When I was teaching user experience to undergraduate students, I asked them to think about three brands they felt connected to and three brands they did not like. The goal was to discuss what makes brands more favorable than others and connect their perceptions with the overall customer experience these brands offered. But something unexpected happened. One of my students mentioned our university as a brand she did not like.
How do your back-end processes affect the student experience?
During our exchange, the student said that while she was more than happy with the university's academic offering and career preparation, it was highly frustrating that the administrative requests took a long time. This observation resonated with other students in my class, who agreed with this point: delayed response times are frustrating. During their time at universities, students submit several administrative requests like housing, financial aid, course enrollment, grade changes, and others. When requests take a long time, the overall student experience is affected, and over time, this poorly influences their engagement. This situation is especially true when a request is needed to proceed with other activities; for instance, a delay in the result of a financial aid request is frustrating as it determines the financial planning for the coming months.We moved into a valuable discussion about what it means to serve a stellar customer experience in higher ed.
What is the customer experience in higher ed?
In simple terms, customer experience is defined by how well your university can deliver your value proposition. Most students feel the ultimate value proposition of a college or university lies in the caliber of qualifications they receive for future employment opportunities. But getting there is a long journey. The customer experience starts with marketing initiatives and recruitment. It continues into the application process. Even after you admit a student, the experience continues on, extending into touch points like student services. In each stage, the quality of the interactions influences the customer experience. If you succeed in each step with minimal frustration for your students—! You’ve delivered an outstanding customer experience. In the book , recognized the active part of students in the overall process and stated: “It is what he does that he learns, not what the teacher does.” A student’s own engagement plays a relevant role in preparing for future employment opportunities. In higher ed, keeping students engaged involves years of small processes that build into a positive customer experience. Each process—be it a request to transfer credits or add/drop a course—can boost or weaken the customer experience. Long wait times and frustrating red tape dwindle student engagement.So how can you build a winning experience time and time again? Any higher ed value proposition requires one key thing: efficient and flexible processes to streamline interpersonal interactions and touch points with students.
