The client
A training provider whose enquiries are the business
Six Sigma Synergy has been delivering corporate training in Malaysia since 2006. They are registered with HRD Corp (Reg. No. 1755) and have trained more than 5,000 participants in Project Management, Engineering Software, Lean Six Sigma and Data Science. They deliver CADD Centre programmes under a long-standing partnership, and since 2021 have brought The Lean Six Sigma Company's internationally recognised courses to Malaysia.
For a training provider, the enquiry is the product pipeline. Someone asks about a course, a counsellor has to reach them, answer questions about dates, fees and eligibility, and convert that interest into a registration before a competitor does. Miss the callback and the enrolment goes elsewhere. There is no second chance on a course that starts next month.
Where it started: a spreadsheet
Before 2010, enquiries lived in Microsoft Excel. That works until it does not. A spreadsheet cannot tell you who owns an enquiry, cannot remind anyone to follow up, cannot stop two people calling the same person, and cannot answer "how many enquiries did we get for this course last quarter and what happened to them" without somebody spending a day on it.
The team's own assessment of that period is blunt: most of the business they lost was lost to late follow-up rather than to price or to a competitor's offer.
What we built
The first version of the MIS lead management system went live in 2010. It has been rebuilt twice since as the business grew, and the current third generation went from start to live in 20 to 25 days because the process was already well understood by both sides. The system has been in continuous daily use throughout.
It is built around how a training business actually runs, not around a generic sales pipeline:
- Leads and Lead Reports. Every enquiry captured, owned by a named counsellor, with its full history and current status visible to the team.
- Registration Leads and Registration Reports. The enquiry-to-registration journey tracked as its own stage, so conversion is measured where it actually happens.
- Dashboard and My Dashboard. A management view of the whole pipeline, and a personal view so each counsellor opens the system to their own work rather than to everyone's.
- Follow-Up Emails. Scheduled follow-up sequences, so nothing depends on somebody remembering.
- Certificates. An online certificate generation and distribution system for course participants, built alongside the MIS.
- Newsletters. Course and programme announcements to the enquiry base.
- Masters, Administration, Admin Management, Company Settings. Courses, categories, users, roles and permissions maintained by the client's own team without a developer.
- Workspace and API. The integration layer that keeps the enquiry sources feeding in automatically.
Where the enquiries come from
The system is fed directly by the channels that generate demand, so nothing is retyped and nothing is missed:
- Enquiry forms on the main website, which we also built and have redesigned five times as the brand developed.
- Lead forms on the Google Ads landing pages we build for their campaigns, so paid traffic lands in the same pipeline as everything else and can be measured against it.
The numbers
- 18,000+ enquiries tracked in the system to date.
- 300 to 500 new enquiries added every month.
- In continuous use since 2010, across three generations of the platform.
- 20 to 25 days from start to go-live for the current version.
On response times, the team reports that enquiries are now contacted within a day as a matter of course, and that the discipline the system enforces around ownership and follow-up has made a substantial difference to how many enquiries become registrations. Reporting that used to be assembled by hand is now available on demand.
What the team reports
Asked what changed, the people running admissions describe three things. Every enquiry now has an owner, so nothing sits unclaimed. Follow-up happens because the system schedules it rather than because somebody remembered. And the reports that used to be built by hand are available whenever they are needed, which means course and campaign decisions are made on what actually converted rather than on an impression.
Their own summary of the period before the system is blunt: the business they lost, they lost to late follow-up.
Why it has lasted
A decade and a half of continuous use is an unusual lifespan for business software, and the reason is not the feature list. It is that the system was built around the client's process rather than the other way round, that they own the code and the data, and that it has been maintained and rebuilt as the business changed instead of being left to rot until a replacement was unavoidable.
That is the same way we build every lead management system, and the same approach behind our admission CRM work for education providers.
If this sounds like your business
If enquiries arrive faster than your team can route them, or you cannot answer how many you received last month and what happened to each one, the first step is small: count how long it currently takes before a human responds. Tell us what you find and we will tell you honestly whether you need a system or just clearer rules.