Web Chat Software helps with Juggling in the Recruitment Circus

Last month we discussed the issues faced by the international recruitment teams and the complex nature of guiding foreign students through the application process. This month is dedicated to the senior members of recruitment, outreach and marketing departments as we examine the hurdles they face running an effective operation on strained university resources and how web chat software can help.

Offices that concern themselves with the university’s reputation in the UK and further abroad are faced with a never-ending balancing act; namely dealing with incoming enquiries while also trying to execute perfectly timed outreach and engagement campaigns. At Click4Assistance we work closely with a large number of institutions within the UK sector and understand that acting as Head of Student Recruitment (or a similar role) is not for the faint-hearted. As with any recruitment or marketing role, there are tough deadlines to meet, a limited budget and tasks to be juggled.

It’s likely that most of your recruitment team focuses on participating in a range of UK events with schools and colleges, and works closely in conjunction with UCAS to ensure that your organisation is fairly represented in the competitive academic market. Meanwhile, your outreach team is concerned with raising aspirations and improving attainment amongst local students, running number of initiatives for schools and colleges in your local area. Marketing works hard to tie this all together with a strong online presence and supporting documentation.

Each university office encounters unique hurdles that stand in the way of their success

All these teams are familiar with the term ‘understaffed’ and have a tough time finding enough people to answer phone calls and emails as well as visit schools and colleges. More often than not, it is better to look for a new method than put yourself and your team under more stress. At Click4Assistance we provide web chat software technology that streamlines enquiry handling, boosts student conversion and increases first contact resolution. The single biggest advantage of adding live chat is that a single member of your team can handle multiple student enquiries simultaneously, whereas a phone operator can only cope with one student at a time.

Quality web chat software will include an array of useful functionality

Besides ensuring efficient workload management, senior members are also responsible for managing staff performance, reporting on campaigns and carrying out end-of-year reviews. Juggling these tasks is difficult but can be made simpler through appropriate tools.  For example, performance management is a real challenge if most of your team use phones. You need to either listen in at random intervals or sample from a library of recordings, with neither of these options being particularly efficient or comprehensive. Emails are easier to sample, but you risk missing the full picture if a student uses multiple email accounts or writes a new email rather than responding to a reply from one of your team members. In short, getting the information you need from traditional modes of communication almost isn’t worth the effort. This is why reviews at UK universities are often subjective with very little in the way of an objective metric to measure performance.

At Click4Assistance we understand that the tools used by a departmental office within a university need to provide accountability, which is why our web chat software includes a full reporting suite. If you think integrating chats with your CRM system, conversion tracking and real-time reporting could be useful to you as a leader, then contact one of our University Coordinators for a no-obligation demonstration. Call our UK team on 0845 123 5871, email us at theteam@click4assistance.co.uk or experience chat for yourself at www.click4assistance.co.uk