Who Is EdWeek?

Education Week has been America’s most trusted resource for K-12 education news and information with 1.8+ million monthly unique readers & national coverage. From teachers and principals to district leaders across the country, Education Week dominates the industry as the most trusted source for K-12 education in the U.S. They provide various subscription offerings including, digital subscriptions, print subscriptions, and group licenses.

What They Needed

What initially brought Edweek to Pelcro was their need to revamp their customer management and access control infrastructure in order to better manage their subscribers for both their digital and print offerings. This initiative was part of a larger digital transformation. They wanted to be able to manage both print and digital in a single platform and be able to report on the data being collected. 

The desire was to modernize their approach to customer service to speed up response time and provide a self-serve experience. Stefanie Hemmingson, Director of Audience Development and Marketing said “We never knew before how long it took to solve an inquiry, but we do know we would get repeat calls and emails to get problems solved.”

The Solution

One year ago, Pelcro was selected to be a key technology partner for its website transformation. Following the migration, Edweek has experienced unprecedented results, primarily in the area of auto-renewals and customer service.

“Pelcro has improved the ability for Education Week to serve our customers and has increased visibility into the type of inquiries and level of satisfaction.”

Stefanie Hemmingson, Director of Audience Development at Education Week

Auto-Renewals

Education Week has had automatic renewals by credit card in place for at least 10 years and has experienced significant growth in this area since switching to Pelcro. With the new infrastructure and the migration to Pelcro, there was a completely new user experience. The new user flow resulted in new sales online with an increase of 24% compared to the prior year. Auto Renewals by credit card resulted in a 15% increase in sales dollars and a 23% increase in credit card approvals.

Customer Service

With the migration to Pelcro, phone, email, and chat features were added to improve the customer service experience. The new chat capability has been popular with customers. Overall, 82% of all inquiries are resolved in 24 hours or less. Hemmingson mentions how “call times have been reduced by more than 30 seconds since moving to Pelcro”. Other observations mentioned were related to customer satisfaction ratings, as they rose significantly and started ranging from 90% to 97% over the past year, never dropping below 90%.

The Customer Portal

Edweek has implemented a customer portal where subscribers are encouraged to log in and manage all details related to their account in a modern self-serve experience.

The Paywalls

Edweek has implemented various types of paywalls to encourage readers to register at different places on the website. Below are a few examples of the paywalls that have helped them achieve their desired results.

EdWeek’s Metered Paywall

EdWeek’s Embedded Paywalls

EdWeek’s Product Selection Modal

A catalyst client for Pelcro, experiencing the success with the increase in sales and customer satisfaction has been incredible to witness. If you are looking to take your subscription and memberships to the next level, schedule a demo call with one of our experts or get started with a Pelcro free trial today. Discover what Pelcro can do for the growth of your business!

To download the PDF version of this case study click here.