The ProRetention™ helpdesk provides student provides a guiding hand to college students. From the moment an application is made to the time a student graduates the ProRetention™ helpdesk gives all the help that may be necessary. The helpdesk also makes outbound calls/emails to students to hand-hold them through their academic journey. We can either engage in a consulting assignment with your school to set up this team or you may outsource the helpdesk to us. The role of Retention Service Desk is to work alongside with your staff for the sole purpose of enhancing student retention and strengthening your brand equity.
The Retention Service Desk(RSD) comes into play the moment a lead becomes an application and serves an important role throughout a student's academic tenure. The RSD functions on the basis of a custom-built calendar of activities. Its primary goals are student comfort and speedy resolution of issues. Representatives of RSD proactively call and e-mail students even before their academic careers begin and keep in touch with them throughout their tenure at the university. These touch points are determined in consultation with the University.
RSD begins to work by welcoming students, and helps them with administrative assistance they may need to deal with transcripts, financial aid etc. RSD does demos of online LMS and also offers tips for academic success. RSD maintains continual contact with students and builds a culture of encouragement for them to keep pace. RSD also becomes a user department of ProRetention™.
RSD plays a crucial role in closely monitoring students, who are likely to drop out. Using triggers which are custom built in ProRetention™ to identify the nature of risk, RSD graduation coaches set-out alerts to student retention managers for timely response.
QuScient's higher education consulting team assist universities in either setting up in-house retention helpdesk or in operating a full-fledged QuScient managed helpdesk.
Establishing the RSD requires a Process Study phase by our team of Subject Matter Experts. Every college has a unique set of practices and students with different problems.
Our experts will thoroughly understand your specific needs and your priority problem areas.
The objectives of the process study are:
- Understand your work culture
- Get a ‘buy in’ from your team for this new retention initiative
- Establish our team as an integral part of your team
- Set Service Level Agreements for us to meet
The period from Application to Class Start is a crucial period of a student’s life cycle in the university. This is also the most vulnerable period when students may just not be available to enroll.
The RSD touch points are all custom-tailored to meet the needs of a particular college or university. These pro-active touch points by the Retention Desk during this period will help identify
- Students who are confused and may be seeking other options
- They may have many doubts and issues about college enrollment procedure, and may need hand-holding
- They may have issues with the university’s responsiveness and could be students at-risk
- They may be students who just submitted applications but were not serious about starting class
- Students may be nervous about online college
- They may just be students who need more counseling to enroll
The RSD adds new touch points based on the constantly evolving needs of a University, both for Online and Campus universities. This raises the bar on student service and eventually results in student delight and increased retention. ProRetention™ features are used extensively to drive these activities. The entire set of activities for each student is mapped in ProRetention™ and an automated alert makes sure that no planned activity is missed for any particular student.
The Retention Desk can in those cases, help the students resolve issues by raising problem tickets in ProRetention™, to Enrollment Counselors (or) other appropriate department.
Once the classes begin, the more important problems become academics related, or issues with settling down in the area. The RSD will execute a comprehensive touch point program during the first two terms, which is probably the most vulnerable period for a new student. Research indicates that a student, who gets beyond this period more often than not, will graduate successfully. This touch points could be motivational articles, course related write-ups, mid-course surveys, academic feedbacks (strictly to be passed on to the faculty specialists), college online/campus events, publicize online community etc. During these touch points, students at risk will be identified. The mass communication feature of ProRetention™ helps to send emails to specific groups, receive RSVPs, and even text messages.
A student can use the ProRetention™ Portal to raise his own tickets, answer surveys and become a part of his subject specific or general online community.
In addition to proactive outbound touch points, a 24/7 inbound service phone line will be available for students to raise queries or issues. The agent who receives the calls will solve Level 1 problems for the students and escalate other issues by raising a ticket on the appropriate department in the University. This line can also be optionally a ‘chat’ service.
Because this happens 24/7, the university will do well to make this number available to student prospects. RSD agents can take down the lead information and make sure that a prospective student is converted. This can be a great value addition to the university: increased revenues and enhanced service to prospective students.
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