Back to Case studyA Renowned Boarding School in NCR Leverages WhatsApp Business Platform for its Official Communications
ShareHighlights
- Unified communication platform giving the school a formal channel to interact with different parties via text and VoIP services
- Actionable insights via reports on how many messages are delivered, read and responded to, or blocked by the target audience
- Improved learning experiences with students receiving content and references sent directly by teachers
- High uptime and security on a Meta-owned communication channel owned along with additional support offered by TTBS
- Better lead generation through marketing campaigns publicising admission drives and events organised by school
Introduction
Our customer for this project is a school on the outskirts of Delhi. It belongs to a leading academia group that has more than three decades of experience in the education industry and runs institutes across global locations.
Affiliated to the CBSE Board, the school provides learning opportunities from preprimary to senior secondary level. It also offers boarding facilities to outstation students. With its thoughtfully established campus infrastructure, the institution has premium amenities for lab works, library, sports, art & craft, and other cocurricular activities. It is committed to building a rich environment for learning while inculcating ethical values among the younger generation.
To interact directly with parents, teachers and stakeholders, the school needed a secure digital communication platform. It wanted to keep a single, official channel for text, voice and video-based correspondence.
The popularity of WhatsApp - used by majority of Android and iOS device owners in India - prompted the management to sign up for a business account on the same app. And when they noted that Tata Tele Business Services (TTBS) provides an exclusive hybrid communication solution with its Smartflo WhatsApp for Business Suite, the school management decided to select the end-to-end featurerich service instead of subscribing to a basic version.
Business Challenges
For a school with a large family of learners and educators, it is critical to have an organised communication infrastructure. The management regularly sends updates on academic calendar, upcoming events, fee reminders and other necessary information to parents. Occasionally, the team needs to interact with them on matters concerning their wards.
Instead of exchanging messages across a plethora of platforms, the school preferred to set up an integrated communication channel for all its text, voice, and video-based interactions. It also wanted to use this channel to generate leads for new academic sessions.
While choosing an appropriate service from the multiple options available, the institution’s administrative body drew up some prerequisites:
- Automation feature for instant replies to students and parents seeking information on exam dates, results, holidays, syllabus, sports etc
- Ease of sending updates on status of admission applications, scheduling interviews and answering frequently asked questions (FAQs)
- Enabling teachers to equip students with notes, PDFs, PPTs, audio-video clips, and other educational resources for optimum learning experiences
The school was looking for a platform with features that were easy to use and also secure with encrypted interactions. It was also interested in using the analytical features of WhatsApp to check how effectively the app met its communication and marketing requirements.
TTBS Solution
The solution architects who handle cloud services at TTBS activated a customised WhatsApp Business Platform account for the school on one of their existing contact numbers. We provided all the features that the organisation sought and gave the admin team a quick demo on how to use the service.
With an official channel for routine interactions, the school management and teachers could now route their messages securely. It became simpler to send critical texts in time and also check if these had been read by the parents, students and other members of their target audience.
TTBS WhatsApp Business Platform was tailored for use by a large academic institution and had a balanced mix of elements as per its expectations:
- WhatsApp Businesses API enabled the admin personnel to automatically send updates on events and academic programs through a custom designed menu uploaded on the application
- By mentioning their application number, child’s name and/or other objective information, parents could check the status of admission and get responses via FAQs
- Teachers could use the school’s WhatsApp handle to send learning notes to their students
Given the popularity of Whatsapp as an application and the growing use of smartphones for all kinds of transactions, the parents found it easy to interact with school authorities through the platform. It became an integrated channel offering chatbot and personalised communication facilities. What’s more, all messages were encrypted in line with global standards for cyber security.
