The Zicklin School of Business Restores its Confidence in the Path Forward

Challenge

The Baruch College Zicklin School of Business needed to address shrinking enrollment for its Executive Programs, partially due to the market starting to view such programs as a “luxury”, and also based on the hyper-competitive New York City market.

The truth for Zicklin: Enrollment levels were insufficient for profitability, putting the sustainability of some of their programs at risk.

“We needed a firm to help us navigate that reality and work in tandem with us to make sure we were doing the best we could,” said Tricillia Jacob, Sr. Director of Administration & Operations of Executive Programs at Baruch Zicklin.

Solution

GPRS partnered with Zicklin, performing an in-depth Enrollment Growth Assessment designed to “diagnose” the cause of a school’s specific challenges.

The assessment began with an extensive questionnaire, and later included in-depth interviews with key stakeholders and a number of working sessions to prioritize goals and ideal outcomes.

“With the diagnostic, GPRS outlined recommended next steps – each action item regarding marketing and recruiting made sense to us,” said Gwen Webb, Associate Dean of Executive Programs at Baruch Zicklin.

Baruch needed to better track initial inquiries through to application, get a solid understanding of sources for leads, and track leads through the process.

In addition to long-term recommendations, the comprehensive report “identified some key areas that we could tackle right away,” said Jacob.

The assessment identified stalled leads as a key area to address immediately. GPRS stepped in with an immediate and impactful solution.

GPRS used the knowledge gathered from the assessment to implement its Call Center solutions to help Zicklin connect with interested prospects who were “stuck” in the funnel. The call center augmented Zicklin’s staff and gave prospects the personal touch needed to convert an inquiry into an enrolled student.

Results

In just a four-week period, the GPRS call center initiative re-engaged stalled prospects and set 162 appointments for Zicklin’s admissions teams.

GPRS’s assessment and calling solution not only increased short-term enrollment but also positioned Baruch on a path toward sustained growth and profitability, forging a lasting partnership.

“I want to keep GPRS to myself so they make me look better!” said Jacob. “I’m looking forward to working with them long-term.”