Posts Tagged ‘enrollment’

Don’t Let These 3 Pitfalls Derail Your Enrollment Success

November 17th, 2015

I have been fielding a number of calls this past week from enrollment managers and admission directors who have questions about our blog series on pre-enrollment service delivery. One highly-respected enrollment manager said that five different staffers forwarded a copy of the post to him. “My first reaction was that everyone was searching for a reason outside of their own sphere that would explain some of our enrollment challenges,” he said. “Then, I got honest with myself. We have a great college here, but can we do better? How do we stack up with our competition? Are gaps in service impacting our ability to make our enrollment goals?“

All good questions and we have answers.

Yes, you CAN, and should, provide better pre-and post-enrollment service. The research is very clear: As an industry, higher education ranks behind banks and cell phone service providers for providing exemplary service. Seriously, when was the last time you heard anyone say anything positive about either of those?
Understanding how you compare to the schools that you compete with isn’t just nice to know, it is NEED to know. Our Service Quality Management (SQM) tool offers the ability to compare your service delivery to your direct competitors as well as to institutions across the United States because we have seen the impact that data can make on a college’s enrollment.
And, yes, your pre-enrollment service delivery DOES impact your enrollment. Over half of students and their parents told us that the pre-enrollment service they receive from a college influences their selection decision and 25% of those told us they had eliminated a formerly highly attractive college from consideration on the basis of receiving poor service traced to one or more brand touch points. They also say that service is one of the best ways to differentiate one college from another. The fact is: Prospective students and parents view the pre-enrollment service they receive as predictive of how the student will be served after enrollment. They will avoid colleges that exhibit bad service during the “college shopping” process.

If you are like many admission departments leading the charge to improve the service you provide the students you are recruiting, here are some common pitfalls you want to avoid.

Pitfall # 1: Making assumptions.

If you are relying on gut feel or anecdotal evidence to evaluate your college’s level of service delivery, you are making assumptions that can, and will, derail your enrollment efforts. You are probably familiar with this modern proverb: “When you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME.”

Do This Instead: Measure it so you can manage it.

If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it. First, benchmark your current state. Knowing your service strengths and weaknesses is a critical component. A baseline study will allow you to prioritize which areas need the most work, what should take precedence and which of your strongest attributes you should focus on in your recruiting efforts.

An added bonus, a credible baseline measurement report is a powerful tool to have when you are seeking buy-in from other departments or even your administration.

Need more information about establashing a Baseline Measurement? (Review here.)

Pitfall #2: Falling into the “That’s the way we’ve always done it” trap.

Perhaps you currently gather feedback from prospective and current students in an effort to monitor your student service delivery. But, are you asking the right questions?

For example, most colleges survey students and parents after a visit. Were we friendly? Did we provide the information you needed? Was the tour guide engaging? Did you like our campus and community? What did you like most and least about your visit? What improvements can we make?

These may seem like good questions but they don’t tell you much.

Do This Instead: Ask questions that tell you if your campus visit “moved the student’s needle” in your favor.

The right questions can give you tremendous insight. For example: Did your campus tour guide make you more or less excited about attending? If so, by how much? Why? Did you find the city/community more or less exciting and inviting than other colleges you visited? If so, what made it more or less exciting? To what degree do you feel we took a personal interest in you? Did that make a difference in your desire to enroll here? Did your view of our college change as a result of your visit? If so, how? For better or worse? How can we better show you what your life will be like as a student here?

This just scratches the surface of the range and depth of questions you can ask. Don’t be afraid to ask penetrating questions of students and parents after a visit. Let students and parents know that your purpose is to better serve them, and future students, by gaining a greater understanding.

Pitfall #3: Going it alone.

In our experience, the admissions department naturally takes the lead in the development of a pre-and post-enrollment service plan. But not involving the entire campus is a big mistake.

Do This Instead: Reach out campus-wide.

Colleges and universities that score the highest in pre-enrollment service are those that view prospective students and their parents as important customers. They typically engage every person on campus in a customer service plan with clear and actionable instructions and objectives. Most importantly, they express to each person how key their role is, and offer specific ways they can help the institution improve provide the best possible customer service.

In order for real transformation to occur, every member of every department must be apprised of the plan and committed to creating a more positive experience. Certainly, interactions with faculty, admissions and financial aid are critical, but many schools are surprised to find the impact that campus maintenance, grounds keeping, security and even the switchboard operators can have on establishing an impression. Imagine the institution as a very large rowboat, where each individual rower is moving in harmony with hundreds of other rowers, propelling the craft swiftly and seamlessly through the water. With everyone working toward the same goals, progress will be inevitable, and apparent to your prospects.

The research suggests that for most colleges, improved pre-enrollment service offers an immediate opportunity to differentiate themselves in a highly-competitive marketplace. Best time to start the process? Today!

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.

Rick 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, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Customer service, Organizational development, Worthwhile Reading

Tags: admission counselor training admissions admissions counselors admissions customer service admissions success brand management college college admissions college branding college enrollment college presidents customer service customer service training EMChat enrollment enrollment management finding the right college fit higher ed higher ed marketing higher education branding higher education marketing higher education value longmire and company Longmire and Company study recruiting value proposition yield enhancement

Take this First Step Toward Increasing Yield TODAY

October 20th, 2015

[Part 2 of our Blog Series on the impact of pre- and post-enrollment customer service to increase yield at your college or university.]

In our last post, we shed some light on the pre-enrollment service perception problem – the fact that colleges and universities are losing potential students due to poor service during the courtship phase and the opportunities that exist for institutions to differentiate themselves by focusing on this single factor. Our studies have revealed that multiple factors such as responsiveness, grounds, food service, and interactions with faculty and admissions personnel strongly shape a student’s overall opinion of the institution and ultimately influence their final decision of where to attend.

You may know you need a pre-enrollment customer service improvement initiative, but with so many contributing factors it can be a challenge to know where to start.

Take the First Step: Establish a baseline measurement to determine where you stand now vs. where you need be.

This will be the ground-level metrics that will drive high-level change so it is crucial that you gather insightful information from your prospective students.

According to George Brandt, a Forbes.com contributor and the author of The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan, “It’s frightening how many organizations say they care about customer satisfaction and how many of them are measuring the wrong thing the wrong way and then doing the wrong things with the information anyway.”

Baseline measurement guidelines:

Ask Questions

More specifically, ask the right people the right questions, at the right time. This means you’ll want to keep the channel of communication open and working with prospective students and parents from the first moment of contact.

Cover All the Bases

As for the questions, try to elicit feedback about experiences during all touch points of the process. For example, you may want to include a set of questions about their pre-visit experiences with your department, another set of questions about campus cleanliness and security, another set of questions about follow up, and so on. Most importantly, ask them if you’ve moved their needle. Ask if, because of their experiences with you up to this point, they are more or less inclined to enroll. Give respondents the opportunity to share other thoughts, or open-ended feedback, to help you identify the issues that are most important them.

When we work with colleges to implement Service Quality Management (SQM), we elicit categorized responses. This is the key to helping you determine which initiatives to focus on for maximum impact.

Candor Counts

It can be a challenge to get completely honest input unless you use the services of an outside resource but it is absolutely crucial that you have anonymity built into your surveying efforts. Unless students and parents can be completely candid and not feel that they are burning bridges by being brutally honest with you, the feedback will be useless.

Compare and Contrast

Use the data from your surveys to compare and contrast your institution with others on multiple factors. This will help you identify unique strengths and opportunities where you can stand out from your competitors. At the same time, it can focus your efforts where they will be most effective in the overall marketplace.

This approach was eye-opening for one of our SQM clients who were surprised to discover that scores they interpreted as “satisfactory” were far below the national average for other colleges. And, when their results were compared to those of competitive schools in their area, they were stunned to discover they were way off the mark in a number of key areas. “We expected to identify some areas of improvement,” the enrollment manager told us, “but the administration was shocked to find that our service delivery was impeding enrollment.” The end result? “We have made some simple changes that are making a huge difference already,“ she said.

In our next post, we will continue this conversation with more specific guidelines and tips for helping to improve the level of pre-enrollment service. We want to help colleges seize this opportunity to differentiate and attract more students through better service. Call me if you have questions or need help in taking that all-important first step.

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. For more information about Longmire and Company’s SQM tool and how you can measure and manage your pre-and post-enrollment service delivery, click here. Be sure to 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.

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Posted in Campus Tours, Campus Visits, Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Customer service, Organizational development, Your Value Proposition

Tags: admission counselor training admissions admissions counselors admissions customer service admissions success brand management college college admissions college branding college enrollment college presidents college recruiting college recruitment college yield customer service customer service training EMChat enrollment enrollment management enrollment strategies higher ed higher education strategies higher education value longmire longmire and company Longmire and Company study recruiting staff training value proposition yield yield enhancement

Tools to Create a Championship Admission Team

September 9th, 2015

Last year, our team brainstormed a way to share with the higher-education community at-large some of the unique methods we use to help colleges build powerhouse admission departments. The end result was a series of eleven blog posts, “The Counselor Training Series,” that turned out to be quite the crowd-pleaser making these some of the most popular posts in the history of our blog. Just in case you missed it, or if you’d like to review these winning principles, here is a recap of the series that can help you build a championship staff.

4 Simple Steps to Amp Up Your Recruiting Efforts

At the heart of our highly-successful Interactive Counselor Training Program is a proven model of communication that counselors tell us is transformative. It is simple and effective. Adopt this straightforward method and you will see greater success in your recruitment efforts.

Probing to Uncover Key Information about Prospective Students

The vast majority of counselors don’t cover a sufficient number of topics with a prospective student. We tell you why you must probe and how to do so effectively.

Powerfully Presenting Your College’s Value Proposition

Here’s how you can define your value to students and parents in a truly meaningful way.

Uncover and Break Through Objections and Concerns

We show you how to turn questions, concerns, objections and indifference into conversations that lead to enrollment.

Take this Crucial Step Toward More Productive Conversations with Students

Get the student to take the next logical step on the path to enrolling.

Learn to Differentiate Your College in a Compelling Way

Break out of this trap: The students and parents you’re talking to are hearing the exact same thing from every other college they are considering.

Adopt an Entrepreneurial Approach for Greater Success

Learn this secret from some of the most successful college recruiters in the country. Hint: You can master it, too!

Establishing Goals and Holding Yourself Accountable

Take a page from savvy business builders. Adopt these behaviors into your role as an admission counselor today for immediate results.

Get Out of Your Own Way for Richer Conversations with Students

Step out of your comfort zone and ask questions of students and parents that you have never asked before. The results will surprise you!

Tap into the Excitement Factor

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

Are You Adding Stress for Your Prospective Students?

Here is how you can differentiate your institution by RELIEVING, rather than ADDING, stress to the college selection process.

Interested in taking the next step toward creating a Championship Admission Team? Now is the ideal time to train and motivate your staff. Email or call me if you are interested in how we can help. And, if you want to join a prestigious group of colleges and universities that are exploring the issue of building relationships with prospective students click here for information about of our new co-sponsored study, “The Relationship Dynamic: How prospective students form a relationship with your college, and why it matters in your ability to grow and control 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.

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. Connect with Bob at Linkedin/in/boblongmire.

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Posted in Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Customer service, Organizational development, Research, Worthwhile Reading, Your Value Proposition

Tags: admission counselor training admissions admissions counselors admissions customer service admissions success brand management college college admissions college branding college costs college enrollment college presidents college recruiting college recruitment customer service training EMChat enrollment enrollment management higher ed higher ed marketing higher education strategies higher education value longmire longmire and company Longmire and Company study value proposition yield enhancement

3 Things Prospective Students (and their parents) Want You to Know!

September 1st, 2015

Over the next few months you will have many conversations with prospective students and their parents. What better time to offer you some insights we’ve collected from tens of thousands of students and their parents who have shared their thoughts, feelings and viewpoints on the college selection process with us through our national higher education co-sponsored studies?

Here’s what they want you to know:

“I’ll be judging your service delivery from the first interaction.”

You know that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. In our national co-sponsored study, “Pre-Enrollment Service: How customer service delivery during the recruiting cycle influences enrollment” we found that over 53% of students and parents say the pre-enrollment service they receive from a college influences their selection decision.

They also say that service is one of the best ways to differentiate one college from another. The fact is: Prospective students and parents view the pre-enrollment service they receive as predictive of how the student will be served after enrollment. They will avoid colleges that exhibit bad service during the “college shopping” process.

“Make me feel wanted!”

In our most recent nationally co-sponsored study, “The Excitement Factor!“ we asked 13,000 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.”

Student excitement about a college is enhanced when they perceive that the college has taken a sincere personal interest in them. As a practical matter, the more personal interest you take in a student the more you will find out about his or her unique combination of interests, preferences, desires, anxieties, and aspirations. With that greater understanding you will naturally communicate a unique value proposition. The student will perceive you as unique among their available choices. You will have reached the coveted state of differentiation. With 36% to 42% of students in the public and private pools, respectively, saying that this was influential in their college selection, it underscores the opportunity for colleges to impact enrollment by demonstrating a personal interest in students across every brand touch point of the institution.

“It’s easy for me to see cost. You have to help me understand value.”

Yes, cost is a factor, an important one, in the college decision process. But it may not be the driving force you have assumed it is. Actually, less than 27% of the students in our “Value Proposition” study considered cost to be the overriding factor in their ultimate college selection.

Just what exactly are prospective students considering when they check out your college? In spite of what the media tells us, students are making their college selection decisions based less on outcomes four or five years down the line and more on what they will experience immediately when they step on campus. Job placement after graduation, for example, ranks fifth on the list of things most important to students and parents in selecting a college. It ranks behind academic quality, availability of specific programs and majors, cost of attending, and their feelings about the campus and students.

Only about one-quarter of students indicate that salary after graduation plays an “extremely important” role in their college selection decision. This attitude is pervasive among all students, regardless of intended course of study.

Granted, cost and outcomes may be more top of mind for parents. However, both parents and students agree: the student has substantially more influence on college selection.

If you are looking for a way to distinguish your college from others, take note: Engaging in a detailed and highly personal discussion of value will set you apart. Again, value has many more components than just cost! Shockingly, only 2 in 10 students and parents say that the college they most seriously considered addressed how it plans to maximize the value received over the course of the student’s time there.

The lesson here: More explicit discussions of value and value expectation should take place between prospective students, parents and the colleges they are considering. Admission counselors, financial aid staff, and even faculty should have conversations with students and parents regarding the value they desire and expect to get from the colleges they are considering.

The road to graduation is long and has many twists and turns and it all begins with the college shopping process that students are navigating right now. Your challenge is to remain fully and continually connected with them in order to provide the highest level of personal service in all areas that will influence their realization of the full value your college provides.

We are helping colleges with their recruiting efforts every day. If I can help you please call or shoot me an email. 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.

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, Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Customer service, Parents, Research, Worthwhile Reading, Your Value Proposition

Tags: admission counselor training admissions admissions counselors admissions customer service admissions success brand management college college admissions college branding college costs college enrollment college presidents college recruiting college recruitment cost of college customer service training EMChat enrollment enrollment management finding the right college fit higher ed higher education branding higher education marketing higher education strategies longmire and company Longmire and Company study value proposition yield enhancement