TDS Lead Management Call Training

Contents

Purpose and Objectives of these Calls

Best Practices

Searching for Leads

Lead Detail Screen

Calling a Lead & Contact Logging

Additional Resources

Purpose and Objectives of these Calls

  • Foster excitementabout AFS programs –be as positive as possible to inspire the student to go abroad!
  • Move students out of Get Started and into Applied by encouraging them to complete the first “To Do’s” of the application process.
  • Share your experience when necessary and relevant to give an idea of what studying abroad is like.
  • Plant the seed for hosting and answer basic questions about the process. These could also be potential host families, so use this as an opportunity to discuss the many ways to get involved with AFS.
  • Use your perspective as a local contact by mentioning the student’s school and community and making the conversation more personal.
  • Share insight into the host family letter and its importance in the application process. You have unique knowledge of how the letter is used on the hosting side - share that insight and help them write their own. (note: a couple of programs do not require host family letters.)

Best Practices

  • Call in the evening during the week and don’t call during school hours!
  • Before you call:
  • Look through each Lead Detail page and answer each of these questions: Where did the lead come from? Do you know their school and are there hosted students/returnees there?
  • Check the contact log: Have they been contacted before; if so, what did they talk about? Where do they want to go, and what do you know about that program?
  • Have the script and talking points handy
  • Have a pad of paper for follow-up questions
  • The more calls you make, the easier it gets!

Searching for Leads

1. Go to Lead Management  Sending  Advanced Search

2. Add search parameters to pull a list of students and click “Search”

You will fill in the following parameters in order to pull students:

-Area Team (You can select multiple)

-Program Code (Use %NH18 or %SH18, for example, to pull all programs for a particular year and cycle)

-Owner: RSC (to ensure that you do not pull other types of programs like FOA, BP, or AFSNext and just “core” programs)

-Portal Status: Get Started

-Task 1: About Participant, Complete (this will only pull applicants with phone numbers)

Note: You can save a filter to use again in the future by clicking on “Save Filters.” Your TDS may have also created a filter that you can easily load to pull students to call. Please contact your TDS to confirm.

(If you save a filter that is no longer in use, please contact your TDS or to have it removed).

*As you become more familiar with the Sending Lead Management System you can add additional parameters if there is a certain subset of students you would like to claim (e.g. students from a particular school or zip code).

Lead Search Results:

-You can organize your Lead Search Results to help you determine which students might be in greater need of a call. For example, you can organize by last phone contact date and select the students with no date here (this means they have yet to receive a call from AFS).

-The students that you pull with these search parameters will also be appear in the MyAFS Sending Widget.

Lead Detail Screen

3. Select a student to call to view their Lead Detail Screen

Their Lead Detail Screen is where you will want to review student information before making a call.

First things to look for:

-Destination and Program Length: be sure to pull up the program page on the afsusa.org website before calling the student to have program information at your fingertips. You can review country codes and program codes on Help & Learning.

-Phone numbers and Parent Info

-Method Heard (how they heard about AFS)

-Program Owner (the student’s Study Abroad Specialist)

4. Review parent info & previous AFS involvement.

-If parent answers, speak with them (especially if student is very young <14)

-See the Service Cases (scroll down on screen) linked to the applicant to see if other members of the family have hosted, volunteered, or gone abroad.

  • If the student has multiple Open service cases, please alert the Study Abroad Specialist.

5. Review high school information

View previous involvement of sending and hosted students at their high school. Perhaps you’ve done a presentation there!

6. Check the Contact Log:

It is good practice to always check the contact log to see the last correspondence and what was discussed.

-You can hover over the Comment hyperlink to see notes from previous communication or email.

-You can also see who was the last person to contact the studentunder Comments By

7. Tasks: look at the tasks the student has completed to help guide the conversation:

**Note: if a student is applying for the France or Spain Summer Language Programs, for example, there is no host family letter task as these programs take place in a dorm.

8. Check host family letter progress:

If it’s marked complete – great! Encourage the student to continue working on the rest of their tasks.


If it’s marked incomplete, you can pull up the host family letter to see if any progress has been made.

Calling a Lead Contact Logging

1. Making the call

Once you have the information you need, call the student!

Conversation Tips:

  1. Engage student, be friendly, confident, and genuine
  2. Make sure to pause and really encourage student to talk-- Don’t rush the conversation
  3. Listen and take notes-- incorporate active listening
  4. Incorporate personal experience—this goes a long way with students and parents

Conversation Flow Chart:

If student/parent does not pick up  Leave voicemail.

Leaving a Voicemail

Hi this is __ calling from AFS Intercultural Programs. I was trying to connect with (student name) and talk about his/her application to study abroad in (country). Please feel free to call me back at __. That way I can answer any questions for you or help you get started. I look forward to talking to you soon! Thank you.

2. Contact logging call results

Once the call has ended, you can now log the results of the conversation.

I. First click contact lead and select either “I talked lead/parent” or “I didn’t talk to lead/parent”

II. If you talked to the student/parent Complete the contact log form (4 parts)

-1. Student interest:

  • Interested in current program?  rate their interest OR
  • Interested in future program?  Why? OR
  • Not interested in studying abroad?  Why?  Close out
  • Notify your TDS or email to have a service case closed.

2. Set next follow up date based on interaction:

-Does the student need a call back? If so, set a date(within 2 weeks is the goal) OR

  • Tip: it will auto default to select date, do not worry about setting a specific time.

-Is an email follow-up more appropriate? If so, set a date. OR

-Should the student be assigned to their Study Abroad Specialist (select in the "Lead Owner" field)?

  • This might be a good option if the student is very interested and indicates they will get everything done right away.
  • Or if the student/parent had many program-specific questions that a Study Abroad Specialist would be better able to answer.

If this is the final required contact for the student and you do not intend to do additional follow up, you can assign the lead to Lead Owner "Sending Queue."

3. Check of any relevant topics discussed in Conversation Checklist:

4. Be sure to summarize the conversation in the comments! This is important soother staff and/or volunteers can see what was previously discussed with the student. The more detail, the better!

*If further follow up or resources are needed based on conversation:

-Click Email Lead  Load Pre-defined Templates Select TDS: Student Reached Cc Parents

-Edit yellow text in email template based on conversation/requested follow-up.

**Be sure that you have your email signature included in your Global Link Person record. if not, you will need to manually enter your signature.

II. If you did not talk to lead/parent Fill out the contact log form to report the results

-Indicate if you were able to leave a message

-Set follow up  A call follow up should be set if student/parent does not answer. Follow-up should be within 2 weeks.(If it is a wrong number or someone hangs up, the form will auto-populate to an email follow up).

-An auto email template will populate to send to the applicant (be sure to Cc parents!)

-Click Load Pre-defined Template  Select TDS: Student Not Reached. Send Email

**Be sure that you have your email signature included in your Global Link Person record. if not, you will need to manually enter your signature.

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III. If student returns your call or responds to an email, be sure to contact log the response:

Select New Contact Log Select Call OR Email Exchange  Student interest (current, future, not interested)  Select a follow up date (if needed) Mark topics in Conversation Checklist (if applicable)  Include comments from Phone call or email received.

**Remove any duplicate open follows ups. A student should only have one pending follow up. Be sure to check the student’s lead detail page for duplicate follow-ups after contact logging. If there is a duplicate follow assigned to you, you can remove it by clicking edit and then Cancelled.**

Additional Resources

Sending Journey Flow Chart

Overcoming Objections and Why Parents choose AFS?

Portal and OA Statuses Defined

Program Codes Defined

Study Abroad FAQs

CultureTrek