EdAssist Case Study

“CRM is something that we’re able to develop internally to really fit our business needs – I think all of our lines of business are very unique. We’ve used CRM as something that is holistic and living, so that there is constant opportunity for change and development.”

Tally Simmons, Senior Manager -- Operations, EdAssist

EdAssist is a subsidiary of Bright Horizons Family Solutions, which is a leading provider of early education and preschools, employer-sponsored child care, back-up care, educational advisory services, and other work/life solutions. Conducting business in North America, Europe, and India, they have created employer-sponsored child care and early education programs for more than 880 clients, including more than 130 of the Fortune 500.

EdAssist is a leading provider of outsourced tuition assistance management

services. With more than 30 years of experience designing and administering tuition

programs, EdAssist brings value to its clients by providing savings on their corporate

tuition reimbursement benefits. These significant cost savings span its client-

verticals that include healthcare, technology, and manufacturing. Some of EdAssist’s

services include: highly personalized advising, access to an exclusive education

network, proprietary software and tracking, and tuition assistance policy consulting.

SITUATION

Founded in 1986, Bright Horizons provides different lines of business that offer people unique opportunities for care and personal advancement. These solutions, which include Back-Up Care, College Coach, and EdAssist, were running as independent businesses from an IT perspective. This, in turn, prevented Bright Horizons corporate from gaining a clear, comprehensive overview of program data.

Customer Profile

EdAsssist, a subsidiary of Bright Horizons Family Solutions, transforms employer tuition assistance programs into a strategic investment that cultivates a smarter workforce and improves employee retention and mobility.

INDUSTRY

Education

LOCATION

United States

Global Education Assistance Provider Gains

Flexible Reporting and a Powerful CRM

System

The EdAssist team was running a number of home-grown, disparate systems to manage day to day activities, such as managing advising sessions, reporting incoming cases, and tracking client-employee savings. These processes were not efficient or scalable and did not provide the useful analytics and reportings necessary to grow the business to the next level. In order to improve these processes, EdAssist sought a unified program that would help manage processes more efficiently, in order to further the company on its mission to help employees advance their own careers through continued education.

“We had no one, centralized case management system,” said Tally Simmons, Senior Manager – Operations at EdAssist. “Once CRM entered, that solved the problem by having one system where we are able to document or communicate with our clients, as well as communicate internally.”

SOLUTION

Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides a collaborative, scalable system that integrates with the newly designed EdAssist web front end. EdAssist’s contact center is able to resolve a tremendous volume of cases in a timely manner using Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s unique reporting and contact management capabilities. Average call handle times have improved about four minutes, from 12 minutes to 8 minutes with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This is a critical time-saver for EdAssist’s clients – busy, working adults going back to school. Approximately 800 new cases are processed each day, which is up from 200-300 previously, giving EdAssist a competitive advantage.

Additionally, Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides increased visibility into processes, such as advising sessions, to allow users to better forecast and plan advising sessions.

Due to the high user adoption and increased productivity since implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the team at EdAssist is continually requesting to add additional functionality and workflows within the system. This contributes to the true xRM nature of the system, which is a testament to the ability to take the out-of-the-box data model processes of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and really customize them to EdAssist’s own internal processes.

“This is not a generic, one-step, this-is-what-you-get software,” said Simmons. “CRM is something that we’re able to develop internally to really fit our business needs – I think all of our lines of business are very unique.”

Bright Horizons uses Microsoft Dynamics CRM across all lines of business in order to provide a holistic view of the customer. Prior to implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM, it was difficult for Bright Horizons to recognize that a client had purchased multiple services, like EdAssist and College Coach.

“Hitachi Solutions is

definitely one of our most

reliable partners. They have

been very supportive during

the whole process.”

Colin Lee-Wo, Director of

Application Development &

Support, EdAssist.

“As a result of all the lines of business using that one system [Microsoft Dynamics CRM], it allows us to have a single view of that user – of that client,” said Colin Lee-Wo, Director of Application Development & Support at Bright Horizons. “We are able to tell what cases are open for that particular employee – on the EdAssist side, on the Back-Up side, etcetera – to really just have that holistic view of that person.”

EdAssist and Bright Horizons have worked with Hitachi Solutions to develop an online, self-serve help desk that would allow EdAssist’s client-employees to schedule academic and financial advising sessions online, eliminating the need to call the contact center.

Hitachi Solutions has already added hundreds of entities, workflows, plugins, etc. to extend the data model and functionality of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM. EdAssist is taking advantage of the system’s ability to rapidly expand and add new features and functionality to grow with the business.

BENEFITS

High User Adoption

Microsoft Dynamics CRM quickly gained a lot of traction within EdAssist due to its intuitive interface, powerful processing capabilities, and activity management. EdAssist continually extends Microsoft Dynamics CRM way beyond traditional sales force automation or customer relationship management in order to truly cultivate a best-of-breed, world-class system.

So far, EdAssist has gone above traditional uses for simple opportunity management or pipeline forecasting to include: integration with a custom web app portal, workflows that integrate client-employee eligibility data from external data sources, automated workflows to notify users of upcoming advising sessions and other reminder emails, and more.

Increased Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction

Unique case management capabilities decrease response time in EdAssist’s contact center. Service requests are logged in CRM as individual cases that can be assigned to specific users and tracked within the system. Additionally, EdAssist’s advisement and scheduling is automatically integrated with Outlook and allows users to better plan ahead when scheduling upcoming advising sessions.

By accessing case records and the complete 360-degree-view that Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides, EdAssist is able to understand and manage customer concerns immediately, including advising questions, scheduling concerns, and payment options.

“The helpdesk will allow our

users to submit help tickets

directly in EdAssist -- without

ever having to pick up the

phone. In turn, those tickets

will create a Case in CRM

and route to the appropriate

Queues in CRM, creating

efficiency for internal and

external users.”

Pina Daniel, Director of Product

Development, EdAssist

WHY HITACHI SOLUTIONS?

Hitachi Solutions is one of the largest, most qualified and highly experienced Microsoft Dynamics consulting firms across the globe, capable of handling complex tier-one displacement projects. Our company’s caliber of expertise and commitment to customers is evidenced through our consistent recognition from both Microsoft and industry analysts. Contact a Hitachi Solutions expert to discuss how our Microsoft Dynamics Solutions can help improve your productivity.

Transparency into Business Processes

Prior to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Bright Horizons lacked the 360-degree perspective of its clients that it needed to grow. If a customer was happy with one of the lines of business, but not the other, there was no way to connect the dots and pinpoint what worked and what didn’t companywide. With the transparency that Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides, Bright Horizons is able to operate as a unified business, thus uniting EdAssist, College Coach, and Back-Up.