Posts Tagged ‘admissions’

Yield Enhancement Series: Personal Interest Equates to Higher Yield

January 27th, 2015

Successful admission professionals know that developing a connection with a student can greatly increase his or her commitment to the college and improve the likelihood of enrollment. In the midst of yield season, they know that strengthening that bond is crucial.

In our most recent nationally co-sponsored study, The Excitement Factor, we asked 12,000 college-bound students if the colleges they were considering had taken a personal interest in them at any point in the recruiting process. The response was shocking. Two-thirds said “No” or “Don’t Remember” and in our view “Don’t remember” is the same as “No.” (If you want a copy of the full report when it’s released, just click here.)

We discovered in the preceding study, Your Value Proposition, that excitement about attending is a more powerful driver of college selection than cost or perceived quality of the institution. Excitement is an emotion that is rooted in how someone feels about the college or university. If the student does not feel that the college has taken a personal interest in them their level of excitement diminishes.

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 each student makes them feel good about the college and it has a strong positive correlation to yield.

Yield-Enhancement-Series Smaller colleges have an advantage in that they can more easily establish a one-to-one connection with a prospective student but that doesn’t mean that large colleges that recruit thousands of students cannot also give prospective students the sense that the institution cares about them as an individual. This is typically done by providing great customer service so that students can easily get what they need, when they need it, from people who seem delighted to provide it to them. This commitment and practice has a measurable impact on yield.

Longmire and Company uses our Service Quality Management (SQM) tool to regularly assess the pre-enrollment customer service provided to prospective students by colleges and universities, large and small. The impact on yield of delivering a high level of customer service is astonishing.

SQM and the data collected in the Excitement Factor study show how important it is for an institution to deliver sustained and quality contact with students in each stage of the funnel. I can’t emphasize the word “quality” enough.

It’s easier than you think to measure the pre-enrollment customer service that you’re providing and how it impacts your yield rates. Many of our clients go through the exercise of measuring customer service across all brand touch points so that they can make an objective case for change to all of the departments that are not providing an ideal, or at least acceptable, level of service. Most people who work on a college campus understand the need to grow or improve enrollment. They often just don’t know how to do it. That’s why we always say that if you don’t measure it you can’t manage it.

Do you want to maximize yield? Measure and manage the way you communicate and respond to students and parents throughout the entire recruiting cycle. Do this and you’ll reap enormous benefits.

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. For more information about Longmire and Company’s Yield Enhancement tool click here.

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

Bob Longmire is President of Longmire and Company, Inc. He is a recognized expert on the topic of how prospective students and parents form their college selection decisions – and how colleges can use that knowledge to grow and control their enrollment. He can be reached at (913) 492-1265, ext 709 or at blongmire@longmire-co.com.

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Posted in Conversion and Yield, Customer service, Organizational development

Tags: admission counselor training admissions admissions success college admissions college enrollment college presidents college recruiting customer service customer service training enrollment management higher education marketing longmire and company Longmire and Company study yield enhancement

Yield Enhancement Series: Have Your Prospective Students Already Committed to Another College?

January 21st, 2015

When does yield season really start? It may be sooner than you think. Much sooner.

In a recent study of nearly 12,000 prospective students across the country, we asked, “When did you make your emotional commitment to the college of your choice?”

As you can see on the graph below, nearly one-third of students make their final college selection decision before the end of March, and by the end of April that percentage rises to 57%. By May, 80% of students have made their final choice.

From “The Excitement Factor!” A co-sponsored study by Longmire and Company.

Our research uncovered that nearly 40% of students make their ultimate choice based more on their excitement about the college than facts about the school.

What’s more, only 30% of prospective students consider cost the overriding factor in their college selection decision. So it’s likely that 70% of your pool will not be exclusively waiting to hear about your financial aid package before deciding which school is right for them.

Many of your prospective students have formed an emotional connection to their college of choice long before you have firmed up any details with them. How can you know that? By asking them the right questions. Yield-Enhancement-Series

We have found that the most successful admissions counselors build relationships with their students and gain valuable personal insight about each and every one of them. They know whether or not cost is the most critical factor and what attributes of their college will excite the student.

With that knowledge in hand, they nurture a relationship with the student that best serves the needs of the individual. They stay in touch, ask questions and have meaningful conversations throughout the entire admissions process. And, they don’t get unpleasantly surprised in May when the student tells them he or she has opted for another college.

One of our clients recently shared this great example with us. As enrollment manager, he challenged his team to maintain contact with key prospective students in a creative way. One of his star players emailed an article about the school’s outstanding performance in a national mathematical modeling competition to a prospective student who is passionate about math. In her follow up phone call she arranged to connect the prospective student with one of the contest participants. You can probably guess the rest of this story. The student later told his counselor that it was this arranged conversation that crystallized his commitment to the college, and that the counselor’s personal interest in him had confirmed this school was the right choice.

At various points throughout the recruiting cycle, most colleges are guilty of asking the question, “Are you still interested in us?” The real question colleges should ask is, “At this point, has any college captured your emotional commitment?”

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. For more information about Longmire and Company’s Yield Enhancement tool click here. [Subscribe to Versions of Conversion today so you don’t miss any of this highly-valuable information.]

RHL_Photo_100x100 Bob Longmire is President of Longmire and Company, Inc. He is a recognized expert on the topic of how prospective students and parents form their college selection decisions – and how colleges can use that knowledge to grow and control their enrollment. He can be reached at (913) 492-1265, ext 709 or at blongmire@longmire-co.com.

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

Tags: admission counselor training admissions admissions counselors admissions success college enrollment college recruiting college recruitment enrollment management higher education marketing longmire and company Longmire and Company study yield enhancement

The Counselor Training Series: Are You Adding Stress for Your Prospective Students?

December 18th, 2014

[In part 11 of the Counselor Training Blog Series we look at how a college can differentiate itself by relieving some of their prospective students’ stress.]

CounselorTrainingSeries270x150 Deciding which college to attend is a stressful process for many students and parents.

Who would think that a college would ADD anxiety to an inherently stressful process? No college would do so intentionally, but as an industry, we do it all the time.

Through our pre-enrollment research, we communicate with hundreds of thousands of prospective students and parents every year. Here are the 6 stress-inducing actions most often cited about the college admission’s industry:

That we communicate poorly
That we’re slow to offer or reject admission
That we have burdensome processes
That admissions people are not responsive
We are poorly organized, and
In some cases, they believe we’re being DISHONEST

Ouch!!!

Are you ready for some good news? Since these things happen more than you can imagine, it gives us an opportunity to differentiate ourselves by doing the opposite. You can differentiate your institution by RELIEVING, rather than ADDING, stress to the college selection process.

Here’s how.

Based on our research, this is what students and parents say you can do to relieve their stress and anxiety during the college selection process:

Communicate well. They need information that’s relevant to THEM.
Provide helpful advice and counsel throughout the college shopping process.
BE RESPONSIVE. Return calls and emails promptly.
Make decisions promptly.
Treat each prospective student as you would expect and hope to be treated.
Above all, show a sincere interest in the student.

These may seem obvious, but it’s amazing how many colleges fail to practice these proven behaviors that will serve a prospective student and parent well. And, it’s not isolated to the admissions office. It extends to every department on campus.

A recent national study we conducted on this topic revealed that colleges are LOSING enrollments because of the poor customer service they deliver during the college shopping process. Students and parents see the service they get pre-enrollment as predictive of what they would get IF they enroll. (See the report here.)

So, think about the pre-enrollment service you are giving. If you make it better – campus-wide – you’ll be more successful in your enrollment efforts.

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. For more information about Longmire and Company’s Interactive Counselor Training Program, click here.

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

Rick 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, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Customer service, Organizational development, Parents, Research

Tags: admission counselor training admissions admissions counselors admissions customer service admissions success college presidents college recruiting enrollment management higher education marketing longmire and company Longmire and Company study staff training yield enhancement

The Counselor Training Series: Tap into the Excitement Factor

December 16th, 2014

[In part 10 of the Counselor Training Blog Series we look at how a prospective student’s excitement about attending your college influences their final decision.]

Research shows that when a student is in the process of selecting a college, three factors generally come into play:

Cost, perceived quality of the institution, and his or her excitement about attending.

Most students consider each of these factors important but the key question is, which factor is the most important?

CounselorTrainingSeries270x150 So I ask you, which one of these factors do you think is most predictive of enrollment?

If you said excitement, you’re right. The single factor that is most strongly correlated to likelihood of enrollment is the student’s excitement about attending. It’s more strongly correlated to enrollment – by a factor of two – than either cost or perceived quality of the college.

It makes perfect sense.

How many of us have bought something that our rational brain was telling us we shouldn’t buy because it’s too expensive? But we bought it anyway because we just had to have it. The excitement of owning it, using it, or wearing it was the most powerful force that drove our action to buy.

The same holds true for students in selecting a college.

Research shows that when students are faced with a choice of colleges that they perceive to be generally alike (believe me this happens more frequently than we’d like to admit), they will choose the one they are most excited about. They will naturally find ways to rationalize away a higher cost or lower perceived quality.

Colleges and counselors that are most successful at recruiting are masters of understanding each prospective student and generating their excitement.

They uncover what the student wants and how they will feel if they get it. They put prospective students in the environments and with the people who are most likely to create that spark of excitement, that “aha” moment when the student not only knows but FEELS that they have found their college.

So, when you’re recruiting students, don’t just find out what they want. Find out what will make them feel that your college is the right choice for them. Find out what will excite them.

Recently, over 40 colleges participated in a comprehensive national co-sponsored study on this very topic conducted by Longmire and Company. The results of the study have yielded clear findings on how student excitement develops about a particular college and the role that the college plays in its development.

If you would like a copy of the full report as soon as it is released you can CLICK HERE to send us an e-mail to put you on the distribution list. I promise you will find it enlightening and extremely valuable.

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. For more information about Longmire and Company’s Interactive Counselor Training Program, click here.

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

Karen 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.