Rock Valley College, a leading community college in Rockford, Illinois, shared their successful implementation of StoreConnect, a powerful e-commerce platform integrated with Salesforce, revolutionizing its Community and Continuing Education (CCE) division. This unified solution has eradicated longstanding operational inefficiencies, including an estimated 1,000 duplicate student records created each year, and delivered a seamless, user-friendly experience for students and staff alike.
Previously reliant on the outdated “Instant Enrollment” system, Rock Valley College’s five branches operated in silos, leading to fragmented data, frustrating checkout failures, and bizarre errors—such as registering students born in 2004 as 106 years old due to birth year miscalculations. These issues not only consumed staff time with manual record merging but also drove away potential enrollments as students abandoned the cumbersome process.
Partnering with StoreConnect and Salesforce implementation experts at Servio Consulting, the college has created a single, intuitive platform that mirrors an “Amazon-like” shopping cart experience. Featuring vivid photos, detailed course descriptions, and effortless multi-child registrations for parents, the system ensures all enrollment data flows directly into Salesforce, eliminating duplicates and providing real-time visibility into registration channels—whether online, by phone, or in person.
“The whole team knew we needed a new solution,” said David Schneider, Dean of Enrollment Services at Rock Valley College. “The product that was creating all the duplicate records just wasn’t working. We needed something that was user-friendly and would check all the boxes.”
Key outcomes include:
- Zero Duplicate Records: Seamless Salesforce integration has ended the “nightmarish” manual merging process, freeing staff to focus on strategic improvements rather than constant error correction.
- Enhanced Student Experience: A modern interface has removed barriers, reducing drop-offs during checkout and boosting enrollment confidence.
- Data-Driven Insights: For the first time, the college has full visibility into how students register, establishing baselines to drive online growth and phase out paper-based methods.
- Operational Efficiency: Staff now prioritize high-value tasks, transforming from reactive firefighting to proactive innovation.
“Before StoreConnect, manually merging records in our ERP was a nightmare amount of work,” added Erik Rodgers, Salesforce CRM Administrator at Rock Valley College. “Now, with StoreConnect, we can simply run through the merge process in Salesforce.”
Despite challenges integrating the college’s non-standard payment processor ACI, the rollout has exceeded expectations. Rock Valley College is now poised for further expansion, with plans underway to onboard the Center for Learning and Retirement (CLR) program. This will unify all student data across the institution, creating a truly holistic ecosystem for lifelong learners.
StoreConnect, a flexible e-commerce solution designed for seamless CRM integrations, empowers organizations like Rock Valley College to streamline operations and elevate user experiences. By leveraging Salesforce’s robust capabilities, StoreConnect delivers customizable storefronts that drive efficiency and growth.
