Tuesday, June 13, 2017

How to Figure How Much Attrition is Costing You Each Year and What to DO About It

The New York Times (6/7/17) had an article about the enrollment and revenue problems colleges and universities are facing. In it, the author Jon Marcus wrote:

Because of a dip in the number of 18 to 24-year-olds…
enrollment has been dropping for five years, meaning that there are about 300,000 fewer undergraduates to divvy up among America’s campuses than there used to be.

That makes each and every potential and current student vitally important to a college’s bottom line especially since public support of higher education has also dropped significantly over the past decade. Each student’s tuition and fees go to the bottom line of a school and thus is needed to help make the budgets, slashed as they are, work.

Yet, at least 52% of college students will drop out of colleges, universities, community colleges and career colleges before the year ends.  They will take over $250 billion out of higher education at a time when academic budgets are already feeling the hard slap of the economy. This also means that the tax payers have lost most of their investment in future college graduates and a stronger economy since most of the first money in is from federal and state funding. 

Your school may only lose a few 100,000, maybe a million or two, or three dollars…. What will that translate to? Cuts, jobs lost, equipment canceled, salary freezes, benefit reductions, release time gone, larger classes, fewer sections, more deferred maintenance, (deferred maintenance in America’s schools equals around $30 billion right now)general morale shot to pieces. That is bad but not be as bad as for some schools which will have to either merge or go out of business. The Department of Education has over 500 colleges and universities on its list of schools that are performing so financially poorly that they are under heightened review for fear they could go under.  But it does not have to be. The exact amount that your school will lose can be easily calculated. Just use Customer Service Factor 1 which calculates dollars lost due to attrition. (The following is excerpted from my book The Power of Retention: More Customer Service in Higher Education)

CSF1 = [(P X A= SL) X T]

In the formula, P represents the total school population; not just the starting fall freshman number. Most schools use the fall incoming freshmen number and that is an error. The assumption is that attrition occurs most in the first six weeks of the freshman year. That may have some validity for the freshman year but the reality is that students are leaving colleges and universities in any one of the average six-plus years of a four-year degree and in the four-plus average years of a two-year degree. Students leave a school throughout their experience at the college. In fact, some schools are beginning to realize this and worry about the sophomore bubble. But they really need to worry about the super soph sluff, the rising junior jilt, the junior jump, super junior split, the fourth year flee and so on. Every year, every semester, in fact every day is a chance for a student to drop out. Colleges need to be concerned with every student every day of their attendance, for it could be his or her last. So we look at the total population. 

Annualized tuition is the number a school should use to figure its real attrition. Not the retention between the first and second semester or the freshman and sophomore years which are very popular ones. That leaves out all the students who already dropped out before the end of the second term or semester. That number fudges failure. For instance, if a college began a year with 100 new freshman and 99 left in week one but the remaining student stayed the whole year and returned for a sophomore year, the freshman to sophomore percentage would be 100%.

In CSF1, A equals attrition. Again not just from freshman but an annualized attrition rate. And this rate is to include ALL students who leave for any reason. It does not matter if the student says he or she will be back. They are not in the population bringing in revenue until they actually do return. If they pay a place holding fee, that does not count them as a student until they are actually back in classes.

Fudge with the numbers if you have a need for delusion or are insecure, unethical or want to keep the Board feeling better, but when you use the formulas, be fully honest. It will help you understand why the budget is not working or may suddenly implode. No one likes surprises, especially ones that have parentheses around them in the budget and lead to freezes, cuts and the like. Using the formulas honestly can help forecast a reality to avoid surprises and initiate work on retaining students to maintain fiscal and operating health. 

SL stands for students lost annually from total population and revenue production. And T equals annual tuition at the school. So here is what showed up when we analyzed CSF1 for Mammon University. You may know it. Its motto is Omnes Por Pecunia. Anything for a Buck.
Its total population was 500 students 
Annualized attrition was at 39.6%
 
So SL (students lost annually) was 198.
 
Times an annual tuition of $13,000.
So, the formula becomes: 
[(500 x 39.6% = 198) x $13,000] =
a revenue loss of ($2,574,000)

To carry this forward, we can plug in other numbers and see how an increase in retention could add to the bottom line and thus the ability to pay for full time faculty, staff, their benefits, increases for adjuncts, instructional equipment, tutors, research release, new curricula and programs, maintenance, and so on. All those pesky costs that make a college or university better. 

If attrition dropped by 5% for this school, and we substitute 5% increased retention for attrition percentage in the formula. CSF1 = [(500 x 5% = 25) x 13,000] = $325,000 more revenue.

Plug your school’s numbers in, and see how increasing retention affects your budget and instructional strength while attrition will sap the ability to meet budget and mission.  Most of the billions of dollars, lost futures, economic growth and tax revenues can be avoided. All your college needs to do is engage is some real academic customer service. Yes, that’s right. ACADEMIC CUSTOMER SERVICE. Yup! Treating students as if they really do matter. Like they're your clients. That’s Academic customer service starting with as strong a focus and effort on retaining students as enrolling them in the first place. It costs your school at least $5,640 to recruit a student. Why lose them by not expending some inexpensive time and about $25-50 a student to keep them.

Hmmmm. A $25 investment against the loss of thousands, maybe millions. If only the Congress could have gotten that good a deal for the economy we’d be in much better shape. 76% of all students leave aschool due to weak attention to their real needs as educational clients and customers. It’s not good grades they are really after. That’s an academic misapprehension as wrong-headed as the old “look to your left, look to your right” or “this’d be a great place to work if it weren’t for the students…” 

Another delusion is that academic customer service is like the forced smile of an underpaid clerk in a store. College is not a retail store. Here the client can be wrong. Just look at test scores. But students want to feel as if they are valued and important. Students and their families want what the schools have promised but do not always deliver – fair return on significant investments of money, time, emotion and association.

Colleges sell themselves as Cheers U and the students really expect to feel as if they do know their name and really do care about them. They may be Cliff or Norm in real life but want to feel as if they have meaning and value. And it can start with some of the easy how-to’s of academic customer service from signs on campus, facilities through Capt. Kangaroo’s, Smiling like Dean Bill Schaar, telephone protocols, give a name-get a name and other academic service techniques. But it needs to start now if your school wants to save its budget.

If this is helpful to you, please consider having NRaisman & Associates help you reverse the student and revenue loss. We are the leaders in increasing retention through graduation through our workshops,training, presentations and full campus audit of academic customer service.and other retention strategies. We guarantee results.
           Contact us today at nealr@GreatServiceMatters.com    or  call 413.219.6939

Tuesday, June 06, 2017

How to Tear Down Silo/Castle Walls

academic customer service, customer service, The Power of Retention, graduation, student success
Many of the causes for poor customer service at an institution can be resolved in part through better communication. This is an issue for all
academic institutions. As colleges and universities have grown and become more complex, we tend to know less of what others do, are doing and plan to do. We also have fewer chances to interact and learn since our jobs become busier and more demanding just as the need to integrate and share information becomes greater.


Moreover, technology, especially email, makes us all believe we are communicating when we send a message through technology. We generally are not communicating since we end up with a flood of emails and discriminating which we should read becomes difficult. Most people do not read most emails and eliminate or ignore many they should read. But since we believe that by sending an email we have completed a communication, we do not get up from our desks and actually interact. No need to. I just mailed it.

Additionally, as the work becomes more demanding, we focus on what we need to get done and may lose sight of the flow of functions across offices, Our focus is on my area and its work. So we end up making decisions to assure they affect our area best without regard, or at least enough regard, for other areas.

Liege Lords of Higher Education
It is often the case that as long as things appear to be going okay and there are no obvious problems or calamities, those in the chain of command are busy enough themselves to not rock the boat. They leave things and people to do their work in isolation since that is easier. This leads to what are called “silos” in the business literature. In higher education, offices and people in some schools have been left alone to follow their own initiative enough that they don’t live in silos but in castles. Many even have metaphorical or institutionalized moats made out of procedures, paperwork and technology they chose without regard for integrating it with the rest of the college. The directors or managers of the area becomes like a liege lords with a show of loyalty to the school or president but will rule their land as they wish. 

Presidents often have to manage and accommodate their lords and ladies so they don’t rebel and lead a revolt. Presidents hate rebellions. Weakness on the part of the president makes the office and division lords stronger yet. And worse for customer service considerations, to keep the castle free from disturbances, some offices take the meanest dog in the office and make him or her the receptionist to scare of intruders, i.e. students and colleagues.

At many colleges and universities there are some very strong liege lords. They take care of their operation in a way that suits them best. They may make decisions that will meet their own objectives without regard for the colleagues and offices that their work is “handed off to”. They may also make decisions that please their office more than the customers since castles are essentially focused within the walls in which they exist. Customers, students in particular, become seen as an interruption or a nuisance. Colleagues might have to be tended to differently because one lord might need an alliance to defend against a proclamation that might force changes or some loss of control.

The Castles and Their Keep(aways)
This an administrator’s castle is MY home attitude can often be seen in the physical layout of offices. The offices are set up to accommodate the workers while the customer is provided very little, and often inconvenient space for a proper reception or interaction with staff. 

One of the most noticeable examples of the physical castle with moat can be found in most bursar offices. There is a physical wall between the staff and customer. This wall is made to look strong and heavy. The wall is interrupted by thick, very thick solid sheets of glass that may be broken only by small round holes or perhaps a slot at the bottom. Customers are forced to speak through the holes or slots sort of like prisoners in a lock-up. But this is really more of a lock-in and lock you out.

Bursars will tell you that they need the protection in case someone tried to rob them. There is money back there after all. The thick bulletproof glass would keep the people in the office safe. Okay. But what about the customers in the hall? All the situation does is place them in greater danger. What would stop a robber from grabbing students or colleagues, holding the gun on them and demanding money for their safety? Well, but we inside are safe!

Perhaps I am wrong here but it seems that placing a student into a position in which he or she can be held hostage or even harmed on campus may not be viewed as good customer service.

The fortified walls and all are really just to show the importance of the people in- side and protect them from the customers who might want to actually get better service. Even banks have done away with the thick glass and all because it was getting in the way of being able to provide better customer service. They were keeping them, the tellers, from being able to try to form a mini-momentary community of two with the customer. From being able to engage the customer better. But offices that are set up for the staff do not want to engage. They wish to disengage.

In many, too many offices, students/customers are often made to wait for a break in the staff’s activity to even be recognized. Receptionists or people who may be positioned in a reception location seldom look up to greet and welcome a customer or visitor to the office. Greetings are peremptory, even curt at times as if purposely conveying that the person is inconveniencing them. This makes students feel unwanted, unappreciated and even angry. As one student stated, “they don’t seem to care or give a @#$% that I am paying their salary.” A sure statement of someone who has experienced staff indifference and poor service-two major factors in attrition.

Furthermore, some offices do not provide colleagues in other offices with what they need to do their jobs well. Schedules for accomplishing tasks may not jive. Information requested from students as part of the process may not be what is needed later in another office so students are often asked for more or even the same information if it is not shared. One office may not be able to complete required paperwork if the previous functional area has not completed its work so a student can enroll or pay a bill

Finally, with people living in their own fiefdoms, not knowing what another office does or who does it, students are forced to engage in a continuous shuffle from one office to another as they try to accomplish a required or wanted task. The shuffle or the run around seems to be a constant of student life at every college and university. Students report at every school that they are almost always sent to at least two to three offices when trying to get a simple task done. The offices may also be in the academic areas it should be noted since there is an apparent divide between the academic and non-academic silos.

Starting the Siege to Tear Castles Down
Begin by setting consistent institutional customer service standards on simple things such as proper telephone and personal greeting (no more than three rings) , time in which all emails and voice mails should be responded to (by the end of the day), time to recognizing a visitor to an office (immediately), physical structures, reception areas, etc. Then create a functional workflow process and diagram that integrates all offices around the needs of students and one another to assure also that the offices are doing their work at a time when it benefits both students and colleagues who depend on their finishing the work so they can then do theirs.

For example, an integrated team for all offices involved can develop one diagram that would follow a student from application through to showing up on first day of classes. Every step in the process should be charted and a responsibility center indicated. Dates by which the work needs to be accomplished for smooth integration with the next office should be noted. Any paperwork needed should be indicated and by whom it needs to be received as well as if information on it needs to go to another office. Review all forms to make sure they integrate material and assist not only the originating office but the next one. And be certain they are really needed or are we just making students and families do extra work so we can have our personal form? 

Doing this diagram could also help identify points of contact that are causing students to turn away from showing up on the first day of classes and save the new students who might drop out of the process when faced by that point of contact and its problem

Finally, students, the customers must always come first. Make sure that every step is streamlined to require the least amount of time and effort for the student and the family first. Second, make certain that every step is actually needed and in compliance. We recently helped a school that was losing students trying to change or drop a class because it demanded eight steps and they did not want to bother completing the eight steps.  Third, be sure that every step is understood and integrated by all other offices and people involved. Fourth, whenever possible all material, forms, information and data should be entered into a single, integrated CRM and MIS systems. This could also allow for increased customer service by letting the system pre-fill all and any areas on forms such as name, address, etc that a student might have to complete. Any time we can remove additional repetitive work for a customer, the happier they will be. This can also be accomplished for colleagues if the information is in an integrative data base.

Workflow diagrams can be made for any and all processes that need to be accomplished in the administration of the school and by students. Creating them will bring people together into teams. Force them to work together. Help them learn what others do. And perhaps, start taking chunks out of the walls of the silos so people can start to gain a larger integrated vision of the college.

FAQ User Sheets and School User Manuals
Schools may also wish to consider putting together FAQ sheets of the most frequent student issues or questions in each office. Ask the people who work in each office to compile a list of the ten most common student concerns or questions as well as the common ones that are asked but do not apply to their office. Next, supply a brief answer to the question. Once compiled, these can be turned into an indexed School User Manual (Our University for Non-Dummies?) that students and employees could access to find answers to their questions. Even better, the FAQs can be put on a searchable intra-net so employees can look up a question when faced by it and answer it for students. These could be used also to find answers to issues or needs students have but may not be specific to the office. In turn, the manual would provide people in each office with information to know the answers to many common student questions so they could direct students to the correct location for an answer. A user manual could also be the basis for giving people the information needed to end the shuffle.

To really make this work well, devote a day to bringing all offices that interact together. Let each office stand up, say what it does on a daily basis and then go over its ten FAQ items for everyone to hear. Allow for questions too so if there is any confusion it can be cleared up.

All these efforts can start to tear down walls caused by lack of communication. Interaction is the best way to get people to learn about and know who one another is and what they do. As a result, this can and will improve performance, satisfaction and service to one another and students.

Any questions from this article or desire for more information on any of the discussion, just get in touch with me and I will clear it up so you can start knocking down the castle/silo walls.  Nealr@GreatServiceMatters.com  413.219.6939

IF THIS ARTICLE MAKES SENSE TO YOU, YOU WILL WANT TO OBTAIN A COPY OF THE BEST-SELLING BOOK ON RETENTION AND ACADEMIC CUSTOMER SERVICE THE POWER OF RETENTION: MORE CUSTOMER SERVICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION by clicking here
NRaisman & Associates is the leader in increasing student retention, enrollment and revenue through research training and academic customer service solutions for colleges, universities and career colleges in the US, Canada, and Europe as well as businesses that seek to work with them
We increase your success
Contact Us Today

CALL OR EMAIL TODAY
www.GreatServiceMatters.com
413.219.6939 

“We had hoped we’d improve our retention by 3% but with the help of Dr. Raisman, we increased it by 6%.” Rachel Albert, Provost, University of Maine-Farmington

“Neal led a retreat that initiated customer service and retention as a real focus for us and gave us a clear plan. Then he followed up with presentations and workshops that kicked us all into high gear. We recommend with no reservations; just success.” Susan Mesheau, Executive Director U First: Integrated Recruitment & Retention University of New Brunswick