How CSU Increased Advisor Results by 70% With a Streamlined CRM Built for Scale

MS 25 | Case Study - Columbia Southern University (CSU)

Columbia Southern University’s admissions team struggled to keep up with a fast-moving, digital-first student recruitment to enrollment journey. Fragmented, manual systems forced advisors to juggle calls, emails and reporting across disconnected tools.

This resulted in delayed engagement, impersonal outreach and missed opportunities to convert prospective students.

As a private, fully online university serving working adults, military personnel and first responders nationwide, CSU’s mission demanded more agility.

But outmoded processes and siloed tech stacks prevented it from meeting the sky-high expectations of today’s digitally savvy learners. As a result, CSU partnered with Mole Street to modernize its admissions structure to transform outdated systems into a cohesive, high-performance admissions engine.

The Challenge

Manual Workflows That Capped Performance and Visibility

Before partnering with Mole Street, CSU relied on a homegrown SIS/CRM system to manage all admissions activity. While functional, it wasn’t built to optimize outreach, engagement, or reporting at scale.

The system required advisors to manually send every text and email, manage a shared lead pool and track engagement with limited visibility.

Ultimately, CSU’s admissions infrastructure was built for a different era—one that lacked the speed and agility needed to scale outreach, personalize communication and respond quickly to prospective student interest.

Manual Outreach With Low Engagement

Every advisor was bogged down by one-by-one texts and email sends, manually managing unclaimed leads. Instead of meaningful dialogue, their outreach was delayed, impersonal and rarely connected—averaging just a 10% response rate.
As a consequence, this manual process:

Delayed response times: Slowed follow-up on new inquiries
Created workflow inefficiencies: Added friction to daily operations
Lacked personalization: Offered no pre-call engagement or tailored messaging

Generic Lead Flows With No Segmentation

Leads entered the system through various channels—paid ads, events and website forms. But regardless of their source, every lead followed the same unsegmented outreach flow.

As a result, advisors had no visibility into lead behavior that would allow them to personalize communication.
This lack of segmentation:

Made outreach impersonal: Every lead received the same messaging
Lowered engagement: Reduced likelihood of response or conversion
Obscured prioritization: Prevented reps from focusing on high-intent leads

Disconnected Systems and Manual Handoffs

CSU used a combination of systems:

Custom-built CRM: Managed lead and admissions workflows but lacked scalability and automation
RingCentral: Used for manual SMS and call outreach by admissions advisors
HubSpot: Available but largely inactive—underutilized for automation, segmentation, or engagement

These tools operated in isolation and HubSpot functioned more as a passive data mirror than an active engagement platform.

Meanwhile, key admissions phases—such as application tracking and lead qualification—weren’t managed within the CRM. This prevented CSU from having a unified view of the student journey, leading to a disjointed handoff between admissions and post-application teams.

Manual Reporting With Limited Insight

All reporting was compiled manually, offering only basic visibility into top-line KPIs. The team lacked reliable attribution to understand where leads were coming from or which campaigns and advisors were driving results.

This made it difficult to:

Track performance: Limited ability to measure advisor effectiveness
Pinpoint drop-off: No clear view of where leads exited the funnel
Optimize strategy: Difficulty determining which campaigns or content were driving inquiries, making it harder to refine targeting and allocate budget effectively

Inefficient Staffing and Strained Resources

One of the greatest impediments to CSU’s legacy system was its lack of automation. This meant advisors had to manage outreach manually, slowing response times and limiting their capacity to handle more leads.

As a result, CSU needed more staff just to maintain day-to-day operations—straining resources without driving greater enrollment impact.

This led to:

Overreliance on manual effort: Technology didn’t reduce workload
High time costs: Repetitive, low-impact tasks consumed staff hours
Poor resource allocation: Teams couldn’t focus on higher-value initiatives

Attribution Blind Spots Limited Strategic Decisions

CSU struggled to pinpoint which campaigns, content, or lead sources were actually driving engagement and conversions. Without a centralized, trackable view of campaign performance, the admissions team was forced to rely on anecdotal insights or broad KPIs—undermining their ability to optimize efforts in real time.

This attribution gap made it nearly impossible to:
✅ Identify top-performing campaigns or channels
✅ Justify marketing spend and adjust in real time
✅ Focus outreach on the most promising lead sources

The Business Impact of a Disconnected Admissions Infrastructure

Workflow Inefficiencies: Manual outreach processes delayed lead response times and reduced overall productivity
Lack of Segmentation: Uniform communication across all lead types diminished personalization and weakened conversion rates
Low Engagement Rates: One-to-one pre-call outreach yielded minimal connection rates—averaging just 10%
Limited Data Visibility: Siloed systems hindered performance tracking and obscured the student lifecycle from inquiry to enrollment
Resource Strain: Excess staffing was required to compensate for inefficient processes, diverting focus from strategic initiatives
Delayed Reporting and Attribution: Inconsistent tracking made it difficult to assess campaign effectiveness or optimize marketing spend
Scalability Constraints: The existing infrastructure could not support future growth or adapt to evolving enrollment strategies

The Goal – Automate Outreach, Unify Data and Improve Speed-to-Lead

The overarching goal was to modernize and streamline CSU’s admissions operations by shifting from a manual, fragmented process to a more agile, scalable system. To achieve this, the primary objective was to transition CSU’s existing SIS/CRM (Omega) workflows into HubSpot without disrupting daily operations.

Increase advisor productivity: Free up reps to focus on high-value outreach rather than manual administrative tasks
Improve speed-to-lead: Accelerate the time from inquiry to first contact through automation and streamlined workflows
Enhance personalization: Segment leads by source, behavior and interest to deliver more relevant and timely communication
Centralize admissions data: Establish a single source of truth to track engagement, manage workflows and improve oversight
Strengthen reporting and attribution: Build the infrastructure to measure funnel performance, rep activity and campaign impact
Enable scalable growth: Modernize the admissions engine with flexible systems that support expansion and evolving strategy

Results - Greater Productivity, Faster Communication and Empowered Teams

Prior to partnering with Mole Street, CSU was bogged down by disconnected systems that forced a cumbersome, inefficient approach to admissions. Teams were left heavy-footed—juggling manual tasks, delayed outreach and limited visibility across the funnel.

Now, CSU is empowered with maximum operational agility—reflected in a 70% increase in daily advisor call activity. It’s a transformation that has rippled to all corners of the institution.

Advisors respond faster and more effectively
Communication is personalized and timely
Leadership has real-time visibility into performance
Conversion rates are rising
Speed-to-lead is accelerating
CSU now has a scalable foundation for long-term enrollment growth

This transformation didn’t just improve operations. It redefined what is possible for CSU’s admissions team. With a modern, connected CRM at the core of their strategy, the university is now positioned to engage more students, drive strong outcomes and scale with confidence for years to come.

“The reps are able to increase their call activity by about 70% on a given day, which is just tremendous for us. We were also able to get an additional 122 new students for our most recent class from email campaigns built in HubSpot—without needing IT.” — Brian Belliveau, Chief Growth Officer, CSU

Misfiring Campaigns and Data Blind Spots

The limited segmentation and automation features hindered WVDT’s ability to personalize its marketing efforts. Consequently, WVDT was forced to create broad campaigns that failed to maximize its marketing potential.

Creating marketing emails was cumbersome due to the complex interface and limited flexibility. This required external support, further complicating the workflow.

Moreover, Salesforce Marketing Cloud lacked integrated tools and features necessary for real-time analytics and detailed tracking. As a result, WVDT could not keep its finger on the pulse of user interactions. With no metrics to guide them, WVDT was flying blind in their marketing.

Poor User Experience and Increased Workload

WVDT’s B2B portal was outdated and dysfunctional. This created a barrier that prevented users from accessing vital information, managing advertising campaigns, as well as engaging with the Tourism Board.

Although the portal was built on a reliable CMS, it was dependent on receiving data from Salesforce custom objects. Consequently, this made the system rigid and awkward to use which provided limited control over the design and user experience.