Tackling a dissertation can be a daunting task for doctoral students. They can be unsure of where to begin and often need help throughout the process. Depending on the subject matter, pitching and writing can take almost two years.
Done Dissertation bridges this gap by helping doctoral students finish their dissertations in one year or less.
Through programming, event/workshop planning, and products made available online, the consulting firm also advises doctoral programs and universities on best practices and how to better develop and support doctoral students.
As the business began to grow on a national scale, Done Dissertation’s customer acquisition efforts evolved from in-person networking to online and event lead capture.
And when the company needed a reliable digital workflow that empowered a faster sales cycle and customer trend identification, Jotform was there.
Lack of data and third-party integrations reveal hidden opportunities
As it became clear that Done Dissertation would require most of their attention, the company’s founder, Dr. Ramon Goings, and his wife, Renee Goings (director of operations), knew they’d have to upgrade their digital workflow.
“We were managing a lot of our work through Google Sheets, so our process was ‘old school’ and manual,” says Renee. “That’s when the light came on: We need a CRM where we can draw on and pull data, and map a potential client, from awareness to conversion.”
At that point, the form solution they were using was similarly limited in features (and capacity), requiring more manual work than they had time for.
Once they decided on a new CRM tool — Insightly — they set about finding a more robust lead capture and contract management solution that could pair with it to streamline automation from the front end.
“We saw a potential workflow whereby clients can complete an application, and the information will automatically populate in the fields and custom fields we have in Insightly. So we can avoid the manual data entry and benefit from other options for using the data…. It just made a lot of sense for us.”
Since so much was riding on the solution they would ultimately choose, Dr. Goings stayed true to his roots and doubled down on his research.
He knew their highest priority was finding a tool that easily synced with Insightly, so he tested a variety of form solutions for compatibility.
To his dismay, he discovered that other solutions only connected with their new CRM via third-party software and experienced technical hiccups that sometimes pushed the wrong data into the CRM.
“I tried a lot of solutions, but they all didn’t work.”
Renee piggybacks on this sentiment: “We tested so many. He was in his office pulling his hair out.”
Native connectivity and mobility present a clear winner
It turns out that Jotform’s native integration with Insightly — one of 100+ native app integrations Jotform offers — combined with the drag-and-drop interface and user-friendliness of the platform led it to become Dr. Goings’s chosen solution.
Jotform’s native integration into Insightly made it easy. We matched up the questions, the data pulled over very seamlessly…so it made a lot of sense for us to move to Jotform.
Ramon Goings
After onboarding Jotform, the entrepreneurial couple began to see the additional benefits of using a full-featured lead capture solution. As an example, while attending marketing events, they began using Jotform’s mobile forms to digitally capture and automatically stream new lead information.
This allowed them to spend less time manually entering data into their CRM in person and more time qualifying potential clients and chatting up new leads. They simply created a specific Jotform for their event, loaded it onto an iPad, and were off to the races.
Jotform’s kiosk mode and touchless kiosk features enable easy collection of registrations at events by automatically refreshing forms upon submission and contactlessly sharing QR codes.
Additionally, the busy Dr. Goings — who also serves as associate professor in the Language, Literacy, and Culture doctoral program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County — found the document upload feature particularly valuable for streamlined marketing.
Because Done Dissertation requires potential clients to submit writing samples along with their forms as a qualification for sales calls, the upload feature is a big time saver. That information capture saves them from sending emails back and forth to candidates with whom they may not even move forward.
“Moving our business online was the best thing we could’ve done and really helped us grow,” emphasizes Dr. Goings. “Really our whole business is online at this point, helped by being able to capture this information through our platforms.”
Collection and automation of proprietary data = growth
Implementing Jotform as their first customer touchpoint (and a partner solution to their Insightly CRM), had a waterfall effect that changed the scope of how the Done Dissertation team does business.
They are spending less time and effort gathering potential client details. In fact, their team has recovered approximately five hours per month by using Jotform. This equates to an 86 percent return on time (based on the amount of time they were spending managing prospect applications).
As a result of automating their busywork, the Goings have dedicated some of that time to bigger things. The data they’re now collecting and analyzing makes a substantial difference in their marketing efforts.
“We’ve created this workflow that’s pretty seamless and doesn’t require a lot of work from us,” Renee explains. “So we’ve been able to recapture time and use the data we have available to make better business decisions.”
“Before, we’d only know how a person was referred to us by physically being in that place and time with them. Now, we have all that data in aggregate and can spot the trends to identify who we work well with and at what phase of their dissertation. The data we’ve collected basically has created a kind of silhouette of the person who has a need for our service.”
Send Comment: