— GRADLIA - CASE STUDY

One System, Every Case: How Gradlia Brought Structure to Immigration Services with Zoho CRM

CENTERS OF EXPERTISE

CLIENT

COMPANY SIZE

INDUSTRY

Sales, Operational & Analytics

Study abroad advisor

20+ Employees

Gradlia

Introduction

Gradlia makes choosing a university and country for studying abroad much easier. Instead of guessing, it looks closely at your goals, likes, and what matters most to you. Then it compares different universities and countries using over 40 real data points, not just gut feeling. So you get suggestions that are actually based on facts and your personal needs, not generic tips or someone's opinion. It's like having a smart guide who studies your situation carefully and points you toward the best-fit options, helping you make a more confident and informed decision about your study-abroad journey.

The Challenge

The client was running their entire study-abroad consultancy business on manual processes. There was no central system to manage leads, follow-ups, or finances. Every part of the business was disconnected, which made it hard to grow, track performance, or even know if the company was making a profit.
Leads were coming in from multiple sources — Meta ads, Website forms, referrals, and walk-ins — but there was no single place to store or manage them. Staff had to manually check different channels, note down details, and try to remember who to follow up with. This meant many leads were forgotten completely, and potential students who could have joined a course or program simply slipped away without anyone noticing.
Follow-ups were one of the biggest problems. Since there was no reminder system or tracking, the counselling team often forgot to call back interested students. In a business like study-abroad consulting, timing matters a lot — students are usually comparing multiple consultants, and a missed follow-up call often means losing that student to a competitor. Without any system to flag pending follow-ups, the team was relying purely on memory and manual notes, which is never reliable at scale.
Finance was another major pain point. The company was using Excel sheets to track income, expenses, and payments. This made it very difficult to know the real financial position of the business at any given time. There was no way to quickly check whether a particular service or branch was profitable or running at a loss. Reconciling numbers took hours of manual work, and errors were common since everything depended on someone correctly updating the sheet.
Beyond sales and finance, other departments like HR, payroll, and recruitment were also working in isolation, each with their own manual methods. There was no connection between the sales team closing a lead and the finance or operations team acting on it. Call recordings, WhatsApp conversations, and lead sources were scattered across different apps and devices, making it nearly impossible to maintain a clear history of communication with any single student.
In short, the business was growing, but its systems were not. Everything was manual, messy, and disconnected. The team lacked visibility into leads, follow-ups, financial health, and overall business performance, which limited their ability to scale and serve students efficiently.

To fix these problems, we built a fully connected Zoho ecosystem, with Zoho CRM acting as the central hub for the entire business. We integrated Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Zoho Forms directly with the CRM, so every lead from ads, website inquiries, or forms would automatically create a record in the system. This removed manual entry completely and made sure no lead was ever missed or lost between platforms.

The Solution

Next, we solved the follow-up problem by setting up automated workflows and reminders inside Zoho CRM, so the counselling team always knew which student to contact and when. We integrated MSG91 for automated WhatsApp messaging, allowing the team to send timely reminders and updates to students without doing it manually each time. We also connected Smartflo, so every call made to a student is automatically recorded and linked to their profile, giving the team a complete history of communication for training and quality checks.

To fix the finance tracking issues, we integrated Zoho Books with the CRM, connecting sales directly to accounting. Every deal closed in CRM now reflects automatically in the finance records, so the team can see real-time profit and loss instead of relying on manual Excel sheets. This gave the management instant visibility into the financial health of the business, without spending hours reconciling numbers.

We also brought in Zoho People and Zoho Payroll to digitize HR and payroll processes, and Zoho Recruit to make hiring more organized and trackable. To bring everything together, we set up Zoho Analytics, pulling data from all these tools into single dashboards showing lead trends, conversion rates, follow-up performance, and overall business health in one view.

Finally, we used Zoho Creator to build a custom workflow that tracks each student's full journey — from their first inquiry, through counselling and documentation, all the way to their flight for studying abroad. With this setup, every department now works from the same data, follow-ups happen on time, and management can see exactly how the business is performing at any given moment.

What We Implemented

Zoho CRM

Zoho Books

Zoho Recruit

Leads from the website, WhatsApp, and Meta ads all sync into one centralized CRM. Leads get assigned to counselors automatically, based on rules the team set up. Follow-up reminders and task automation mean nothing gets tracked by hand anymore.

Invoices for enrollments and service payments are generated automatically. Payments, dues, and financial records are all tracked in real time. Custom workflows cut down on manual errors across billing and finance.

A custom hiring pipeline manages candidate applications through every interview stage. Candidate screening and status updates move through automated workflows. Offer letters and employment documents are generated automatically for new hires.

Zoho People

Zoho Bookings

Zoho Creator

Zoho Analytics

A single employee database covers the entire organization. Roles, departments, and reporting hierarchies are all configured in the system. Leave policy, company policy, and the employee handbook all live within the system.

Counseling sessions are scheduled automatically. The booking calendar syncs with counselor availability, so double-booking isn't an issue. Students get automatic reminders ahead of their scheduled sessions.

Custom-built applications handle Gradlia's specific student application and documentation process. Internal approvals and process tracking run through automated workflows. Custom forms capture and organize student-specific data the way Gradlia needs it.

Data from every module feeds into Zoho Analytics to power custom reports and dashboards. Dashboards built specifically for financial, sales, lead, and CRM reporting. The team gets real-time visibility into conversions, revenue, and counselor performance.

Third-Party Integrations

Seamlessly synchronizing Gradlia's student consultation workflows with specialized enterprise applications to automate admissions, financials, and team management.