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Education · 2024

How a school group tripled admissions throughput

K-12 school group, 3 campuses

Illustrative sample — not a real client engagement

These projects demonstrate the kind of work and the level of detail a real case study will carry. They are composites, not client work, and carry no client attribution. Real engagements replace them as clients give written permission.

Admissions throughput

Applications processed per staff-day, season over season

12 → 4 days
Enquiry to enrolment

Median time across the full admissions cycle

89%
Fees collected online

Digital payments as a share of total collection, term 2

0
Queue days at the fee window

Previously 5–6 days per term

At a glance

Industry
Education
Timeline
3 months
Team size
4
Investment
₹18,00,000
Payback
7 months

The problem

Admissions enquiries arrived by phone, walk-in and web with no shared record, so follow-up depended on whoever remembered. Applications were printed, filled by hand and re-keyed. Fee collection meant queues at the office window on the first week of every term.

The challenge

Parents ranged from highly digital to no email address, so the system could not assume online-only. The academic calendar also meant a hard deadline — missing the admissions window would cost a full year.

Our approach

We built for the least digital parent first, then added convenience for everyone else. Applications could be completed by office staff on behalf of a walk-in parent using the same form, so there was one data path rather than two. That decision is why the office could still serve parents who arrived in person without maintaining a parallel paper process.

What we built

The solution.

01

Unified enquiry capture

Phone, walk-in, web and WhatsApp into one queue with counsellor assignment.

02

Assisted applications

Staff can complete an application with a parent at the desk — same form, same data path.

03

Online fee collection

Instalments, partial payments, automatic receipts and reconciliation.

04

Parent portal

Application status, documents and payment history without a phone call.

Technology used

Timeline

How it ran.

01

Discovery

Weeks 1–2Observed a full admissions day at the main campus.
02

Design

Weeks 3–4Forms tested with eight parents across the digital-confidence range.
03

Build

Weeks 5–11Fortnightly demos with office staff.
04

Launch

Week 12Live two weeks before the admissions window opened.

Return

Did it pay for itself?

Investment against measured annual return. Figures agreed with the client's finance team rather than estimated by us.

₹18,00,000
Investment
₹32,00,000
Annual return
7 months
Payback period

What we'd do differently

The part that didn't go to plan.

We launched with WhatsApp notifications switched on for every event, which parents found intrusive within a fortnight. We had to add granular preferences in the first month. Notification defaults deserve as much thought as the features themselves — we'd now ship conservative and let people opt in.

What's next

Attendance and exam modules planned for the next academic year.

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