Success stories powered by Unifonic: Ajialuna School

Ajialuna Schools Use Unifonic Conversational Solutions to provide seamless student & parent support & Fastrack open-day registrations by 99%

Ajialuna Educational Company, established in 2007 and headquartered in Riyadh, is a prominent player in Saudi Arabia's educational sector. The company manages schools across all age ranges and offers private national and international education. 

Ajialuna operates in three major cities across the Kingdom (Jeddah, Dammam, and Riyadh), covering nine campuses and catering to more than 15,000 students and their parents. It has a workforce of over 2,300 employees across these sites.

The Communications Challenge

In an educational environment, timely communication is paramount. This was a daily challenge for Ajialuna, with its pool of over 15,000 students and their busy parents. The front desk was constantly busy with calls from parents seeking information about class schedules, exam results, homework requirements, school trip details, and extracurricular activities. Each call took precious time, and often, the front desk staff couldn't provide immediate answers about individual students due to security concerns.

Prospective parents added another layer of complexity. They frequently called to inquire about tuition fees and to book tours of the schools. This process involved emailing documents and scheduling visits, spanning several days of back-and-forth communication.

Marketing and promotional efforts also faced hurdles. Despite their best efforts, email campaigns were not engaging with the community in the way that management hoped.

Why Unifonic

Ajialuna had previously carried out tests and proof of concept exercises with several customer engagement platforms, in terms of their ability to provide SMS and WhatsApp Solutions. Still, none matched the dependable delivery rates that Unifonic was able to provide. 

Since 2013, Ajialuna has relied on SMS for crucial communications such as tuition fee reminders, attendance tracking, and location information. Partnering with Unifonic for their SMS services has resulted in reliable and efficient communication. Muhammad Akef, the IT Director of Ajialuna’s parent company, noted, "With Unifonic, I had no doubt that parents received our communication."

• Long-standing client since 2013, finding the solution consistently reliable.
• Established a collaborative and friendly working relationship with the Unifonic team.
• Confidence in Unifonic's ability to deliver solutions that meet the needs of students and parents.

Ajialuna's commitment to providing the highest quality education meant addressing these communication challenges was critical. Their partnership with Unifonic for SMS communication was a significant step towards ensuring reliable contact with parents, but the journey towards optimizing their communication strategies was ongoing.

As the digital landscape evolved, so did parents' expectations. 

Ajialuna sought to enhance its communication system further to manage its vast network of students and parents efficiently. To achieve this goal, they opted for a conversational solution.

WhatsApp Integration

In 2022, Ajialuna began using WhatsApp, appreciating its widespread use and convenience. It has proven to be an exceptional tool for handling sales, promotions, customer support, personalized communication with students and operational tasks.

The popular app on almost everyone’s phone makes communication about password reminders, timetable updates, and day-to-day queries much easier. 

Ajialuna also now uses WhatsApp for awareness campaigns, promoting events, new registrations, school activities, and open days. Additionally, it is a vital channel for sending notifications and reminders about exams, updates, and other important information.

Chatbot Automation

The integration of a chatbot with Ajialuna’s students and parents portal, as well as WhatsApp, has completely changed how they interact with both parents and students.

The chatbot now provides essential information quickly, making busy lives significantly easier by providing instant access to:

• Kids' email addresses and class schedules
• Online portal URLs
• Homework details
• Exam dates and access to reports
• Student progress and fee details
  
  

The Outcomes

Unifonic’s conversational support solutions have enabled Ajialuna to streamline its operations, improve its communications, and achieve remarkable outcomes in managing its educational services.

• Reduced customer support loads

The chatbot, designed to assist parents and students with day-to-day information and tasks, has proven tremendously successful. It has reduced the need for hiring, training, and monitoring call center staff while ensuring that the answers provided are always accurate. This allows staff to focus on cases that need a human touch.

Unifonics' conversational marketing solution has led to better results for marketing campaigns conducted via WhatsApp compared to other platforms.

• 99% faster open day registrations

One of the standout improvements is the efficiency of booking school tours for new parents. What previously took several days of back-and-forth communication is now accomplished in minutes thanks to the streamlined process facilitated by Unifonic’s solution using WhatsApp. 

WhatsApp's effectiveness extends to organizing open house events. When Ajialuna uses the platform to communicate about these events, they avoid the need for additional spending on separate digital advertising. A standard social media post would typically require at least five days to gather sufficient visitor confirmations, but WhatsApp achieves the same results in just half an hour, allowing Ajialuna to meet its targets quickly.

• Accelerated admission registration rate 

With WhatsApp, Ajialuna can efficiently reach out to its extensive database of past students and parents, expediting the registration rate for the new academic year and closing admissions well before the school year begins in August.

Future Plans

Ajialuna Educational Company plans to expand its partnership with Unifonic in the near future, aiming to build on the success of the current collaboration. One key focus is integrating webchat into Ajialuna’s website, ensuring a consistent user experience across all channels. The company is also looking to broaden the chatbot’s functionality, expanding the range of services it offers to meet evolving needs.

Ajialuna envisions a future with further integration and automation, confident that Unifonic’s continuous innovation will align with their expectations. They are keen to explore deploying chatbots on additional platforms like Messenger and Instagram, striving for a more centralized and efficient communication system. This forward-looking approach reflects Ajialuna's ambition to maintain a strong market position, using technology sensibly to drive further success.