Consumer Behavior and Its Impact on Higher Education
Students view themselves as customers and have high expectations for the service they receive, right from their first contact point with the school, through course registration and beyond. Students have the same service expectations when selecting a higher education institution as they do when making any other major purchase. Just as they would for any other high-priced item, today’s learners search for education providers using the Internet, demand immediate access to information and expect to interact and enroll on their own timeline.
Institutions need to understand that buying (or enrolling) is no longer a linear process. This is true in nearly every industry and higher education is no exception. In 2011, Google coined the acronym ZMOT, or Zero Moment of Truth, which refers to the way the Internet has fundamentally changed the buying cycle. The traditional buying cycle is highly linear and requires personal contact between the prospective buyer and seller. Now, before ever making contact, prospective buyers can gather all sorts of information and even make a decision on the product or service they wish to purchase. Further, buyers can jump in and out of the buying cycle and skip backwards and forwards based on their own preferences and needs.
Changes in the higher education industry only amplify the changes seen in other industries. When the majority of students were traditional, their buying cycle (or enrollment cycle) was extremely standardized and was based around their high school graduation date. Based on this one piece of information, colleges and universities could pinpoint exactly where a student sat in their lead funnel and could easily target materials.
Driving Revenue Through Student Information System Software
Now, however, nearly three-quarters of students are non-traditional and attracting them requires a much different approach. Today’s non-traditional students are demanding high levels of customer service from their higher education institutions. As a result, market-leading schools are treating their students as consumers and striving to meet their needs in a cost-effective manner. It would be nearly impossible (and incredibly expensive) to meet student expectations with one-off manual processes. Instead, schools can use a customer-centric student information system to create an automated and expedited enrollment funnel that gives students self-service capabilities, but also gives staff the right information to create high-touch customer service interactions.
A student information system acts as the hub for a non-linear buying cycle and makes every step as engaging and personalized as possible by offering prospective students the information and the tools they need as they jump in and out of their buying cycle. The idea is to use a high-tech approach that automates simple tasks so that staff can spend their time giving learners and prospective learners high-touch service and an engaging customer experience.
In today’s competitive higher education landscape, institutions must take advantage of every opportunity to grow their business and improve their student service, before, during, and after registration. Institutions that understand their non-traditional students and provide them with rapid and personalized service stand to increase enrollments and improve retention.
Destiny One is the only student information system that puts learner engagement first. Crafted specifically for continuing education extensions, professional development divisions, international programs, online schools, and other units that support non-traditional students, Destiny One is used by top institutions across the U.S. and Canada to enable the business excellence needed to support growth and foster world-class customer engagement with learners.