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Is Web Self-Service Right for You?Published by IntelliResponse

5 Tell-Tale Signs That Your School – And Your Students – Are Ready For Next Generation Web Self-Service

IR KNoWledGe SeRIeS

“Self-Service”–adjective

of, for, or pertaining to something designed to be used or enjoyed without the aid of an attendant.

“Next Generation Web Self-Service”–adjective

of, for or pertaining to technology designed to allow web visitors to receive ANSWERS to their questions over the desktop, mobile and social web, without requiring any interaction with a representative of an institution or organization.

2Is Web Self-Service Right for You?

• Customer Satisfaction

• The ability to provide 24 x 7 accessto information

• Enhancements to the online experience

• Improved loyalty toward your institution

• Reduction in operating costs that result when students are forced to seek answers via calls and emails to your staff

But how do you know when you and your

school are ready for this next generation of web

self-service? Where do you begin, in terms of

diagnosing whether or not it makes sense for you

to explore a web self-service strategy for

your institution?

Read on to find out…

To help you better understand whether or not your school and students would benefit from deploying next generation self-service, we’ve pulled together our knowledge of industry best practices, leading research, and our own analysis of online questions posed to institutions by millions of students across North America. From this, we’ve compiled five telltale signs that your school and your students (current and prospective) are poised to benefit from next generation web self-service.

located at the forefront of today’s increasingly

web-savvy population is the modern student. When

students seek information these days, whether

from a company or an educational institution,

they begin with the Internet. Today’s students are

interacting with, evaluating and comparing schools

often without setting foot on a campus or having a

single human conversation.

Therefore, the experience students have when on

your school’s web site (and other online channels

where your institution may have a presence, such

as social media sites or mobile devices) is often

the first and perhaps only opportunity to provide

the satisfaction that will drive students’ key

education decisions.

despite this truth, frustration and inefficiency

abounds online. Students, on the whole, are

frustrated with the experiences they encounter

when visiting school web-sites. This dissatisfaction

creates an increased number of phone calls and

emails to your admissions staff, and creates

costly one-on-one interactions to answer the most

rudimentary questions.

For many institutions, the “answer” to making the

online experience smoother and more efficient

for students includes deploying the latest multi-

channel self-service tools now available. often

described as answer agents, virtual assistants or

“smart FAQ’s”, this new breed of technology, when

delivered effectively – has significant impact on

critical factors like:

3Is Web Self-Service Right for You?

Telltale Sign #1:The primary service features on your web site are FAQ and help pages and/or a site search tool.

Due to the sheer depth and breadth of information

that is posted on a school’s web-site – including

everything from admissions requirements to

scholarship application procedures to campus maps

– traditional online answer tools like FAQ pages,

“help” and “search” technologies have become

antiquated resources. They are simply no longer

effective at giving students the information they

need in the form of ANSWERS to their questions.

It’s interesting to note that these tools also fall

short en masse in virtually every industry, including

commercial web sites. According to technology

research group Forrester, “Help sections, frequently

asked questions (FAQs), and site search often fall

short of customers’ expectations.” 1

Take the typical FAQ page as an example, and

consider this dilemma:

Even the most well-written and comprehensive

FAQ sections remain difficult to navigate due to

the sheer volume of information that is to be sifted

through (and this assumes that you have, by some

miracle selected the absolute best list of FAQs for

the majority of your students to begin with). Even

when the available mountains of data are drastically

reduced after a keyword relevancy search, still,

students are offered tens, hundreds or even

thousands of results to search through. Not exactly

an ideal experience, nor does in provide for an easy

way for these students to get the “answers” they are

looking for.

A more streamlined FAQ section, one that has been

heavily edited to reduce the volume of data, may be

slightly easier to navigate, however, what is gained

in navigation ease is lost in the comprehensiveness

and accuracy of available answers, leaving the

student unsatisfied despite best efforts.

Forrester points to self-service technologies as

a means to provide a better user experience

online, but explains that these technologies are

not yet widely used by many of the organizations

that could most benefit by their deployment. 2

Though enhancing the student experience online

is increasingly becoming a top priority for many

schools, by and large, most institutions still rely on

FAQ, help and site search as the primary delivery

tools for their students’ online experience.

As a result, the opportunity modern web self-

service affords is not only the ability to enhance

the student experience online, but to also enjoy

a competitive advantage, by becoming known as

a school that provides this superior self-service

student experience ahead of its counterparts.

4Is Web Self-Service Right for You?

Telltale Sign #2:low-complexity questions from students are being addressed in higher-cost student service channels like email and phone.

If your institution collects metrics on types and

categories of incoming phone calls and email

inquiries, identifying the percentage of “low-

complexity” calls that end up in higher-cost service

channels will be easy. Even if reliable metrics aren’t

in place, an administrator within the admissions

department, for example, may have a reasonably

accurate idea of what this percentage might be. If

your school is like most, however, it’s likely that far

more low-complexity questions are sneaking in to

your higher-cost channels than is desirable.

If this is indeed a cause for concern, modern

web-self service is an excellent candidate for

resolving the problem. As illustrated in the Student

Inquiry Complexity Continuum in Figure 1, web

self-service shines in resolving low-complexity

inquiries for students.

FIG 1: The Student Inquiry Complexity Continuum

Web self-service technology is most effective in handling

low-complexity service requests.

Self-Service SWEET SPOT

LOW-COMPLEXITY• No human intervention

• Common, repeated questions

• Questions with one right answer

HIGH-COMPLEXITY• High human intervention

• Special case inquiries

• Sensitive/private/safety-relatedinformation

5Is Web Self-Service Right for You?

Telltale Sign #3:A significant number of student inquiries regularly originate from your web site.

While examining the inquires that are typically

handled in your higher-cost student service

channels (by admissions staff, for example) discern

what percentage of calls and emails originate from

your web site.

When inquiries that originate from your site are

routinely entering higher-cost channels, it’s a sure

sign that your web site is missing an opportunity to

resolve basic student inquiries at the first point

of contact.

In addition to the many ways in which your web site

can deliver an enhanced student experience, it also

has potential to serve as an effective cost-reduction

mechanism. A web site that effectively resolves

student inquiries at the first point of contact acts

as a “filter,” essentially reducing the volume of

inquiries to higher-cost student service channels

within your institution. How? By providing students

with timely, accurate, easy-to-access answers.

In contrast, web-sites that feature traditional web

based customer service tools only (i.e. web FAQ,

help and site search) are ineffective filters. Most

school web-sites fall into this description category.

The majority of sites feature search and FAQ tools

that are highly ineffective at filtering out the lower-

complexity questions and fail to deliver on the cost-

reduction opportunities, as this visual illustrates.

Don’t have metrics on where phone inquiries calls

into your institution originate? Forrester says, “You

can use a benchmark of an average of 10% to 20%

of your phone volume coming through your

Web site.” 3

Fig 2: Web Site As An Ineffective Cost-Reduction “Filter”

Inquiries Hit The Site Inquiries Escalate, Costs Rise

6Is Web Self-Service Right for You?

TABle 1

Downstream Cost Impact in the Call Center Channel

Annual Contact Percentage of Calls Cost Per Call Total Cost of Web- Center Call Volume Originating from Web Originating Calls

100,000 15% $10 $150,000

Using a conservative estimate that 15% of your

phone volume is coming directly through your Web

site, it’s easy to see how even a small percentage

of calls that pass through this “filter” creates

considerable costs downstream:

With only 15% of calls originating from the web, in

this example the downstream cost to the customer

service is $150,000.

Instituting an effective, next generation web

self-service technology like the IntelliResponse

Answer Suite has a track record of reducing

call volume by 15-30%, which often equates to

hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual savings

from call deflection alone.

For a more complete snapshot of the potential

cost savings available through next generation

web self-service, go to

http://www.intelliresponse.com/ROI-Calculators/

This tool will give you some real-world assumptive

data to estimate cost savings potential by using web

self-service to reduce the proportion of questions

posed to higher-cost channels.

IntelliResponse and our patented Answer Suite technology have become synonymous with the concept of next generation, multi-channel web selfservice - particularly among the 100+ leading Higher education institutions we are proud to call our customers. As an organization, we have built a reputation as a high value, dependable vendor that prides itself on 95% customer retention and 97% customer satisfaction rating (2009). We have become the gold standard in first line experience management through our ability provide our customers with the power of “one Right Answer” across multiple channels that include web, mobile, social media and agent desktops.

7Is Web Self-Service Right for You?

Telltale Sign #4:Your school is doing more online marketing, which might include new channels such as social media and mobile

Most institutions are increasingly shifting their

marketing efforts toward the online channel

each year. Today’s students’ growing preference

to explore, interact, and make purchases online,

combined with increasing effectiveness and ubiquity

of web-based tools such as social media, mobile

commerce, search engine optimization and email

will only continue to fuel this trend. In addition,

multi-channel interaction is now a given in order

to reach this audience, as today’s technology savvy

students wholeheartedly embrace mobile and social

web channels to interact with their schools.

If your marketing efforts are driving more students

and staff to your web site, Facebook fanpage,

iPhone application, or Twitter feed, it stands to

reason that all of these channels be equipped to

offer an optimal student experience when they

arrive there.

The restaurant that is not equipped to handle a

large crowd due to physical space limitations and

lack of properly skilled kitchen and service staff

ultimately suffers by delivering poor customer

experiences. Likewise, institutions that funnel

more resources to drive customers to their online

destinations but fail to deliver on the service

experiences there run the risk of wasting their

marketing spend and damaging the

institution’s reputation.

One of the biggest threats to maintaining this

reputation is the use of student information tools

that fail – almost universally – to meet the needs of

today’s multi-channel, self-service oriented student.

Telltale Sign #5:Your school is doing more online marketing, which might include new channels such as social media and mobile

For schools where the student experience is

an integral differentiating factor, continuous

enhancement of the process is a

non-debatable issue.

A research finding from the commercial sector

discovered that “service” now trumps price as

the number one reason why customers purchase

from one company versus another. 4 When today’s

students interact online with institutions, they

bring with them the same high level of service

expectations that they demand as online consumers.

For many schools, the economic, administrative,

and operational realities of serving thousands of

students can interrupt the best intention to get

everyone from the President to the admissions

officer aligned to deliver unparalleled student

experiences at every interaction.

But this is where web self-service enjoys somewhat

ubiquitous appeal. Web self-service shines as a

student experience-enhancing technology, because

it is accessible and deployable by virtually any

institution – large or small.

Schools that are committed, to any reasonable

degree, to increasing their focus on student service

will like the practical accessibility of next generation

web-self service technologies.

8Is Web Self-Service Right for You?

Enhancing the Student Experience OnlineIn light of the clear preference among today’s

students’ to seek resolutions to their questions and

service issues online first, an institution’s web-site,

social media and mobile channels hold tremendous

potential as areas of focus for enhancing the

student experience. Three major enhancement

strategies that can result in big increases in student

satisfaction include:

1. Providing students with advanced ways to serve

themselves online, without having to interact

with any member of the institution until the

time is right.

2. Increasing the number and quality of service

options offered to students. This can include

prominently indicating phone numbers, not just

for the admissions office but other dedicated

numbers such as campus safety hotlines, campus

clinic, student government offices, and the like.

3. Right-channeling, where you use your variety

of service options to help contain and drive

interaction to most appropriate channel, while

providing a clear and easy escalation path. For

example, it might make more sense to flag

certain self-service inquiries relating to personal

safety to Campus Security or the Dean of

Students office.

Advantages to Acting NowTaking time to examine the realities of your

institution’s environment by looking for evidence

of any of the five telltale signs explained here

can reveal the need for action. The advantages of

responding to these signs now come in the form

of operational cost reductions and the delivery

of enhanced student experiences in every online

interaction with your school. The latter, of course,

contributes greatly to your student recruitment and

retention efforts.

Schools that act now in response to this opportunity

can also only enjoy competitive advantage,

differentiating themselves as one of the few

institutions who are meeting their students’

desire for effective next generation self-service

experiences on the web.

9Is Web Self-Service Right for You?

For More Information

For more information on cost effective ways to

deploy next generation web self-service at your

organization, contact us at info@intelliresponse.com,

visit www.intelliresponse.com, or visit us on Twitter,

Facebook, or via our new Blog.

About IntelliResponse

IntelliResponse enhances the multi-channel customer service capabilities of hundreds of enterprise businesses and educational institutions. The company’s patented question and answer technology delivers “One Right Answer” 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, across a wide array of assisted and self-service customer interaction channels that include corporate and institutional web sites, mobile devices, customer service desktops, and social media platforms. With more than 200 live customer-facing implementations answering 60 million+ questions with One Right Answer, IntelliResponse is the gold standard in first line customer experience management.

Some of the world’s most recognized corporate brands and higher education institutions trust their customer experience management needs to IntelliResponse - including ING Direct, TD Canada Trust, Charter Communications, Computer Associates, Penn State University, The Ohio State University and Harvard University Extension School.

1 2 3 5 Forrester Report Selecting Online Customer Service

Channels To Satisfy Customers And Reduce Costs,

June 25, 2010, by diane Clarkson

4 Harris Interactive, Customer experience Report, March 2006.