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Bad Pre-Enrollment Service Outweighs Other Attributes of Your Institution

November 28th, 2011

The Influence of Pre-Enrollment Service

A nationwide study conducted by Longmire and Company of nearly 5,000 prospective college students and parents showed that 53 percent reported that their decision to enroll in a given school was heavily influenced by the level of service they received during the “college shopping” process. The study found that poor service delivery, across any brand touch point, can outweigh other important factors including strength of academic programs, faculty reputation and even financial aid. Students and their families believe that the type of service they receive during the college selection process is indicative of the overall culture of the institution; i.e. poor service during pre-enrollment will mean poor service throughout the student’s college career.

We know that impressions are formed from the first moment of contact with a prospective student and span across all brand touch points including every department, staff member, faculty member and even other students. What we didn’t know was just how critical those first impressions are. The study shows that a single bad experience can be the catalyst for completely derailing the prospective student’s original enrollment plan.  Moreover, the study concludes that offering great pre-enrollment service will not only “save” enrollments but it is also one of the best possible ways for a college or university to differentiate itself in today’s competitive environment. The goal is not only to meet expectations but to exceed them.

Shift Your Thinking to a Student-Centric Approach for Greater Success

Here is a reality check for higher education:  A college education may be the best money ever spent but it is still a “purchase” in the minds of many prospective students and their parents.  Successful colleges recognize that today’s prospective students (and their parents) are very savvy consumers.  Leaders of some of the nation’s best performing educational institutions are modeling the “customer-centric” approach of other top service industries by providing the extraordinary level of service that one would expect to receive when making any other high dollar investment.

Successful Practices of Student-Centric Colleges

Do prospective students and parents see and experience your commitment to service?

High Point University in North Carolina is one example of a college that has implemented several initiatives to provide prospective students with exceptional levels of service. By employing numerous “concierge” desks around the campus the university has eliminated the intimidation factor and made their beautiful campus uniquely welcoming and student focused.  Current and visiting students use the concierge services for a wide range of issues and services that include scheduling tutoring sessions, checking out a Kindle or iPad to download an eBook, reserving tickets to various campus-based events, library book return, dry cleaning service, arranging transportation services and even automated daily wake-up calls.

Is your entire campus community (staff, faculty and students) on board?

Earlham College expects their entire campus community to serve as ambassadors to prospective students.  How do they make that happen?  By communicating the culture of Earlham and asking everyone to reflect it to visiting prospective students and parents. They make their guests easily identifiable by providing visiting students and their families a bright red folder.  Everyone on campus, from the cafeteria staff and groundskeepers to the faculty and students, are aware that they should offer extra attention and assistance to anyone carrying this folder.

Are problems identified and quickly addressed?

Given that one in ten prospective students reported experiencing difficulties during the college selection process (many of which were never satisfactorily resolved) colleges should implement a system to address issues and problems as they arise.  A campus ombudsman offering a single point of contact for any question, comment or complaint can be golden for your university as well as for the benefit of prospective students.  Imagine the power of being able quickly identify and resolve your problem areas throughout the institution.  And, imagine the impact on a prospective student and parent when the campus representative follows-up with them to ensure a satisfactory outcome. The study showed that this one action alone can save lost enrollments. Certainly many of the admission offices we work with make valiant efforts to fill this role but the study underscores that this issue belongs to the entire institution and should not be the sole responsibility of any single department.

Whose Responsibility Is It?

Building an institutional culture is a top-down process with the starting point being the college president. On-campus workshops should be held for all personnel regarding what it means to be committed to the service experience, and how this philosophy can be embedded in interactions with not only prospective students and their families but with the college community as a whole.

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Posted in Conversion and Yield, Research, Service Quality

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Pre-enrollment customer service:
It will build or kill your brand

March 7th, 2011

Measuring Customer Service Before They Are Customers

What do parents and prospective students think about the customer service they receive from colleges during the “college shopping” process? Longmire and Company’s most recent co-sponsored national study sought to answer this question. Approximately 5,000 students and parents rated their pre-enrollment experiences with colleges across a number of brand touch points including administrators, the admission office, faculty, student affairs, housing, grounds, coaches and more.

The measurement of multiple brand touch points was important. Our previous co-sponsored studies have clearly revealed that a single bad experience – anywhere on campus, with anyone on campus – can derail the interest and commitment of the prospective student or parent toward the college.

The Importance of Your Rating

Just how important is pre-enrollment customer service delivery in attracting students? Very! About one-half of students and parents said that the pre-enrollment customer service they received was influential in their selection or rejection of a college. They viewed pre-enrollment service as predictive of what they would receive after enrolling.

Think for a minute about how your institution would rate on a ten-point scale (ten high) if your prospective students and parents were asked to measure your campus wide pre-enrollment customer service. Nationally, students and parents gave colleges and universities a rating of 6.83 in overall service during the college selection process. One could interpret that number as suggestive of room for improvement. One could also see that number as an opportunity to differentiate their institution.

Differentiation

The study revealed that only about 48% of students and parents viewed the colleges they were considering as having unique reputations or brand identities. Where a brand perception existed, the respondent was asked to describe it. In the vast majority of cases, they described the “brand” using words that could easily fit hundreds of schools with similar attributes.

It could be assumed that brand identity becomes clearer to students and parents as they get deeper into a college’s funnel. In truth, perception of uniqueness or brand identity gets clearer for only 8% more students and parents after being admitted. This suggests that the brand is not being reflected or supported across the many touch points that students and parents experience campus wide.

The Brand in Every Touch Point

Among eleven key brand touch points measured, students and parents rated their experiences with the admission office and faculty most favorably.  Experiences with coaches and the financial aid office registered least favorable. Results from this and our other co-sponsored studies suggest that dissatisfaction with the financial aid office is not solely based on the amount of the aid package. More often than not, it’s due to miscommunication, lack of responsiveness and insufficient guidance and counsel, all of which are customer service issues.

Over 11% of students and parents said they experienced problems with the pre-enrollment service they received from colleges. Only 40% reported the problem to the institution. Of those who did, less than a third said that someone at the college attempted to resolve it. Less than 25% of this subgroup said it was resolved to their satisfaction.

With this data in mind, any senior leader of the institution could legitimately ask, “Do we have a way for prospective students and parents to easily make us aware of a problem, regardless of the department involved? Do we have a system to record the problem, track our follow-up, and determine if it was resolved to the satisfaction of our prospective student or parent?”

Measure It To Manage It

The benchmarking provided by his study has been helpful to the co-sponsoring colleges because it has enabled them to isolate areas on campus needing change in pre-enrollment service delivery. Further, the data specific to their college provides a clear roadmap for necessary improvements.

The aggregated national data supports the need for improvement by the industry. It is desired by consumers, certainly. Yet it also presents colleges with an opportunity to differentiate their institution in an increasingly competitive and demanding marketplace.

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Posted in Conversion and Yield, Organizational development, Parents, Research

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4 Lessons Learned From Prospective Students and Their Parents

November 8th, 2010

Relieve my stress!

Over 80% of parents say that colleges add stress to the college selection process for themselves and their children. Most commonly, they say, colleges add stress with excessive volumes of non-personalized mailings, e-mails and phone calls.

Parents and students alike say that what they appreciate most about their relationships with colleges is rooted in good communication with admissions representatives and financial aid officers. With that good communication comes a deeper understanding of the needs and preferences of the student and family on the part of the college and a more informed, stress-reduced decision-making process for the student and parent.

Show me the value!

After a buyer becomes interested in any product or service, they have a tendency to focus on price first. Because of this, more expensive colleges may be rejected out of hand by parents long before the college is able to communicate its value.

This demands that values (the right values!) be communicated early in the college selection process. In truth, 74% of parents say that they would reconsider a college that they initially believed to be too expensive if it could demonstrate greater value.

What are those values? The four most commonly mentioned by parents involve getting their child out of college in four years, a track record of students gaining high paying jobs upon graduation, superior internships and work study opportunities, and a high level of personal attention and service to the student.

Bond with me!

Our research clearly shows the correlation between likelihood of enrollment and the level of bonding developed between counselor and prospective student. A strong bond is developed through mutual understanding and trust. Students say they have the strongest bonds with counselors who “relate to me” and provide information and guidance based upon a clear understanding of their needs.

Our research shows that their most important “needs” fall into the category of the emotional rather than the intellectual or factual. They want to feel comfortable, wanted, proud, and the like. A counselor who recognizes and reacts to these most fundamental needs stands the greatest chance of presenting the value of the institution in the most personalized fashion possible.

Uncover my hidden perceptions and false assumptions!

There is no bigger barrier to good communication than false assumptions and hidden perceptions. These can exist in either the student or counselor.

The student may have false assumptions or inaccurate perceptions about the college that will never be cleared up if the counselor doesn’t probe for their existence. Conversely, counselors fall prey to false assumptions about students as well. If this happens, the right questions won’t be asked, or the right information won’t be presented, or important feelings and attitudes of the student will be overlooked.

The best way to uncover hidden perceptions and false assumptions is simply to probe for their existence using an unbiased methodology that enables students to be very candid in expressing their perceptions and feelings about the colleges they are seriously considering.

Longmire and Company’s Yield Enhancement System is a tool we have been using for over 15 years to uncover perceptions and attitudes of prospective students about colleges. Detailed information about each student is provided to counselors so that they can better understand the feelings and motivations of the students for whom they are responsible.

Having this information facilitates a more informed approach to the student and helps to increase the likelihood of enrollment due to a deeper understanding the student’s needs.

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Posted in Behavior, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Research

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Innings, Quarters, Periods, Weeks….

November 17th, 2009

Baseball has innings.iStock_000002290367XSmall

Basketball has periods.

Football has quarters.

Admissions has weeks.

No matter what game you are in, measuring efforts in a particular time frame is vital to delivering a successful outcome.  Runs, hits and errors are measured each inning on the diamond.  Yards, sacks and turnovers are totaled each quarter on the gridiron.  Rebounds, points and assists are tracked each period on the court.  In the Admissions game, weekly milestones are marked with inquiries, applications and admits.

So how is the game going for you? Assuming you started  rolling admissions September 1, you are approaching  the end of the first quarter.    Where are those inquiries, campus visits and applications in reaching your first-year enrollment goals? What percentage of those needed by the start of the Fall 2010 classes do you have now?

Many experts in the admission’s field estimate that by Week 14 (roughly December 1) you should have received 81% of  your total inquiries, documented  49% of your campus visits and 35% of your  application pool should be completed.

Is your admissions team on a winning streak or is there a clubhouse wide slump occurring?  How many students will be left on base?  How many students will get intercepted?  How many students will there be on campus for the tip-off? If you aren’t tracking where you know you should be ask yourself this:  is it a coaching problem or a technique issue?

Staff training might be an answer.  It has been for college admission offices across the country who have implemented programs such as the Interactive Training Workshop that Longmire and Company offers.  Or, perhaps a better scouting report on your prospects is the key.  Literally hundreds of thousands of  students have told us that it was the school that best “understood” them as an individual that topped their list.

Read here ( http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/02momu/) about one young person’s “Aha moment” while visiting a campus and imagine how powerful it would be to know this in advance of your recruitment discussion with her. Longmire and Company’s Yield Enhancement Survey (YES) provides inside information on your prospects.  With the right tools, admissions teams are now realizing a home field advantage throughout the season and well into the playoffs.

If your weekly box score is not where it should be let Longmire and Company enrollment solutions  (www.longmire-co.com) team with you to  bring more victories to your win column before the 7th inning stretch, the two minute warning and the 24 second clock expires.

Mark Thompson is an Enrollment Strategist with Longmire and Company.  Mark brings his clients the benefit of over 20 years of “in-the-trenches” experience in enrollment with public, private and proprietary colleges and universities.

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Posted in Behavior, Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training

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