The UK’s European University: Supporting New and Existing Students

The University of Kent originated in 1965 when the first 500 students enrolled. Fast forward to December 2018 where the establishment admitted 5,380 new undergraduates and 2,375 new post-graduates; bringing their total number of students just shy of 20,000. That’s a lot of people to organise!

This falls down to the university’s Medway Student Administration Office, who help with anything from a new student getting started to providing exam information to existing students etc.

The office approached Click4Assistance in 2015 looking to add live chat software as another method of contact on their webpages.

Their student administration manager who was part of the implementation commented “Really good customer service. Helpful throughout! Thanks” this was elaborated by the university’s senior specialist systems supervisor who stated “The initial support to set up the chat service was amazing. We were guided through all of the process. Since then the support has again been amazing and there is no intermitting service, at all. Thank you so much.”

Handling Student Enquiries

The communication channel was made available to students in 2016, who can easily ask as many questions as they need help with. This includes:

• Choosing/changing modules
• Venue and timetable information for exams
• Finding out what they can do if they miss a deadline etc.

These are just some of the enquiries that a student administration office would deal with. Live chat software makes responding to these questions easier than over the phone or via email, due to the ability of the instant communication channel and the functionality available.

Links can be sent during the chat session, allowing the student to quickly access the relating information such as a form. Alternatively, these pages can be sent via the system that automatically navigates the enquirer’s browser to the relevant page on the website.

File transfer is also available for any documents that need to be sent over to the student. This allows the advisor to confirm receipt of the information instantly, rather than bouncing several emails.

Live chat software is great for managing high volumes of enquiries that can occur when a new intake of students are enrolled, or during exam season. An agent can handle multiple chats at any one time, increasing their productivity.

The advisors can see what the visitor is writing in real-time as they compose their message, allowing the agent to pre-empt what they are going to be asked and provides them with time to think of their response.  A library of predefined replies is accessible to the user, enabling them to select from a pre-agreed list of answers to frequently asked questions.

Text-Based Communication Preferred by Students

Not only is receiving a quick and accurate answer attractive to students, but the type of contact is too. An independent study showed that young people between the ages of 16-24 prefer to communicate via text-based communication rather than traditional methods such as phone.

One of our senior account managers who look after our university clients recently delivered a presentation at the IWMW 2019 conference, sharing why universities experience a high chat uptake rate and why the communication channel is so effective with millennials.

You can view the video below:

*All videos from the conference can be viewed on the IWMW website.

Click4Assistance has been providing live chat software for over 15 years, helping a quarter of the universities in the UK to improve their online channels and services for students. For more information about our university implementations or how we can help your establishment, contact our team by calling 01268 524628 or email theteam@click4assistance.co.uk.

Alternatively, we offer tailored demonstrations and a free 21 day no obligation trial, allowing you to evaluate the software and see how it can benefit your students and staff.