10.8% conversion rate

8x cheaper than a human agent

Target hit within the first two weeks

OVERVIEW

Online Courses Australia is a high-volume provider of short courses and microcredentials, serving learners across Australia. CEO and Founder Cheryl Quang has been in the education sector long enough to understand exactly what it takes to run a sales model at scale. OCA handles thousands of student inquiries every week, operates a full e-commerce channel alongside a human sales team, and has built a reputation for accessibility and transparency in a competitive market.

OCA was one of Enrola’s earliest customers. Cheryl came in with clear commercial expectations and a low tolerance for solutions that do not deliver. That made her feedback, and her results, meaningful.

CHALLENGES

Reaching Students Is Getting Harder

Outbound contact has become significantly more difficult over the years. Spam filters, the need to rotate phone numbers regularly, and students actively screening calls have made traditional outreach at least 20 to 40% harder than it used to be. The problem is not just contact rates. A portion of students simply do not want a phone call. They want information on their own terms, without the pressure of a live sales conversation.

A Younger, More Diverse Audience

OCA serves a broad student base that includes a growing cohort of 18 to 24-year-olds taking up microcredentials, alongside working parents who are time-poor and hard to reach during business hours. Both groups share a preference for low-friction engagement. A phone call at the wrong moment, or from a tired advisor at the end of a long day, can undo trust that took considerable effort to build.

Consistency at Scale

Delivering the same quality of conversation across every single interaction, from the first inquiry of the morning to the last of the afternoon, is genuinely difficult with a human team. Energy drops. Sales confidence wavers. In an industry where trust drives conversion, inconsistency at the edges of the day costs enrolments.

SOLUTIONS

Every Lead Reached at Speed

Enrola connects with every new inquiry within seconds of it hitting OCA’s Salesforce. There is no queue, no delay based on staff availability, and no lead sitting unanswered because it arrived outside business hours. Every student gets a first response at the same speed, regardless of when they inquired or which channel they came through.

Low Friction, High Conversion

OCA’s Enrola AI agent is named Eva. Eva engages students the way they want to be engaged: no phone pressure, no hard sell, no discovery call they did not ask for. Students who prefer not to speak to anyone at all can still get enough information through the SMS conversation to make a decision and take the next step. For a provider serving time-poor and call-averse segments, this matters.

The AI Opens the Door, the Team Closes It

Eva handles the early stage of the conversation and surfaces the highest-intent leads for OCA’s sales team. When a human agent steps in, they already know what the student has asked, what their situation is, and where they are in their decision. The combination of AI-initiated contact and human-assisted close is where OCA’s strongest conversion numbers come from, currently sitting at 10.8% with team assistance.

“The minimum conversion rate in my mind had to be 6%. We were achieving that in the first two weeks.”

— Cheryl Quang, CEO, Online Courses Australia

RESULTS

~80% Growth in Conversion Rate Since Launch

Since going live with Enrola, OCA’s conversion rate through the SMS channel has nearly doubled. Cheryl is confident it can reach 12% with team assistance as the model continues to optimise, which would put it on par with or ahead of a high-performing human sales team, at a fraction of the cost.

8x Cheaper Than a Human Agent

Enrola reaches leads at scale for a cost that is approximately eight times lower than deploying a human agent to do the same job. For OCA, that cost efficiency does not mean cutting the sales team. It means redirecting margin back into lead generation, where lower cost-to-convert changes the economics of the whole acquisition model.

Always First to Respond

In a market where students are comparing multiple providers at the same time, speed to lead is a competitive advantage. Enrola gets OCA into the conversation before competitors who rely on human teams to make first contact. That first-mover position has a measurable impact on who the student ultimately chooses.

Expanding Across the Full Lead Base

OCA started by running Enrola on older leads to build confidence in the platform. The results there were strong enough to move all-in on new leads, where the model has delivered its best conversion numbers. The next step is returning to older and mid-funnel leads, particularly those in the 30 to 90-day window, with a more optimised approach now that the model has matured.

CLIENT FEEDBACK

“I’m happy to be paying that because it’s value for money. When something does change your business, you sit up and pay attention.”

— Cheryl Quang, CEO, Online Courses Australia

“Think of it as absolutely a sales team member in your team. Eva gets assigned new leads and she handles that. And there are lots of opportunities from that.”

— Cheryl Quang, CEO, Online Courses Australia

“Every single education provider needs to have this solution or something very similar in their wheelhouse right now. It’s low friction, low cost, and so far so good.”

— Cheryl Quang, CEO, Online Courses Australia