On Future doubles sign‑ups to its information sessions

The challenge: supporting a decision that takes time

Choosing a training course is not an impulse purchase. Prospective participants download a brochure, read the syllabus, compare several options, discuss it with their employer, think about their career plans. The decision plays out over weeks, sometimes months.

For On Future, the challenge was therefore not generating more leads, but supporting the ones they already had throughout that period of reflection. That support ran on email, topped up with manual follow-ups by phone or on WhatsApp. With the limits everyone knows: unread messages, exchanges that stop dead, and a share of prospects who disappear before they have even attended an information session.

The solution: a conversational layer on top of what already existed

On Future deployed Sandra and connected it to HubSpot, its CRM. The important point: the whole journey is still driven from the CRM. When a prospect downloads a brochure or takes a specific action, a WhatsApp campaign can fire automatically, alongside the email sequences already in place. Every interaction is synced back to HubSpot, which keeps the complete view of the journey.

The goal was not to replace email, but to add a channel that is more direct and more visible.

Four use cases in production

• Conversion after a brochure download. The prospect receives the brochure by email and on WhatsApp, with messages matched to how far along they are. That qualifies the contact immediately: is the number valid, is WhatsApp a channel for them.
• Questions and answers. Prospects ask their questions on WhatsApp. The exchanges land in the Sandra inbox, with the full history.
• Promoting sessions and masterclasses. These events are decisive in conversion: they let prospective participants understand the programmes and talk to the teaching teams.
• Measuring satisfaction. Surveys and NPS questionnaires sent at the end of courses, to identify advocates.

The results

Today, more than 500 WhatsApp messages go out every week through Sandra. Three effects stand out.

• Twice as many sign-ups. Over the last three months, sign-ups to information sessions and one-to-one interviews are double those of equivalent email campaigns.
• Markedly faster handling. Qualification of inbound leads is automated: the teams know very quickly whether the lead wants an information session or an interview. If not, it is filed and they move on. What used to take a week of manual handling now takes a few hours.
• More direct exchanges. WhatsApp is the channel where the real questions get asked. The advisory dimension, carried by the sales and teaching teams, remains the most effective way to convince.

WhatsApp has become a building block of the conversion journey without replacing the existing channels. It is one more way of reaching people.

We already had HubSpot, email campaigns and a structured acquisition process. With Sandra, we added a conversational layer that lets us support our prospects more effectively throughout their decision process. The most visible result is the increase in sign-ups to our information sessions, but above all a better quality of exchange with prospective participants.

Frédéric Dumonal, founder of On Future

The lessons

Deploying WhatsApp is not about sending more messages. As with any WhatsApp Business account, the number's reputation is built gradually. On Future worked with us on:

• opt-ins and compliance with the Swiss FADP and the GDPR;
• gradually warming up the account;
• controlling send volumes;
• maintaining a good Quality Score with Meta;
• optimising campaigns to encourage replies and positive interactions.

Key takeaway. WhatsApp replaces neither the CRM nor email: it is a complementary channel, an accelerator of conversations. And the FADP, GDPR and Quality Score aspects are dealt with from the outset, not after the fact.