The Platform Chronicles: 10 Questions with Lori Dembowitz, Associate CIO at UMass Lowell
On creating a campus-wide CRM deployment designed with student success in mind.
Welcome to The Platform Chronicles, a series designed to introduce readers to some of the most innovative Salesforce customers, partners, and employers.
This issue introduces Lori Dembowitz, an IT expert with 20+ years of experience delivering enterprise systems, infrastructure, and technology services in higher education and corporate settings. Lori has a BA and MBA from Clark University in Worcester, MA.
10 Questions for Lori
As Associate CIO at UMass Lowell, Lori is responsible for strategy and leadership for the university’s enterprise applications and IT program management. Current strategic initiatives are focused on enterprise CRM, student-facing applications, business analytics, data visualization, and data integration.
Fun Fact: Lori is a key member of the Salesforce.org Higher Ed Advisory Council. When not thinking about work, Lori focuses her attention on her two favorite baseball teams — The New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox.
The following is a lightly edited transcript of our 10 questions for Lori.
Question #1
Lori, How did the UMass Lowell-Salesforce collaboration come about?
The UMass Lowell-Salesforce collaboration started in 2014. The university was experiencing significant growth and was underway with a university-wide strategic planning process.
Streamlining student services was a key area of focus as the old way of doing business was inefficient and did not scale. With executive support, and a grant from the Davis Foundation, a business process redesign (BPR) project was undertaken. The result was a reimagined student service experience and a new unit called the ‘Solution Center’ to provide integrated service delivery.
Salesforce technology was selected to power the Solution Center. The implementation went live in Fall 2014 to coincide with the opening of the new University Crossing Student Center. Fast forward to today … our enterprise CRM, the ‘Connected Campus’, is used by 12 departments and 300 users across the university to foster student success and engagement.
Question #2
I love the energy of your campus. This is especially well-represented in the Solution Center. Can you talk more about the center that you’ve created to help students get immediate answers to questions?
The Solution Center, our “one-stop” shop, just celebrated its five-year anniversary. This busy group assists students with everything from registration, change of major questions, financial aid and scholarships, tuition payments, and more.
The Solution Center runs on Salesforce Service Cloud. Students can post inquiries across multiple channels — in-person, phone, email and via a self-service knowledge base. Over 600,000 cases have been resolved over the last five years. All service interactions are tracked through case management. The CRM not only provides us with an efficient vehicle for service delivery (especially during peak times of year), but it also gives us a rich and actionable data repository.
Dashboards enable us to see patterns and trends in the types of questions being asked. The data helps departments think about how to ‘reduce friction’ by simplifying processes or by being more proactive. Advisors use the data to see where their advisees may need specific assistance.
UMass Lowell’s Solution Center and enterprise CRM approach have made a real difference in terms of student success. We are proud to have won the “Excellence in Student Success Award” at the 2018 Salesforce Higher Ed Summit.
Question #3
Can students just walk up and talk to advisors or do they need to make appointments?
In addition to scheduled appointments, advisors hold ‘office hours’ at many campus locations to be more accessible to students.
Advising is key to student success and student retention. Each first-year undergraduate student has a professional ‘College-based Advisor’ they work with. In March 2019, the university implemented Salesforce Advisor Link (SAL). SAL provides a holistic, real-time view of advising information and helps advisors apply their time and effort where it is most needed.
SAL has proven to be been a powerful tool. Advisors use SAL to make appointments with advisees; view academic information such as GPA, credits earned and registration holds; access early alert data, track visits to the Tutoring Center and view Solution Center cases. Through an integration with our student portal, students can easily make appointments with their advisor.
Question #4
I was at the Solution Center with a co-worker who is a proud UMass Lowell grad. He had brought his teenage daughter to see the campus. Are you creating new offerings for potential students, too, to encourage them to apply and attend?
UMass Lowell is always striving to remain competitive via new academic offerings, involving students in research opportunities and entrepreneurial difference-maker programs and encouraging students to apply for co-ops and internships to get real-world experience.
The demographics tell us that the number of traditional college-age students will be declining in the coming years. The northeast is one of the areas predicted to be hardest hit so it is vital that the university’s offerings are dynamic and keep up with what today’s students are looking for.
Recruiting is a key function and is central to UMass Lowell’s on-going success. Recruiting and yield campaigns are tracked and managed in our enterprise CRM as are admissions events. In a competitive admissions landscape, powerful CRM tools continue to make a difference in meeting enrollment goals.
Question #5
When you walk around your campus, you see lots of students with Salesforce Trailblazer hoodies. Salesforce is now part of the curriculum at UMass Lowell. Can you tell us more about the program?
Starting in 2017, the Manning School of Business at UMass Lowell started to integrate Salesforce Trailhead content into the curriculum to teach undergraduate and graduate students CRM skills across several courses, including:
- Sales and Customer Relations
- Sales Management
- Customer and Market Analysis
- Digital Marketing
- Professional Communications
- Management Information Systems
Hundreds of students have learned Salesforce technology thanks to the vision and leadership of Dean Richtermeyer and the talented faculty at the Manning School. UMass Lowell has been recognized as one of the pioneers in integrating CRM into its curriculum.
Employers in the Boston area have taken note and the university’s Career Services group have placed students into roles leveraging Salesforce CRM.
Question #6
It looks Manning School students are building on the program on their own, too, with Salesforce Saturdays and Trailhead Tuesdays. How did this come about?
It wasn’t spontaneous although there was interest early on. UMass Lowell students have been very engaged with Salesforce over the last few years. With support from faculty and Salesforce resources, UMass Lowell students now have an officially sanctioned Salesforce student group. The group sponsors student events such as Salesforce Saturdays.
Question #7
UMass Lowell attracts a lot of students who are the first in their family to attend — and graduate — from college. Your school has created a new program called the River Hawks Scholars Academy. Can you tell us more about it?
Our Division 1 athletic teams are the ‘River Hawks’ and that’s where the name comes from. The River Hawk Scholars Academy (RHSA) promotes student success and fosters engagement in the campus and local community for full-time, first-year UMass Lowell students who identify as first-generation college students.
The program provides holistic support, academic resources, and activities for RHSA students as they transition from high school to college and learn what it means to be a college student. This blog post, by Dr. Matthew Hurwitz, provides more information on the RHSA program and how Salesforce Education Cloud supports the program. In addition, Salesforce has recently partnered with UMass Lowell on a mentorship program to match River Hawk Scholars with local mentors. Bruce, you signed on to be a mentor early on and we greatly appreciate your participation.
Question #8
Let’s talk about platforms for a minute. Where do emerging technologies like AI, blockchain, and chatbots fit into your plans?
AI is of interest as we are a data-driven campus with five years of CRM data and growing. I could see AI being used with SAL and our broader CRM data set to provide us with predictive insights that could help UMass Lowell be more competitive and drive student success.
We have a business analytics and data visualization initiative with a partner leveraging cloud-based technologies on AWS to provide the university’s leadership with trends and insights. In the future, as this gets built out, we could leverage AI to provide predictive capabilities here as well.
As chatbots mature, I could see us evaluating chatbots for potential use in the university’s Solution Center and other high-volume customer-facing service points.
As higher education shifts toward life-long learning, I think Blockchain will play a large role. Over the next 20 years, the shift will be underway where the student holds their educational records on a digital ledger versus the institution. I believe the same will be true for student health records — universities will need to adapt.
Question #9
Lori, you and your team already have a very full agenda. That said, what are some of the next projects that you’re starting to think about?
We are gearing up for ‘Recruiting 2.0’ which means a re-look at how we can improve business processes and leverage enhanced CRM technologies for a more efficient and constituent-driven recruiting experience across our recruiting units.
We are implementing a new cloud-based student payment plan application to provide a simpler and more streamlined experience for students and families.
There is interest on campus to extend Salesforce Advisor Link (SAL) beyond first-year students and college-based advisors. We’ll evaluate next steps for this successful initiative.
We are also deploying a cloud-based Facilities Program Management solution that will help the university better manage the construction lifecycle.
Question #10
If you were to meet with Salesforce founder Marc Benioff, what product or service would you ask him to provide that would have an impact at your school?
Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet. I’d ask Marc Benioff to consider providing higher ed institutions like UMass Lowell with Salesforce Sustainability Cloud at a greatly reduced cost.
Sustainability Cloud would help the university manage, track and minimize its carbon footprint and reach the institution’s sustainability goals. Involving students in these efforts, along with research opportunities and internships, will educate the next generation on climate action. Integrating this application into our operations would further UMass Lowell’s current sustainability efforts.
I’d also like to extend an open invitation to Marc Benioff to come to UMass Lowell to showcase all the good work we are doing leveraging Salesforce Education Cloud. It has been a game-changer for the university.
