Ekonomika is a study association from Leuven, Belgium. The target? To support and pamper the 4500 economics students who are members as much as possible. To facilitate this, the digital channels must be highly developed. And no means were shunned.
Salesforce integration into the website for optimal collaboration between digital channels
Ekonomika has housed a large part of the membership administration in Salesforce. And what could be easier than when members can view and manage their own data in the my environment of the website? That is why Van Ons has linked the Salesforce CRM to the website.
Members can view their details in the login section of the website and change them if necessary. These changes then immediately end up in the right place in Salesforce. Orders placed in the webshop and tickets purchased for events are also entered into Salesforce for each user. This creates a very rich data profile for each user from which valuable customer insights can be extracted.
Webshop and custom wiki
Students who are members of Ekonomika can also purchase study books at special rates in the Ekonomika bookstore. A fully functional webstore has been developed on the Ekonomika website. Members can easily order books and pay directly via Bancontact or credit card. Each user's orders are also entered directly into Salesforce.
Ekonomika has a lot of information available about all economic bachelor's and master's programs that can be followed at KU Leuven. That information was first maintained in an external wiki page. When the new website was set up, this wiki was fully integrated into the site. The wiki is now easier to manage for editors, the navigation of the wiki has been improved and the user always remains in the same environment.
Custom Events module
Within the study association, events are regularly organized for and by students. A custom events plugin has been built for Ekonomika that fully meets the specific wishes of the association. Events can be created and enriched with text, images or video, and members can register. Naturally, all information regarding registration is transferred directly to Salesforce.
Dynamic pricing for events and books
The pricing of the books in the webshop is dynamic and depends on the user's profile in Salesforce. Salesforce lists which students receive a discount on the purchase of certain books. This information is translated in real-time into dynamic prices per book in the webshop, depending on the user. The same applies to the events. Salesforce knows which events are relevant for each user. Based on this, the user only sees the events that really add value and are important to him or her.
An astonishing result
We worked intensively together with Ekonomika to build multiple digital channels and turn them into a streamlined whole. The icing on the cake, however, came at the launch: more than 1200 orders were immediately processed in the webshop. The influx of users was so unexpectedly large that server capacity had to be scaled up to serve everyone. Thanks to a solid technical infrastructure, this was possible quickly and without problems.
Digital clout by the book
Ekonomika is an excellent example of the power of setting up and building multiple digital channels and integrating them properly. The website and wiki provide ideal information provision and the webshop in collaboration with Salesforce achieves a greater than expected ROI. This is Digital clout by the book!