How HeyTutor Uses SMS-Magic to Attract Busy Parents & Students

HeyTutor had a problem. The online tutoring company was missing important leads because its sales staff couldn’t connect with parents and students quickly enough. Lack of effective follow-up was costing them thousands of dollars, even though the sales team was reaching out to prospects as soon as the lead arrived. HeyTutor needed a more effective outreach channel, so they started looking for a solution.

HeyTutor is a company dedicated to the supplemental education of children and adults from pre-K to college and beyond in more than 250 subject areas. The company has developed a dynamic e-learning platform to help students fulfill their school goals as well as their career aspirations. The core of their business is one-on-one, online tutoring sessions, but the company is expanding its business with in-person tutoring, early childhood prep activities, and social and emotional learning, just to name a few of their recent initiatives.

As they prospected for new business, HeyTutor found that their best potential clients were working parents and students who were busy with other commitments most of the day. Parents would fill out lead forms in response to marketing efforts, and a HeyTutor staff member would initiate contact with a phone call or email.  Unfortunately, many calls and emails went unanswered. HeyTutor believed increasing their response rate was vital to their continued success.

In short, HeyTutor needed to get their prospects involved in conversations early in the sales journey. They knew that the average response rate for emails was less than 10 percent and responses to phone calls weren’t meeting their expectations. Messaging seemed like a great solution to their problem.

Research shows that over 97 percent of Americans use text messaging every day. It’s native to most mobile phones, and over 90 percent of buyers would prefer to hear from companies via message than any other form of communication. In addition, 80 percent of people use texting for business, and 35 percent of these same people say they can’t go 10 minutes without responding to a text.

Messaging also fit into the busy lives of HeyTutor’s preferred clients – students and their parents. Patrick McClure, Hey Tutor’s director of operations, said in a recent interview, “Everyone’s working. If I get a [phone] call right now, I’m not going to answer it. Will I remember to call back in an hour? Probably not.”

But, he said, if a text message comes through, the prospect can easily multi-task and respond. Their response might read, “I’m not available right now. Call me back after work. I’m free at 6.”

Some people, he said, just want to talk via text. Others want to check the price. “It makes it much easier for us to get right in,” McClure said.

HeyTutor had already developed a robust CRM with Salesforce and wanted to integrate the database with its messaging solution. They looked for companies that were experts at Salesforce integrations.

They initially chose a messaging provider that promised to build out the Salesforce customizations that HeyTutor required. The promises, however, weren’t fulfilled. It wasn’t a complete disaster, McClure said, but the badly implemented customizations delayed the entire project. HeyTutor ended the relationship so they could repair the damage their messaging provider had caused. Burned by a bad experience, HeyTutor turned to SMS-Magic for help.

SMS-Magic is an expert with Salesforce integrations. The company is a Salesforce Partner and the top rated messaging application on the Salesforce AppExchange.

SMS-Magic’s Tanmay Ghag started working with McClure to ensure that the Salesforce integration went smoothly and encompassed all the customizations HeyTutor needed. “Tanmay has been fantastic,” McClure said. “Everything that we ever wanted to integrate, has been integrated – flawlessly.”

McClure reported that after the SMS-Magic integration went live, the company saw an increase in lead responses between 35 and 40 percent. McClure said the increase in responses has directly benefited the bottom line.

As the relationship between the two companies has developed, SMS-Magic has continued to work on tailoring the product to meet HeyTutor’s needs. “These guys made it effortless and got everything set up right away,” McClure said. “Also, it was very affordable.”

“It’s been a pleasure to work with SMS-Magic,” McClure said. “They have a customer service team to emulate. It’s remarkable.”

As SMS-Magic develops new capabilities, HeyTutor is looking forward to expanding their messaging program. With shared success behind them, the two companies look forward to growing their partnership into the future.