experience. Together with its implementation partner, SUMO built an automated solution that allowed students to schedule meetings and classes with coaches straight from their community.

Faculty and staff were impressed by the platform’s ability to seamlessly pass contact details from the school’s CRM platform and to link them with participants’ calendars in order to establish common availability based on appointment type, dates, and times. This highly configurable, yet simple, system turned a previously tedious scheduling process into a well-functioning workflow.

The organization experienced first-hand a tailored approach that provides students with a summary of their appointments along with the number of times they are allowed to book a meeting with a specific faculty member, coach, or panel. Scheduled participants are automatically nurtured with regular email communication and reminders – a key functionality that tremendously reduces manual tasks and saves time.

Automated scheduling also provides transparency into the appointment status as well as the number of missed and completed meetings. With the newly implemented system, admins have no issues tracking absentees, rescheduling meeting times, or finding available classrooms.

Results

A Fast Track to Results

Since partnering with SUMO, the organization has achieved impressive results. Faculty members and administrators can easily streamline their internal scheduling process and keep students on track with the fully customized workflow which includes features such as custom fields and templates, calendar integration, and multiple location support.

SUMO’s innovative technology not only allows students to keep track of their scheduled appointments, receive timely updates and notifications, and stay connected with the tutors but it also dramatically reduces the number of missed meetings due to scheduling conflicts. Additionally, faculty members can easily see all of their appointments and assigned students from a single calendar view.

The software helps faculty members stay on top of their priorities by automating processes and eliminating scheduling errors which, in turn, leads to improved productivity and operational efficiency. With SUMO, academic departments can easily avoid double-booking classrooms to ensure meeting space availability at any given time.

The organization has a strong vision for future growth and plans to continue partnering with SUMO to fulfill them. It will continue working on various initiatives to enhance collaboration across departments and campuses to improve productivity, increase efficiencies, and enhance engagement by standardizing scheduling systems from a single multi-device omnichannel platform.

Challenge

SUMO has a new customer that is a Leading Coaching Firm who provides coaching and training to real estate professionals with one-hour business coaching sessions being one of their key products. The company originally chose a competing scheduling solution to manage appointments for their sales and coaching teams. However, within the first year, they found it was not fulfilling their needs. The business was being negatively affected by the app’s restrictions on creating self-scheduling sites, ability to quickly book sessions and the extra connector license fees needed to get the app to work with Salesforce®. They saw a doubling of billing increases within a 3-month timeframe. The app was not allowing the business to scale without an extra investment of time and money.

Solution

Requiring a more robust tool with user-friendly self-scheduling and flexible workshift management, the organization contacted SUMO after a search for their top competitors. Being built native on Salesforce was their top selling point followed by its ability to scale to their growth. Finally the cost and speed of implementation made SUMO the optimum choice. The organization now can create unlimited self-scheduling sites without added fees, so every rep, program and product can now be represented. Ease of use was also a draw as they found training very user-friendly and the support team lowered the learning curve during the transfer from the other scheduling tool.

Results

The organization is now able to reduce time spent scheduling appointments by almost 50%. With their previous scheduling application, up to 10 different pages needed to be opened and appointments had to be manually moved to match coaching requests. With SUMO, they are now able to use SUMO’s drag and drop feature to easily match any available rep with coaching requests, make updates or corrections. One page bookmarking lets their admin quickly retrieve scheduling and calendar pages needed without maintaining a library of open pages. Working in Salesforce classic mode with plans to convert to lightning mode, the company found extra benefit that SUMO is lightning-ready.

THE CHALLENGE:

Our client, an Entrepreneurial Institute, provides  training, research, fundraising, and networking opportunities to budding entrepreneurs within a community.

Entrepreneurs, with hopes of pitching their ideas and securing the Institute’s benefits, would book appointments, but the sheer number of incoming requests was becoming overwhelming for the staff.

The CEO reported that “some employees were booking up to 20 meetings a day to match the rising appointment demands”. As a result, the staff was overburdened, which led to an increase in delays and a drop in customer service quality.

Moreover, scheduling appointment requests was further complicated by the need to cross-reference and document multiple appointments across multiple schedules, which were recorded with highly manual methods: phone calls and emails.

THE OBJECTIVE:

Though the client was effectively using Salesforce® to manage their database of investors, partners, mentors and mentees, they recognized the need for a more robust scheduling method which would better serve their community.

The client chose SUMO scheduler, and requested a bespoke appointment scheduling solution with the following features:

• A Salesforce native platform that would retain key critical data
• Self-scheduling features for the staff to efficiently manage appointments
• Safeguards to ensure no more double bookings or missed meetings
• A customized routing system that would connect the entrepreneurs to the right representatives

THE SOLUTION:

SUMO’s Appointment Scheduler was built native to the Salesforce platform, meaning that the client’s critical data remained entirely within the Salesforce ecosystem. This setup reduced the risks associated with data being processed on external servers, thus fortifying security.

Furthermore, SUMO’s Appointment Scheduler allowed the institute to switch to communication methods that would automatically schedule any type of appointment without requiring an employee’s constant involvement: in-person, via phone, video, or even through a web conference.

Critically, a customized Assignment Engine allowed SUMO to automatically handle the matchmaking, scheduling meetings for Entrepreneurs with the right representatives by taking into consideration their availability, location, time, and the meeting method.

These features, coupled with the insertion of multiple calendars and schedules into an intuitive, configurable platform, allowed the Institute an at-a-glance view of all customer interactions, allowing them to deliver highly personalized service.

THE RESULT:

Through the implementation of SUMO Scheduler’s customized platform, the Entrepreneurship Institute experiencing no more issues with overlapping schedules, double bookings or missed meetings.

The proprietary Assignment Engine now automatically routes appointment requests to a representative or mentor based on their calendar availability, whereas the Self-scheduling feature has allowed the Institute to focus on scheduling  follow-up meetings, helping young entrepreneurs further develop their ideas.

Owing to the above , the Institute’s staff has been able to claim back a significant amount of their daily work day, allowing that time to be directed to other important tasks.