The team
This is a study abroad consultancy in India with several branches. Telecallers make first contact and qualify enquiries, and counsellors own the student and the university shortlist. Behind them sit specialist teams for applications, SOPs, interview preparation, visas, education loans and pre-departure. Branch heads run the branches. Country heads look after their destinations across the branches they belong to. Enquiries arrive mainly through Meta lead forms and WhatsApp (already on Wati), and most of the work happens on the phone.
What they needed
- One record per student, with each university application tracked separately.
- Clear ownership when several teams work the same student, each with its own next step.
- Visibility by branch for branch heads, and by destination for country heads.
- Every counsellor call, and its recording, on the lead.
- Cost per lead without spreadsheet work.
- Their history brought across from the previous system.
How we set up their operations on Xale
Pipeline, with a deal for each application
We started from Xale's ready study-abroad pipeline (Inquiry → Qualify → Application → Deposit → Visa → Enrolled) and renamed and extended it to match the consultancy's own wording. The student is the lead. Every university application is its own deal under that lead, with its own stage, owners, payments, chat and custom fields. Destination country and intake are custom fields, so one student can hold applications for two countries side by side.
We added a stage for verified offer letters and marked it as an anchor point. A dashboard tile counts every student whose application reached that stage or any later one. Students who move on to deposit or visa stay in the count, and a student with several offers counts once.
Roles, branches and country heads
Roles were built in Xale's role wizard, starting from its role templates, and ranked, so managers' team pickers offer only their rank and below. Telecallers, counsellors and specialist teams work what is assigned to them; branch heads see their branches; management sees everything. Country heads get territory access through the destination-country field: they see every lead for their countries, in the branches they belong to.
Each specialist team holds its own role on the deal. Xale allows one active owner per role on each lead or deal, and the database enforces it. Reassignments are revoked, not deleted, so the ownership history stays on the record.
Role-based follow-ups
Each role on a lead or deal keeps its own follow-up. The telecaller's callback, the counsellor's document check and the visa team's next step sit side by side, and one role's date never overwrites another's. Managers see the total for the roles in their team, split into Overdue, Today and Later on India calendar days.
WhatsApp through their existing Wati account
We connected their Wati account, so the WhatsApp numbers did not have to move. New WhatsApp enquiries become leads automatically, with a background catch-up sync. Conversations sit in Xale's shared inbox, where each person sees only chats for leads they are allowed to see. Automations send approved Wati templates, filled from lead, custom-field and deal details.
Calls on counsellors' phones
Counsellors use the Xale Android app on their own phones. Call logging and recording are off by default and were switched on per role. Admin accounts are never recorded. Every call syncs to the right lead with direction, duration and outcome. The phone's own recording is attached to the call. The Devices page shows which phones are recording, and why one isn't, such as a permission turned off or battery settings stopping background sync. Counsellors on iPhone can record through TeleCMI cloud telephony.
Intake, distribution and reshuffles
Meta lead-form leads sync every 15 minutes with campaign and form attribution. A daily Meta ad-spend sync puts cost per lead next to each source and campaign. Automations assign each new lead to the least-loaded person in the right role and branch, or share leads fairly by destination country. A time-based automation reshuffles idle leads in strict round-robin order, so they get a fresh owner.
History from the previous system
Exported records came in through the import wizard, with columns mapped to Xale fields and deal columns set up so applications landed as deals. Numbers already in the workspace, or repeated in the file, were skipped rather than created twice, and failed rows could be downloaded, fixed and re-imported.
How the team works day to day
- Telecallers call new leads from their phones. The call, its outcome and any recording land on the lead without typing. Due follow-ups arrive as a browser popup, a mobile push and an inbox alert.
- Counsellors work each student deal by deal. They can see which application is at which stage and who owns it.
- Specialist teams see the deals they hold, each with their own follow-up, so the SOP queue and the visa queue never mix.
- When a student re-enquires, everyone assigned to that lead gets an in-app alert with a link to the lead.
- Branch heads start the day with their team's follow-up totals. Any report number opens the exact list of leads behind it.
- Country heads work their destinations across the branches they cover.
- Leadership reads the Branch, Country, Source, Calls and Admissions report tabs; on the Calls tab, the Call Performance Rankboard separates answered calls from phones that only rang. Saved report views can be emailed on a schedule through a connected Gmail account or sent as a WhatsApp template through Wati.
Why it matters for teams like theirs
In a multi-branch consultancy, work gets lost at the hand-offs: telecaller to counsellor, counsellor to application team, branch to branch. A deal per application, plus an owner and follow-up per role, makes every hand-off visible in the CRM, and visibility by branch and destination gives each person the right list.
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