Tec wins global award for quality of support for its audiences

Tec de Monterrey has been distinguished by the Dave Perry Award for Excellence in Innovation 2022, which is given by the global Salesforce company, for its innovations on aspects of supporting and interacting with its audiences.

This is one of the awards given annually by the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) service company to institutions around the world that use its services efficiently.

“It’s the first time in 10 years that an educational institution from Latin America has received this recognition, which is another reason this distinction for the Tec is important,” said Diana González, the Tec’s CRM Project Leader.

“CRM is the technology platform we use to manage the relationships and interactions we have with our different audiences, such as applicants, students, parents, alumni, board members, companies, and associations,” she added.

The award was given at Salesforce Education Summit 2022, with the institution attending as a finalist in this category alongside the University of Southern California and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

Innovating to improve service

Tec de Monterrey is one of 6,000 educational institutions that use Salesforce’s CRM platform as part of their institutional architecture to provide better service to their different audiences, said Gónzalez, adding that:

“In 2016, we started this relationship project by implementing CRM in several areas and have now begun to see concrete results from this approach, which is what we sent as evidence when putting ourselves forward for the award.”

Some of the areas where this has been implemented to improve management of interactions include mentoring students on their academic development and attracting high school, undergraduate, and continuous education students. 

It is also used for event management and in medical record management to provide students with follow-up at the TecMed clinics on campuses, as well as on sites such as donar.tec.mx.

“This platform helps us make connections between the institution’s different information silos, and this knowledge of our audiences allows us to offer better experiences and services, as well as helping them to achieve their goals,” said González.

“The platform helps us make connections. Knowledge of our audiences allows us to offer better experiences.” - Diana González.

As the leader highlights, these are the results of using CRM that the Tec used to enter the competition for this award:

• Student Support: registering and responding to more than 60,000 requests for psychological and academic support from 2018 to 2021.
• Philanthropy: concentrating an archive of more than 30,000 donations for philanthropic programs such as Leaders of Tomorrow.
• Admissions: implementing full digitalization of processes to achieve the goal for number of applicants in 2021, despite the pandemic.
• Participation: more than 3,000 staff took part in all the initiatives.
• Continuous Education: increase in enrollment on its programs by 37% from 2019 to 2020.
• Processes: implementing CRM in event management and the medical record system for the Tec community.

“It’s important to emphasize the institutional effort behind this initiative because it involves the participation of people from many areas, from those implementing the projects to those using them in operations,” stressed González.

Using technology as a strategy for support

This cloud platform is one of the pillars in the institution’s Techvolution strategy, which consists of digital service and support experiences for Tec audiences, said Luis Peña, Experimentation and Impact Measurement Leader at the Institute for the Future of Education (IFE).

“The work that was recognized forms part of an institutional digital transformation strategy. What we want to do is improve the experience of our users through these types of technological tools and channels,” said Peña.

He said that this technology allows the institution to mentor people, document interactions, and integrate contact information, academic progress, future projects, and medical records, enabling it to provide more personalized support.

“Having all this information allows us to create and enable personalized experiences and automations, putting people at the center. That’s where we want to go with this initiative,” he said.

Diana González added that the Tec’s vision and mission for 2025 and 2030 in the area of human flourishing is about getting to know the institution’s different audiences and their interests, generating value for them and helping them to achieve their goals.

She said that this technology forms part of an initiative to enable and generate 360° student profiles, in which they can document their interests and communicate with their academic and success mentors who are included in the Tec21 mentoring model.

Nominating the institution for the Salesforce competition came about through a joint effort between the IFE and the Tec’s Outreach area.

“The IFE has this vision for connecting, transferring, and generating knowledge about education. One of the initiatives is to generate connections of value with different partners, the use of this type of technology being a case in point,” said Luis Peña.

The Dave Perry Award is one of the prizes that were given during Salesforce Education Summit 2022. Last year, it was given to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The award is given to educational institutions that use Saleforce’s technology to innovate in several areas and projects, such as recruitment, admissions, student success, marketing, and community participation.

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