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What is Your College’s Lasting Impression?

January 6th, 2016

[Part 4 of our blog series on how exceptional pre- and post-enrollment customer service can increase yield at your college or university.]

The holidays are behind us (I hope yours were full of family, friends and fun) and now we are all gearing up for the year ahead. In the world of enrollment management that means yielding the best possible incoming class of 2016.

Customer service sealIn recent weeks, we have been sharing insights with you about how providing exceptional pre-enrollment customer service can impact your ability to achieve your enrollment goals. When you get it right, it will differentiate your school from all others. But, if you have breakdowns in your pre-enrollment service, it can be the single element that derails you.

Consider this: In our national co-sponsored study, How Customer Service Delivery During the Recruiting Cycle Influences Enrollment, we found that 53% of students and parents say that the service they receive from a college during the “shopping process” influences their selection decision.

Prospective students and parents view the pre-enrollment service they receive as predictive of how the student will be served after enrollment.

The research is very clear but it was a chance encounter with an old friend over the holidays that crystallized the message for me.

My friend Dave is assisting his oldest daughter, Emily, in her college search. Dave is a savvy consumer and he is also well aware that Emily has the GPA, college test scores, and extracurricular activities that colleges find attractive in a prospective student. As a matter of fact, he shared with me that she has been on the radar screen for a number of schools for several months. “She gets daily emails, letters and phone calls from all of them,” he said. “I figured we would take a hard look at two or three and it would be an easy decision. Instead, she is more confused now than ever. The whole experience was a huge disappointment.”

Here is Dave’s take on the college shopping experience:

  • At College A:  Emily and her dad were given the standard tour which did not include any of the areas of specific interest to Emily. “She is a likely music major but that wasn’t part of the tour. When she asked about the music program, which we know is considered to be among the finest, the guide provided a spiel right out of the handbook.” And this was after numerous phone conversations with the admissions counselor.
  • At College B:  The tour was far more personalized. “Someone had done their homework because she was shown the music department and told about specific opportunities available to her.” Dave said that Emily got excited about the campus and he had a feeling they had found The One. That is, until they had a one-on-one with the admissions counselor. “What a turn-off,” Dave groaned. “He recited an encyclopedia of stuff about the school but didn’t relate any of it to Emily. I don’t think he asked her even one question about her interests or what she wanted from the college experience.”
  • On to College C:  “The admissions staff was enthusiastic and helpful. The counselor truly seemed to care about my daughter,” Dave said. But it all fell apart when they left their office. “The campus atmosphere wasn’t friendly and the grounds were unkempt. We got turned around and couldn’t find anyone to help. ” When they finally found their way back to the car, Emily told her dad, “No way!”

Unfortunately, Emily’s experience is not unique. It does, however, offer a cautionary tale for all colleges and university enrollment teams.

Here is the Good News:  You CAN be the college or university that stands out with exceptional pre-enrollment service.  Review this multi-part series for the necessary processes and steps. Taking control of your pre-enrollment service delivery will allow you to better serve prospective students and increase your yield.  Make it your New Year’s resolution!

The Business Principle You Can Adopt Today for Increased Yield

Take this First Step Toward Increasing Yield TODAY

Don’t Let These 3 Pitfalls Derail Your Enrollment Success

Worth watching. About a year ago Chris D’Orso interviewed Longmire and Company on Higher Ed Live about customer service in higher ed.

If you have any questions, please give me a call. Longmire and Company offers Service Quality Management (SQM) surveys to help you achieve these goals. And we conduct workshops on campus to help colleges chart their course in providing better service to prospective and current students. Contact me today and I will show you how we can help you measure and manage your pre-enrollment service. Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo.

RickMontgomery_100x100Rick Montgomery is as an Enrollment Strategist at Longmire and Company. With over 20 years in higher education marketing, he brings an innovative and dynamic approach to helping colleges and universities meet their enrollment goals. Rick can be reached at 913/492.1265 x.708 or via email at rmontgomery@longmire-co.com.

 

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Posted in Campus Tours, Campus Visits, Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Customer service, Organizational development, Research, Uncategorized

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Try this Simple Fix for more Productive Phone Conversations with Prospective Students

August 25th, 2015

I recently asked an admissions counselor this question: “What if every time you picked up the phone to call a prospective student you knew that you were going to have a meaningful and productive conversation?” After thinking about that for a moment, he stunned me with his answer. “That,” he said, “would be life-changing.” This veteran counselor explained that he often found calls to students frustrating and ineffective. “I love interacting with students, yet I find myself dreading those calls because I don’t feel like I really accomplish anything,” he said.girl on phone

College bound students who have participated in our co-sponsored studies share some of the same frustrations. Clearly, there appears to be a disconnection between students and counselors when talking by phone. There is a fix, though – something that can make the conversation richer and more helpful for both the student and counselor. The key lies in an interruption of the pattern that is commonly practiced by counselors and expected by students.

In a recent co-sponsored study we conducted for participating colleges about communicating with prospective students, we asked students to tell us which methods they find most and least helpful in how colleges communicate with them. That survey question, by the way, was open-ended to elicit the qualitative insight that proves so valuable.

So, what did we find?

We recorded a large number of students who said telephone calls from admissions counselors were among the “most helpful” methods that colleges use to communicate with them. We recorded an equal number who said it was among the “least helpful” methods. What gives? You could speculate that there are simply some students who prefer phone calls and others who don’t. A review of the qualitative data suggests something different.

Here is a sampling of responses from students who say phone calls are among the LEAST helpful methods:

  • “I can’t remember everything they tell me.”
  • “It gets overwhelming.”
  • “I can’t comprehend everything they say about their college.”
  • “Unless I ask for more information, the call gets really boring.”

Here is a sampling of responses from students who say phone calls are among the MOST helpful methods:

  • “I like telephone calls because you can ask questions.”
  • “I can get out what I need and ask questions.”
  • “Phone calls allow me to ask my own questions and make the experience more personalized.”
  • “Personal calls because you can ask questions.”

See the difference? During the ineffective calls, the information flow is clearly college-to-student. Many admissions counselors have been conditioned to communicate ALL of the features and benefits of the institution in every phone call. During the effective calls, on the other hand, the flow is clearly student-to-college. Students ask questions. And they ask questions. And they ask more questions. Asking questions means they are intellectually and emotionally involved in the conversation. That level of involvement gives you a great chance of building a bond that will lead to enrollment.

When Longmire and Company visits campuses to conduct Interactive Training Workshops for counselors, we focus on the tools and techniques that counselors must use to put students in a frame of mind to open up and ask questions. This includes proper use of close-end and open-end questioning, as well as asking open-minded questions that spark dialogue from otherwise non-verbal prospects.

I can guarantee one thing. A prospective student will engage, comprehend and remember any conversation that hits them at an emotional level. That’s the goal. Every conversation should be measured on that basis.RelationshipDynamic_300x172

Because it’s connected with the topic of this post, you should know that we are launching a new higher education study (the latest is a very popular series) in which we will explore, in detail, how students form a relationship (or not) with the colleges they consider. It’s called, The Relationship Dynamic: How prospective students form a relationship with your college, and why it matters in your ability to grow and control enrollment. You can get insight into how effectively you are building (or not building) relationships that will lead to enrollment.

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. Be sure to Subscribe to Versions of Conversion today so you don’t miss any of this highly-valuable information.

RickMontgomery_100x100Rick Montgomery is as an Enrollment Strategist at Longmire and Company. With over 20 years in higher education marketing, he brings an innovative approach to helping colleges and universities meet their enrollment goals. Rick can be reached at 913/492.1265 x.708 or via email at rmontgomery@longmire-co.com.

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Posted in Behavior, Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Research, Uncategorized, Your Value Proposition

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Celebrate Decision Day! Then, Use These Insights to Move Forward

April 28th, 2015

What are your plans for May 1, aka College Decision Day? Here is our suggestion: First, give yourself and your team kudos for the months of hard work and the outstanding efforts you put forth to serve the students you recruited while building the best possible incoming class. Next, celebrate those great new students that will be joining your campus family this fall. And then, if you are like the majority of college admissions teams across the country, you’ll go right back to work to secure more admitted students because there is still much work to do.

The truth is that most colleges don’t meet their enrollment goals by May 1. According to the “2014 Inside Higher Ed Survey of College and University Admissions Directors,” only 39% of colleges met their target enrollment by Decision Day in 2014 and industry insiders are projecting that even fewer will do so this year.

decision_dayFor college admissions counselors and enrollment managers facing this challenge, we have some good news and important insights gleaned from our latest co-sponsored study, The Excitement Factor! Of the 12,000 students participating in the study, 20% committed to the college of their choice after the first of May.

The late enrollers shared many of the same attributes as their peers, of course. But there were some areas where we found distinct differences that may help you in your outreach efforts.

  • Excitement about Attending: Late enrollers don’t have as high of level of excitement about the college they select and are far less likely to experience a feeling of connection with the college than early enrollers.
  • College Visits and Applications: Students who enrolled later were far less likely to have visited or toured the college they selected than their peers. Actually, they generally applied to and toured far fewer campuses than the students who made their decision sooner.
  • Family Ties: Late enrolling students are more likely to choose a college that a family member has attended than other students.
  • The Cost Factor: The students who enrolled later indicated that cost was slightly more important to them than the students that made their decision earlier.

The late enrollers tended to have lower SAT scores than other students, but otherwise there were no large variances found in the demographics or psychographics of the two groups.

As you review the pool of students still available to you, keep these things in mind. We know that excitement that about attending is a more powerful driver of college selection than cost or perceived quality of the institution and that a tour of your campus can create excitement. Are there students in your pool who haven’t visited your campus yet?

Have you identified potential students with a family connection to your college? In The Excitement Factor!, four in ten students told us that their college choice was influenced by where a parent or sibling attended and late enrollers are even more likely to gravitate to the college that has a family tie for them.

And lastly, if you are looking for a way to really connect with these potential students, we suggest that you make them feel wanted. Two-thirds of college-bound students told us that the colleges they were considering had not taken a personal interest in them at any point in the Personal_Interest_460x287recruiting process. You may have heard the saying that “someone may forget what you said and forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” Showing a personal interest in a student makes them feel good about the college and it has a strong positive correlation to yield.

We help colleges and universities with their recruiting efforts every day, especially now during yield season. If we can help you, please let me know.

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. For more information about Longmire and Company’s Interactive Counselor Training Program, click here. Be sure to Subscribe to Versions of Conversion today so you don’t miss any of this highly-valuable information.

Karen Full picKaren Full is a highly-respected higher education professional who has held positions in admissions and enrollment management at several institutions in the Midwest and Florida. With her vast experience working with large and small, public and private colleges, Karen brings a valuable perspective to her role as an Enrollment Strategist at Longmire and Company. Call Karen at 913/492.1265 x.711 or email her at kfull@longmire-co.com. Follow Karen on Twitter @KarenAFull.

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Posted in Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Uncategorized

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Yield Enhancement Series: Role Playing Polishes Communication Skills

February 5th, 2015

 

Legendary coach and leader Vince Lombardi once said, “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”

When it comes to preparing your admissions team for success during this crucial yield season, truer words have never been spoken. In our Interactive Counselor Training Workshops (ITW) we introduce a number of innovative techniques to develop new skill sets for admissions professionals. We also incorporate a few tried-and-true methods that are always successful.Yield-Enhancement-Series

For instance, there is one exercise that is always effective; will build upon, and further hone, the skills of your team members; and could very well play a role in increasing the success of your yield: role playing. (Pun intended.)

This is an ideal time of year to use this tool to sharpen your recruiting team’s skills. When done right, role playing can foster confidence and camaraderie within your team. As your counselors demonstrate their communication techniques and get feedback from the team, they will be practicing for their next meaningful conversation with a prospective student.

You may want to prepare yourself for some push-back from your staff. For some reason, the mere thought of role playing fills many counselors with dread. Some feel as if they “don’t need” to role play because they already have a complete mastery of their craft.

Others are nervous about “making a mistake” or worry that their “performance” will be subpar. You may even have someone who is “insulted” that you would ask them to do such a thing because, after all, they have been recruiting students for (you name the number) of years. I can only imagine what Coach Lombardi would say about that!

Don’t worry. Follow these simple strategies and the exercise will be successful even if you initially encounter some resistance.role-play

  • Be Collaborative: Involve the entire team in the process from start to finish. Together, brainstorm the topics you will cover in the role plays and set the guidelines as a team.
  • Embrace Different Perspectives: Each team member will bring a different skill level and their own distinctive experiences to the process. And, that’s a good thing. Your rookie can pick up a new technique from your seasoned pro, who in turn, may learn a thing or two from the fresh perspective of the newcomer.
  • Make it a Safe Zone: Role playing should allow counselors to test the effectiveness of different strategies with their peers without fear of failure. Yes, “mistakes” will be made but that is just part of the process. Knowing that in advance should calm some nerves.

Have Fun: In our experience, you can expect many spirited discussions and quite a few laughs. You can also anticipate more successful communications with prospective students in the days ahead.

If I can help you with your recruiting efforts in any way, please feel free to call or email me.  My contact information is at the bottom of this post.

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo.  Click this link for more information about Longmire and Company’s Yield Enhancement System (YES).

[Subscribe to Versions of Conversion today so you don’t miss any of this highly-valuable information.]

Karen Full picKaren Full is a highly-respected higher education professional who has held positions in admissions and enrollment management at several institutions in the Midwest and Florida. With her vast experience working with large and small, public and private colleges, Karen brings a valuable perspective to her role as an Enrollment Strategist at Longmire and Company.

Call Karen at 913/492.1265 x.711 or email her at kfull@longmire-co.com. Follow Karen on Twitter @KarenAFull.

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Posted in Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Uncategorized

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