Founded in 2018, DLI is a global leader in digital learning education. The company offers University credit-rated courses for people to create a career in the digital learning design market. 

The Challenges for DLI

DLI was using the same business processes from their original start-up phase. The company urgently needed a new system to scale up as it grew. Although they had HubSpot, they wanted to use it to its full potential.

For example, there were problems with the lengthy invoicing process for purchasing programs. An organisation would request an invoice by filling out a form. Then, an employee would take the information and manually send it to the finance department.

This slow process was, in effect, delaying the sale as businesses had to wait for an invoice. DLI wanted the ability to invoice immediately so an employee could ask for the company credit card and then check out.

Also, the Stripe customer payment system needed to be optimised. The payment information from students was not automatically going into the finance system, a spreadsheet, or HubSpot.

A full-time employee manually copied the information from Stripe to the finance system. This situation was problematic for DLI as the company relied on this person. The employee was overworked, and the work stopped during their holidays.

Also, the enrollment process wasn’t a great customer experience for the students who enrolled over a weekend. The students had to wait for DLI to manually put their information into the site before accessing courses.

The Solution by PYB

DLI needed clarification on whether they would have to integrate different systems to help them achieve the overall management they wanted. Or if they could even get all the information they needed in the place where they wanted it to go.

Amy McPartlan, the COO of DLI, spoke to her network in the Irish education sector for a solution. However, Amy couldn’t find anybody using a system that matched her needs. She decided the best option was to use HubSpot as a single source of truth.

See a video run through here:

Putting the Fundamentals of HubSpot in Place

Amy wanted to find a professional and experienced technical HubSpot partner to help them set up the right business processes. She found Plus Your Business (PYB) and wanted to verify their technical expertise before engaging them as partners. Martin from PYB connected Amy directly with a PYB client.

HubSpot had initially been “set up by a lot of cooks” at DLI and had gone through a few hands due to changes in the marketing department. When DLI first started with HubSpot, the fundamentals of HubSpot were not put in place.

Our recommendation was to integrate different platforms with HubSpot, enabling data synchronization, automating their B2B and B2C processes, and saving time.

Objects that we connected with Stripe (via our website) for B2B purchases are:

1. Search, Create or Update of Contacts
2. Search, Create or Update of Deals
3. Products and Line Items attached to Deals
4. Aligning “Course” Custom Object with Products and connecting it to Deals
5. Timeline Events

Contact Record Example

This integration with Stripe enables Digital Learning Institutions to instantly track all website purchases, including one-time payments and monthly instalments. The integration also involves dynamic labelling based on the purchased product.

1. Contacts
2. Course - custom object

Association with labels enabled us to update the course-related data in the Deal. The main goal was to transfer the correct IDs from Thinkific LMS based on the course's start date.

Once the IDs are being transferred, the automated process then uses the Thinkfific REST API to: 

1. Search for Customer
2. Create or Update the Customer
3. Enrol Customers in the correct Courses

Monthly payments (instalments) are processed by Stripe. Our recommendation was to store all payment intents back to HubSpot, creating a single timeline event and storing:

1. Payment Reference / ID
2. Payment Amount
3. Status of the Payment

Payment Intents are also sent to Xero for adding payments to Xero Invoices; where CRM Card lists Invoice data. The invoicing issue was resolved by integrating a custom two-way system with Xero.

Once the B2C or B2B deal is created and the invoice generation is triggered from CRM, implemented logic has to:

1. Search for Customer
2. Create or Update the Customer
3. Create an Invoice with Line Items, plus:
   1. Adding a discount if there’s any
   2. Adding Cohort details
   3. Adding Instalment Fee if there’s any

To achieve the mentioned integrations and data flow, we used:

• HubSpot Operations Hub and 
• Webhooks as triggers for Workflows, and
• iPaaS - Make.com, using HTTP requests

Based on the given setup, the plan is to implement a B2B enrollment process, where contacts can enrol themselves in the Course without reaching out to Customer Support or the Sales team.

The flow will be built on the HubSpot Landing Page, where the flow would be to:

1. Visitor Autentification
   1. Enter B2B owner Email + 
   2. B2B Deal ID +
   3. Verification code received via email after purchase 
2. If Deal is recognized, we’re returning the number of:
   1. Purchased Seats (Products)
   2. Used Seats
   3. Remaining Seats
3. Giving an option to select a Course 
4. Giving the option to select:
   1. Start date - previously received in Custom object API 
   2. Full name
   3. Email address
5. On submit - logic in HubSpot will:
   1. Create a ‘child’ Deal and associate Deal with the main B2B Deal
   2. Dynamic Association based on Course 
   3. Search, Create or Update Customers in Thinkific LMS
   4. Enrol Customer into Courses and set: 
      1. Start date of the Course
      2. End date of the Course

APIs used to achieve the functionality:

• HubSpot Contact API
• HubSpot Deal API
• HubSpot Company API
• HubSpot Custom Object API
• HubSpot Association API
• HubSpot Timeline Event API
• CRM Cards
• Thinkific Enrollments API
• Thinkific User API
• Xero Contacts API
• Xero Items API
• Xero Invoice API

For example, whenever somebody downloaded a brochure, they would be put in the system as a contact, and you would see their form submission. Then, the system automatically created a deal for that person straight away. As a result, the pipeline was enormous and needed to be more accurate.

A Quick Reconfiguration

Amy wanted to return to basics and even considered throwing out everything in HubSpot and starting again. Elisa from PYB explained to Amy that it was not necessary to do that and talked Amy out of it. Amy was grateful for the intervention and worked with Elisa to reconfigure everything.

PYB and DLI set out to complete the work in 3 months, but Elisa and Callum from DLI completed the job in 2 months. PYB worked very well alongside DLI as a team. Amy thought she was already quite a decent HubSpot user, but she learnt many new things from Elisa.

Amy worked collaboratively with Elisa and “used her like a sounding board”. Elisa would guide her through each issue and explain how to manage it in HubSpot. She also mentioned that the PYB team of Darian, Elisa, and Martin are all lovely and a pleasure to work with.

PYB helped DLI reconfigure everything towards the end of last summer. On the 4th of December, the company launched their automation by connecting the shopping cart with the finance system, HubSpot, and their LMS. DLI also managed to launch their new website on the same day.

The Phenomenal Results

Amy has been hugely impressed with the results. Before working with PYB, it would take her ten days after the end of the month to see how the business had done. This laborious and stressful process would involve checking spreadsheets and moving data from Stripe into the finance system and HubSpot. 

The finance system and HubSpot would never match. Nothing would ever align, and she couldn’t figure out where the problem was. There was a massive consequence to this as it meant that it delayed the management reports for the CFO. It also made things awkward with the CEO as Amy could not confidently give accurate figures.

The old processes also had a knock-on effect on other business areas. For example, there was a delay in the sales team's commission payments. Also, the team could not receive meaningful performance reviews as the HubSpot data was inaccurate.

Instant Access to Company Figures

For comparison purposes, in January 2024, Amy could close the month within 40 minutes of logging on and know exactly how the business had done. She can now also look at any point in the month and know how well the company is doing. On top of this, she also has the confidence that the finance system will match HubSpot.

Now, by using HubSpot optimally, DLI has a single source of the truth. DLI can use HubSpot to manage the performance of the sales team. Also, DLI now knows where
leads are coming into the business. From a customer perspective, the students can access the learning platform within 4 minutes. 

There is also no manual intervention on the website. Amy explained, “Right now, everything just happens when you purchase from us. It’s incredible and is great for the students.” Email confirmations are also automated through HubSpot so the students can start learning immediately.

The HubSpot Impact That Surpassed Expectations

The overall impact of HubSpot on the business has been incredible. Amy summed it up by saying, “HubSpot is beyond belief. I was really sceptical about its capabilities to start with. I had been told an awful lot about what it could do. However, it has completely surpassed my expectations.”

Improving Business Processes

HubSpot has managed to boost the on-demand programs for students. As the name suggests, students should have had immediate access to the courses. This access was not the case in the past before PYB helped optimise the business processes. Now, students can access on-demand programs instantly.

HubSpot has become the student information system for DLI and the CRM. Previously, the company emailed students from Outlook because all the information was in Excel spreadsheets. Now, students receive emails via HubSpot, and the company is also constantly improving this area.

HubSpot has positively impacted Amy’s role. PYB has helped her use HubSpot in a more user-friendly way, which makes work more enjoyable. Before working with PYB, creating reports or looking at any metrics or meaningful figures was impossible. Now, she can access this accurate information within a few short clicks.

Opening Up New Ideas

DLI is excited about the subsequent phases of using HubSpot and how the marketing team can use it to optimise their life cycles. There are also plans to do a backfill project and get all historical data into HubSpot. 

The more the company uses HubSpot, the more it has opened up new ideas on how to use it in the future. Before the support from PYB, having access to up-to-date student information was a foreign concept for the business. Now, there is the possibility of using the Service hub to create a knowledge base and ticketing system.

A Game Changer for the Business

Amy is excited to continue the relationship with PYB in the future because what they created was a game-changer for their business. HubSpot and PYB have helped Amy achieve much more and awakened new ideas for the company.