STEPPING INTO THE CLOUD

Robyn ShawStudent Connections DeptVictoria University

April 2010

A FAIRYTALE OR AN EPIC ADVENTURE?

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY

• Amongst the largest and culturally diverse educational institutions in Australia

• One of five multi-sector universities offering TAFE and HE courses

• VU attracts nearly 12,000 international students

• Total student body of more than 47,000

• At 2009 almost 3,000 staff comprised of research, teaching and general staff

MAKING VU

Making VU was a major initiative that commenced in 2006. This program was guided by five commitments:

Commitment 1: CollaborationTo focus on 12 industry and community clusters in which VU has strong education and research capabilities and align them more effectively with future needs, with input from roundtables chaired by prominent industry and community leaders.

Commitment 2: Career To make at least 25% learning in the workplace and community a universal feature of VU courses.

MAKING VU

Commitment 3: ChoicesTo provide students with the ability to customise their learning experience around course choice and learning support to best meet their current needs and future demands

Commitment 4: ConnectedTo reshape VU vocational and workplace education for the greater benefit of students and for connecting enterprises with the workforce development services they require to upskill and reskill their existing workers

MAKING VU

Commitment 5: CommunityTo resource three initiatives for a better life in Melbourne’s western suburbs and to share this knowledge with other communities in Australia or overseas that may face similar challenges.

STUDENT CONNECTIONS DEPT

The Student Connections Department has approximately 100 staff members. The Department is responsible for:

• Admissions• Enrolments• Fees• Student Records• Assessments• Graduations• Student Systems and Reporting• Student Service Centres (9)• Student Contact Centre

STUDENT CONNECTIONS DEPT

The paper I am presenting will focus on the quality improvement activities within the Student Contact Centre

• SCC comprises of 4 FTE staff members• Casuals and Students as Staff at various peak times• SCD employ over 60 students for various activities• Commenced rotating staff from other sections within the Department

STUDENT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT TOOL

Our existing Student Relationship Management tool is powered by RightNow.

• In place for approx 5 years, two interfaces developed:

• ASKVU – current students. • GOTOVU – prospective students

• Marketing module purchased for our Media and Communications Department

STUDENT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT TOOL

• Used as a repository for FAQs and not much more.• Product was capable, but our vision was limited• At that time 1 staff member employed to be Content Manager,

Publisher and System Administrator. SCC Manager assumed a quasi technical role

• Restructure impetus for change

STUDENT CONTACT CENTRE STAFF

• As a result of a restructure within the SCD many Contact Officers were drawn from various parts of the Department

• Many with no previous Contact Centre experience• No knowledge of SRM or its capabilities• Not encouraged to learn• Not encouraged to build a relationship with students• No targeted training.• Train the trainer

THE STUDENT CONNECTIONS DEPT VISION

The issue of how we communicate with students was one that had been gaining momentum for sometime within the Department.

At the time of restructure, a vision was slowly forming about how we how we could communicate with our students, that VU students should be able to contact us when, where and how they wanted, and that we would have our staff members equipped to answer their queries and problems professionally and efficiently

THE STUDENT CONNECTIONS DEPT VISION

We envisage various channels of contact being used that includes:face-to-face, telephone, web, social networks, mobile technology, chat.

Furthermore, that this will be done within hours of operation that is most suitable to our students.

THE STUDENT CONNECTIONS DEPT VISION

We recognise that there is much that we could do to improve our processes and importantly we now had a vision of what could be.

• Decision made to rethink the SRM position• Consequently new position created – Web and Communications

Officer. This position oversees knowledge database and ensures accuracy and timeliness of answers. Also a major role in measuring SRM quality and general communications to students

• Due to staff transfers we could now review 2 current PDs to include a focus on the technical aspects of the SRM.

• Web and Communications Officer, Systems Administrator, Systems co-ordinator and myself are ‘cross’ department SRM team

LOOKING BACK

It should be acknowledged that the improvements we have implemented to date have been largely unfunded. We rely on the good will and eagerness of the SRM team members. Our Director has been untiring in her efforts to champion the system and the Department as a whole

LOOKING BACK

• First initiative was to commence writing notes on the SRM in respect to what our future students were calling about

• In consultation with MCD we developed scripts and workspaces for Contact Officers to use when dealing with prospective students. Workspaces included fields for:

• Personal details• Reason for calling, e.g. Course enquiry, brochures, fees etc.• Details of how the call was handled, was the question answered, was the call

transferred, who was the call transferred to• Notes from the conversation

LOOKING BACK

• Shortly thereafter we commenced collecting data on what our current students were asking for:

• Fields collected include:

• Personal details• What was the nature of the students call, e.g. Enrolments, fees, graduation

etc.• How was the call handled, e.g. Did the Contact Officer answer the

question/resolve the problem, was the call transferred, who was the call transferred to

• Notes of the conversation with the student

REPORTING

REPORTING

REPORTING

LOOKING BACK

• VUSIS (the University SMS) is unable to ‘talk’ to most external systems

• Contact Officers manually enter in details of the student

• Good news is that we are implementing Callista during 2010

• Hopeful that in 2011/12 a project will be created to integrate RightNow and Callista

• Eventual integration of the VU telephone system, Cisco

UPGRADE OF SRM

In January this year, the SRM was upgraded to a newer version. This version now allows us to increase the channels that we communicate with students. We now have available to us the following tools:

• Chat• Co-browse• Social networking• Cloud monitor

Each one of the tools that are available presents its own challenges and benefits. I’ll address each of these separately.

CHATOur current SCC staffing levels are not adequate to cope with the further addition Chat. The reality is also that our skill sets need to be developed to support ‘chat’. Some further considerations are:

• Identify or recruit a ‘chat’ champion• develop a set of guidelines/procedures that clearly outlines how we

use chat, • research the hours that our students may want to use chat• considerations of HR aspects of a type of ‘shift’ arrangements for staff• Communicating to students in respect to the ‘chat’ channel• Measuring the success and reviewing any ‘chat’ pilot

At this time, SCD are considering commencing a pilot late May 2010.

CO-BROWSE

Co-browse will allow an operator, with the student’s permission, to take over a computer to assist the student with problems associated with the screen in front of them.

With the implementation of Callista in 2010, it is expected that the Student Contact Centre will see a large number of students ringing for assistance in respect to on-line enrolment. We anticipate that co-browse will assist a number of our students if they wish to allow this function.

CO-BROWSEAgain, there are considerations to this type of communication that include:

• Skill set development – equipping our operators to communicate effectively with domestic and international students.

• The question of resourcing. How many operators will operate co-browse?

• Hours of operation for co-browse• The need to develop guidelines/procedures that clearly outline how we

use co-browse• Research the issues of privacy – what are they in respect to co-

browsing?• Timelines for implementation – should we release alongside the launch

of on-line enrolment to students?• Measuring the success and reviewing co-browse

SOCIAL NETWORK

A feature of our current upgrade is the capacity to create our own social networking site. There is currently a plethora of social network pages that are associated with Victoria University in a variety of ways. Some of these include VU sporting associations, individual faculties (both HE and VE/FE), Alumni and various other interests. There are many and varied ways for students to discuss what’s on their mind, so we have no plans to create yet another area that is already plentiful out in the Cloud.

CLOUD MONITORWe now have the ability to hear what some of our students might be saying about us in the social networking arena, whether it is positive or negative by using the cloud monitoring tool.

In the past couple of months, we have stepped gently by placing our toe into the ‘cloud’ and have used this tool to seek any ‘conversations’ about VU. By monitoring social networking sites, we consider that this will enable us to be more proactive with our relationships with students. For too long we have been reactive to the needs of our students, this tool now provides us with a proactive means in engaging with our students in a positive and strategic way.

BRINGING OTHERS ALONG

• 2009 SCD approached by TAFE division to pilot SRM in two VE schools

• Resources were stretched, particularly technical• Towards the end of 2009 TAFE secured funding to rollout the SRM to

8 schools.• VU College secured funding to 5 schools• 13 schools in total• Preparations are currently underway. Possible rollout June/July• Recent addition of using SRM to receive feedback from students

WHAT WILL THE FUTURE BRING? IMPROVED CUSTOMER SERVICE

• SCC underwent a review by RightNow in respect to the operations and its synergy with the SRM

• Recommendations included:

• Improve our customer service• Look to enhance the student experience• Improve training and induction for Contact Officers• Better use the current analytics that the system provides• Improved use of agents workspaces• Emphasis the knowledge database to VU staff

• More recently CSBA Benchmarking exercise, results released at ATEM Conference

WHAT WILL THE FUTURE BRING? MEASURE PROGRESS - ANALYTICS

• Only been recent times that we commenced measuring our progress• We will continue to measure and monitor key factors including:

• What information our students are asking• When they seek information• Is the information they are receiving answering their questions• Our turnaround times for answering student queries

• Weekly scheduled reports will continue, however we need to review the reports and consider what is best for strategic planning purposes.

WHAT WILL THE FUTURE BRING? STRATEGIC USE OF OUR WEBSITE

In the past two years, the VU website has undergone a major redesign. Unfortunately, for various reasons, consultation in respect to developing a strategic connection to the VU SRM did not occur. It is our vision to work within the VU website so that students can reach the knowledge database at the click of a mouse. It is an ambition to create and embed ‘widgets’ that link to our knowledge database within pages of the VU public website.

• With the proposed (and inevitable) use of ‘chat’ as an additional communication tool, it is sensible to place access to this within the website.

• The additional data that could be gleaned from linking the SRM and the website provides a very powerful analytical and information opportunities.

CHALLENGES FOR PROGRESS

• One of the largest challenges for this ‘program’ of projects will be the limited funds and resources that are currently available to us. A definite risk is that we are depending on the skills and good will of people within the SRM team as well as the Contact Centre to continue to be just as enthusiastic even though we will be asking them to do more within their existing positions

• As the attributes of the SRM become more widely recognised, the pressure will be on the Department to further roll it out. Apart from the resourcing issues, we will need to keep a keen eye on ensuring that we ‘don’t bite off more than we can chew’, but at the same time, doing so, in a way that will not place a barrier to further progress

CHALLENGES FOR PROGRESS

• Change fatigue that inevitably leads to resistance to change will be something that needs to be effectively managed. University initiatives such as VU Sustainability and more recently the Jobs at VU: Our Workforce Future may lead to the perception by Department staff that their positions are once again under threat.

• Compounding all of the above is the impending implementation of Callista and the expected additional pressures on staff members

• Furthermore, we are essentially engineering a cultural change in the way that we will wish our Contact Officers to communicate with our students and staff. This could potentially place the Department in a volatile position.

CHALLENGES FOR PROGRESS

• Up-skilling and training of our staff members will need to be carefully planned and implemented. Questions we need to consider include; What skills do we need to develop in a post Callista world? What skills will Contact Officers need to relate to students in the ‘cloud’, can we train or recruit for this?

• A further complicating matter is that we recognise that there will need to be a Department restructure to meet the needs of the University now and into the near future. As a result of all these changes, we openly acknowledge that the Department will not look the same in twelve months time.

CONCLUSION• Student Connections Department is ‘stepping into the cloud’ in a

couple of ways. One is that we are stepping into a virtual world that has limitless promise of what is possible; a very exciting and challenging time lies ahead.

• The second is that, as a Department, we are stepping into the unknown with many of our initiatives; we haven’t done this before, we are learning from our experiences and those of others who have ventured into the often murky realms of the cloud

• The projects we have identified are realistic and achievable. They need a very strategic and well planned approach to achieve successful outcomes for the University. The momentum to use the SRM across the University is gaining and as a University we will need to keep up with our student and staff demands and expectations of service.