In practice

Improving service to traditional students and students-at-a-distance with technology and training

Brad Johnson, Ed.D.

The institution I serve entered its accreditation self-study with confidence that its services were of the highest quality. Imagine our shock as we realized the expectation of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) that we, as an institution with significant online course offerings, must deliver all student services to any enrolled student, regardless of their ability to visit our campus.

Considering the challenge
Prior to that epiphany, we had posted instructions on our Web site explaining how students obtained services and considered the students served. The SACS requirement seemed unattainable. "How crazy is that?" we thought. We're supposed to deliver orientation, library, bookstore, registration, payments, and financial aid to students-at-a-distance? We could imagine what those services might be like, having utilized e-commerce services with businesses. But how would we tutor students or advise and counsel them? They need help with a variety of issues, including computer and Internet problems, troubleshooting software issues with the WebCT^® platform, accessibility services, signing up for graduation or membership in honor societies, and finding student jobs (the list is long).

Evaluating existing best practices
Fortunately, we had experience with the use of a call center, instituted in 2001 to serve prospective students (Johnson and Stick 2003). The addition of the call center to provide services to prospects (not to telemarket to them) was instrumental in increasing our scholarship applications 67 percent in the first year and raising enrollment by 22 percent over the next four years. The reasons for these strong results were:

• Trained and motivated staff responding to prospects' needs,
• Dramatic improvement in quality and accuracy of information provided to prospects,
• Feedback to the college about needed improvements, and
• Catalyst for change through the centralization of information and services.

Given such positive results in the recruitment arena, it was natural the college would consider this approach in the broader student services area when the SACS challenge arose. (I should note that many at the college were already convinced a serious expansion of services to "students-at-a-distance" was needed.) We are presently implementing a student services call center with the expressed mission to provide access to all student services regardless of the geographic location of the student or the time of day when he or she wants assistance.

Elements of success with call centers
What is necessary to make a call center work? There are likely some unique issues which depend on the circumstances of the particular school. However, the following are necessary to make any services call center successful:

1. Create absolute commitment from the top of the organization that the call center staff will have absolute authority and tools to accomplish their job.
   The old paradigms must die for new ones to take hold.
2. Reject the referral-model in favor of the services-model.
   In reality, everyone must understand it is the call center's job to take care of the needs of the student at the time of the call, without the requirement to refer calls to a "knowledge expert." While it takes time to accomplish this, it must be the goal and expectation from the beginning, or else we will simply create another point at which students with needs will be transferred in an endless game of "pass the buck."
3. Reject the myth that some things cannot be done without the student's presence on campus.
   The telephone has been a wonderful tool for providing service for many years. With the addition of e-mail, live chat, Internet, and Web pages, we have a myriad of possibilities for meeting students' needs. The obstacles of the past are being removed.
   
   For example, student identities can be validated in a number of widely accepted ways, such as by using identification numbers and passwords, or by verifying particular secure information, streaming video, Web portals, and content management systems, along with many other technological tools. These all provide unimagined possibilities for meeting student needs.
   
   What is necessary for a call center to work is that key administrators should insist that good answers be identified. Then, call centers should be provided sufficient resources to enable them to constantly improve their delivery of student services.
4. Invest in high-quality supervisory staff.
   While the line staff of call centers may not be compensated as highly as the faculty and professional staff who previously provided similar services, those responsible for the call center's success must have strong technology and customer service skills. They do not have to be "geeks," but they do have to understand how information is managed in a digital age.
   
   A call center is an "intelligence center" with information flowing in and out from all across this complex organism we call a college. Supervisors in a call center must design new processes and troubleshoot existing systems when they fail — both of which are complex tasks. Additionally, they will also be required to understand the mysterious world of "academia" with its puzzling rules and government regulations.
   
   Call center supervisors must be capable of putting in place a new center where there has not been one in the past. This task is difficult, but it is absolutely critical to the success of the call center. Find the right person, pay them well, and let them go to work!
5. Take advantage of "convergence" — the current and rapid evolution of separated technologies into seamless experiences.
   The most high-profile example of this right now is the merging of the home computer, cell phone, personal data assistant (PDA), and camera into a single tool. But with a call center, we have the opportunity to bring together other tools which we already possess in rudimentary fashion. These include staff, telephones, student information system (SIS), other databases, the Internet, and the college Web site. By thinking of these separate resources as tools to merge, it is possible to imagine accomplishing the mandate we mentioned at the beginning — to provide all services to students-at-a distance.

Envisioning the results
My purpose here is not to lay out an approach to implementing a student services call center, but rather to open the mind to the exciting possibilities. To do that, let me suggest a couple of examples of how this might work.

• The distance education student
  John is taking his first online class and develops some technical problems with his login. John calls the college. The call center staff member, with training and access to the SIS, can troubleshoot the problems with the student, verify the College's system is working properly (no reported problems from IT), and eventually determine it is necessary to reset the student's password.
  
  While on the phone, the call center staff member can verify that the student is in the right major, update personal information including phone number, email address, and mailing address. At the end of the conversation, the staff member might request that the student answer two quick marketing-related questions about a College television ad running on local stations.
  
  In this example, the needs of the student to get immediate access to his online class have been met, along with the needs of the college to have current, accurate information in its SIS. Also, the marketing people are getting feedback about the thousands of dollars being spent to influence the college's image in the community.
• The traditional student (someone coming on campus to take a course)
  Sarah is taking courses at a community college with the intention of transferring to the nearby university. She is trying to register for her next semester but has missed her advisor twice and now is frustrated.
  
  Sarah contacts the call center for help and speaks to the advisor-on-duty. The advisor checks the notes from Sarah's previous visits with advisors. Although the advisor-on-duty is not a specialist in transfer issues, he is able to access a conversion table on the college's Web site that shows how his college's courses articulate at the university. He also checks a "Frequently Asked Questions" page and discovers a subtle advising issue for students transferring into Sarah's major at the university.
  
  He passes this information on to Sarah and grants her permission to enroll. At the same time, he informs Sarah of the availability of the advising help online, and she goes to the site with him to review the pages. Now, Sarah can self-serve for much of her advising needs in the future. But if she wants, she can still call the center or visit an advisor on campus. She can get service as she wishes and when she needs it.
• Considering existing service delivery online
  One might ask, "Is a call center necessary when all services can be delivered through the Internet?" My answer is to ask, "What do you want from the businesses and institutions with which you interact?"
  
  I consider myself to be a big fan of Internet services. I regularly purchase items on the Web, file my own taxes, submit rebates online for products I've purchased, and anything else I can do. But when I need something now and am not sure how to do it — I pick up the phone or send an e-mail message. I do not always know the right terms to find something on complex Web sites. Sometimes the Web is not working or a link is broken. Or I'm just not next to an Internet connection but I have my cell phone. My point is that I do not believe the need for services via phone or in person will ever go away. I believe we are demanding more, not just different, ways to get things done.
  
  I hope I have sparked an interest in this model for service provision. The improvements in services to students would be immense, and the changes sparked in institutions would be profound.

Reference
Johnson, Bradley & Sheldon Stick (2003) Application of Strategic Planning to Enrollment in a Community College, The SACRAO Journal, vol. 16.

About the author
Dr. Brad Johnson is Dean of College Advancement for Amarillo College, where he previously served as Director of Enrollment Management. As Director of Enrollment Management, Brad had served on the Strategic Enrollment Management Standing Committee and the SEM Program Committee for the Texas Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers (TACRAO). Brad can be reached at (806) 371-5108, or by sending an e-mail message to johnson-bw@actx.edu.

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