The kickoff of the college football season is an important milestone for institutions across the country. Not necessarily because of televised games, tailgating, and marquee match-ups, but rather it’s an indicator that higher education professionals have survived the fall semester onslaught.
Think about all the administrative support services involved in the student “onboarding process” on your campus: information technology, admissions, financial aid, student accounts, housing, and so on. From getting new freshmen moved onto campus to last minute admissions and registering student stragglers, from completing financial aid arrangements to getting student accounts in order with the Bursar’s Office, the August to early September timeframe is not only high-stress for families, students, and institutional staff, but high-risk as well.
Consider the following example:
Last month, I noticed some announcements from one university experiencing registration problems. In fact, the institution was working to restore registration data that was lost due to an institutional server problem. Clearly, the fall semester crush is not the best time for this to happen. But life is not perfect, and things happen. It’s how we react to problems that’s important.
What was striking to me about this particular situation was how the institution chose to respond. An online press release, picked up by local media, stated the following:
“The university is asking students not to call the school at this time. Questions should be sent to XXXX@anywherecollege.edu, and they will be referred to the appropriate office.”
Wow.
Can you imagine your bank losing your financial data and then asking you not to call them?
Of course not. Then why is this message okay for students?
In an attempt to offer an alternative option, the message say that students can send their questions to a generic (probably full) email address to be routed to the appropriate office. What this more likely means, however, is, “we will forward your questions to another busy office on campus that may or may not respond.”
As our CEO Bill Bradfield writes, “customers value how they are made to feel … most of us would agree from personal experience—a restaurant, the Apple store, your car service place—it is not just about price and quality, it is about how delighted we are with the service experience.”
The past 30 years have yielded a small library of research on student retention, including its causes and solutions. And though much of this work is focused on academic and social variables, it is time to acknowledge the role of the student ”onboarding” experience.
Administrative support functions have an impact on your new and returning students. And while we may not like to think of our students as customers, they spend the majority of their lives as consumers, so they may not see the difference. The question becomes how to add value to these critical functions going forward.
In football, establishing a strong ground game is highly correlated with winning. Kick off your semester by establishing student support as a strategic institutional priority.
Institutional citation: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/texas-130159-registration-university.html
