How to automate your candidate journey

25 February 2021

One of the most time-consuming elements of delivering training is managing the candidate journey.

From the moment an enquiry is received to the issuing of certificates at the end of a course, there are so many touchpoints with the customer that it can be difficult to keep track of where each learner or candidate is up to.

Whether you have to manually produce the joining instructions for each course or call the customer back to arrange payment details, there are so many opportunities to automate the process and remove these time-consuming tasks.

Tracking your course viability

Now more than ever it’s vital that we closely monitor the viability and profitability of our courses. Whether you’ve had to reduce your class size for social distancing practices or invest in digital platforms for your course, the business-as-usual approach is no longer fit for purpose.

That’s why it’s vital that you automate the candidate’s journey. With the squeeze on numbers allowed, there’s an increased need to deliver more courses and reduce the administrative burden.

The booking process and communications

The first place to start automating is the core communications around the course. For every enquiry that comes in, if you have to manually confirm their booking and then produce and send the joining instructions, too, you’ve already potentially lost 2-4 hours on one booking. All before they’ve attended the course.

By automating these processes, you free up a considerable amount of time to focus on the viability of your courses and reduce the administrative burden on what is probably an already stretched team.

Payment and qualification

The candidate journey doesn’t end when they walk out of the classroom. There are payments to chase and certificates to issue.

Typically, the course coordinator or administrative team will have to chase the payments from the customer and completed registers from the course instructor. These areas can lead to delays in issuing the certificates.

It’s in the candidates’ interest to receive the certificate or other proof of qualification as soon as possible, so why not automate the process to issue the documents on receipt of payment?

The documents themselves could even be produced automatically and emailed directly to the customer to cut out a further administrative process.

Integrated automation

Even better than automating the journey from the point of a booking enquiry being received is to integrate your training management system with your website and accountancy packages.

This could truly automate your candidate experience, without any interaction needed from your administrative team to process their booking.

Where to start?

Automating your learner journey will help to increase profitability but knowing where to start can be a challenge. That’s why we always start with a simple process map to help understand your processes and what you can automate within the journey.

Then it’s about implementing the right training management system for your business that can adapt to your businesses specific requirements.

That’s exactly what we did for Ainscough Training Services, delivering a huge return on investment through increased productivity.

If you’d like to discuss how we could help your business become more profitable with a customised training management system, get in touch.

Book a demo Download case study