Selling Failure for All

Today’s Doonesbury cartoon in the local paper takes us back to the fictional Walden College. In it, a potential student is being given the “money walk” a traditional college tour. The College tour guide Zipper explains that “for the next hour I’ll be walking backwards through the campus of Walden College”. Not fictional. Walking backwards is a required ability for a tour guide. Zipper goes on to add that Walden is the nation’s number one safety school. “In fact,” Zipper states to the potential student “I am authorized to admit anyone who completes this tour.” Again not fictional. For most colleges and universities the goal of admissions is to “make the numbers and pay the bills.”

In fact, I would argue that for most schools nowadays being selective means they select most everyone who applies. There are very few schools that have the luxury of actually being selective. They are the 306, maybe 310 name brand schools which actually get more applications than slots open. And of course, if your school is an open door institution, selectivity is anathema to its mission. But for most schools, even open door institutions, admissions is a numbers game especially now that budgets are not matching expenditures.

Schools will sell a spot in an in-coming class to most anyone who shows interest. And it is selling no matter what euphemistic academic label we may give it. Maybe it is not selling a used car but it is not really that distant from it when one looks at the tactics, approaches and pressures to hit the numbers that an admission’s officer – salesperson faces. The major difference is that a car salesman gets a commission and can earn more money while we in academia settle for the belief that we are engaged in a more humane sales job and work longer hours for less pay. And a car salesman does not have to travel as much to attend those oh so glorious and wonderful Admission Fairs. Wahooooo!

One of the earlier versions of the Principles of Good Academic Customer Service used to have a statement that there must be a match between the school and the student. In other words, don’t sell a student a college or university he or she can not succeed in or will be unhappy attending. If you do, you can also count on losing that student. When you do, all the costs of recruiting, admitting, enrolling, entering, orienting, and processing that student will be lost. This is not an inconsiderable sum either. We have figured it at an average of $5460 per student. So every student you lose costs you not just tuition but the acquisition costs.

This is not just good customer service advice; it is very important and solid retention law. But it is a law that butts up against the divided priorities and accountabilities within an academic institution. Admissions goals are not necessarily equal to those of enrollment management or academics for example. If you are one of the very few schools to have a person whose title indicates a responsibility for retention, then you are acutely aware of the conflict. But not to worry, so very few schools have yet realized that retention is important that they have not put anyone in this untenable role of worrying about keeping the students the school worked so hard and spent so much money to acquire. I mean why worry about keeping students when there is an unending supply of new potential students out there and so little competition for them. Besides, what ethical responsibility to the students we accepted?

Ethics?

We are a college. Students have to study that in a required course perhaps but we know that is a requirement for them. We already got through that course many years ago. We don’t need to worry about ethical responsibilities to students. We have faculty to worry about and my increasingly large salary. Ethics? Philosophy department which is all adjunct anyway so it can’t really be all that important and they can’t complain anyhow of we replace them.

Just because we accept them and in so doing tell them either directly or by implication that they should be able to succeed here and that means learn and graduate does not mean we have to coddle them with attention and tutoring in areas they may be having difficulty in. They are college students after all. They should be able to do the work we present to them even though we know they are weak and not up to our standards. They simply aren’t of real college quality but that does not mean I have to spend extra time to help them learn and grow. They are in college for g-d’s sake and should be able to do what we know they could not do when we accepted them.

Besides odds are very good I am either an adjunct or a full time faculty member (duh) so either way, I really do not have time for students. If an adjunct, I need to drive to my next class at another school at a gasoline cost that exceeds my adjunct pay. If I am a full-time faculty member, the rewards for me are not in teaching or spending time with students but in publishing and research to get a promotion or even better something I can patent and make a lot of money from while using my college position as a fall back guaranteed income and health benefits. I mean, my goals are not well aligned with undergraduate teaching or students.

The faculty are right too. I have been looking at the budget and the welfare of the college. We need to cut back on services and some positions if we are to make the budget for the year. Since I know that I must pick my battles wisely, I will avoid doing what may be right and do the least harmful to me. After all, I don’t want to draw fire what with my evaluation and salary increase on the line. Besides, rile the wrong people and I could get a vote of no confidence. Of that I am confident. So where to cut….counselors. They have little power. And tutors, even less. More adjuncts. Library but not research collections if we are to get the grants… And yes, we can not replace admissions people and still up their goals. That’s it bring in more students and provide fewer services for their success. Then we can hit our numbers.

Goals. Good in soccer. Maybe not admissions

Admissions has a simple number to achieve. X number of new students. Now I must and want to say that most admissions people want to do a good job but there are times when doing something as silly as keeping a job does get in the way. If I am an admissions rep at the average school and my given goal is to recruit and get applications from 100 students but I am only at 50 with three weeks to go…. Well, I may become a bit less concerned about their ability to succeed. I will start to take applications from only those we select to go here. We select you if you have the application fee.

Oh but wait. The admissions committee will never accept weak students. Uhuh. Who is the committee at your school? At more and more colleges, the admissions committee have become rubber stampers since they know that if the college does not meet its enrollment numbers, there will be problems and they could come home to roost on them. It is easier to blame admissions for recruiting weak students and “just take the best of what we are given.” No matter if the students accepted are very likely to quit. I wrote fail first but there are so few students who fail because of poor grades that this was not a good choice of words.

This is all part of why the country and its colleges and universities whether they be public, private or for-profit have such horrendously high non-graduation rates. NCHEMS 2006 graduation rates (2006 is the most recent available) show two year students graduation at a rate of 29.1% in three years and four year students graduating nationally at a rate of 56.4% in six years. Oh yes, I am aware that students take longer to graduate and some take as long as 13 years. But c’mon, these rates are embarrassing and indicative of our own failings. Especially failing at recruiting students and then helping them to succeed.

I am 5’5” tall, overweight and getting to feel old some days. If I were sold an entrance to a camp that stated it was to prepare people to get into the NBA, you would quickly see I was sold a false dream. “Boy that camp ripped you off. What an unethical group of @#$%I am 5’5” tall, overweight and getting to feel old some days. If I were sold an entrance to a camp that stated it was to prepare people to get into the NBA, you would quickly see I was sold a false dream. “Boy that camp ripped you off. What an unethical group of @#$%$&s. Or you can rationalize it and say”well, at least the camp would allow him to try and achieve his dream. It gave him the chance.” Or you can rationalize it and say”well, at least the camp would allow him to try and achieve his dream. It gave him the chance.” Or you can blame me for trying to do something that I should have known I was not capable of doing. But I do not think any of us would believe the camp was right in taking my money and accepting me as potential NBA material.

Well, too many of our colleges, universities and career colleges are NBA camps. And that is not what we should be.

Quick pitch: We are quickly filling up our dates for school pre-opening convocations and workshops as well as customer service week (Oct6-10). We would like to be able to help you too so please contact us ASAP for a date. info@GreatServiceMatters.com

AcademicMAPS has been providing customer service, retention and research training and solutions to colleges, universities and career colleges in the US, Canada, and Europe as well as to businesses that seek to work with them since 1999. Clients range from small rural schools to major urban universities and corporations. Its services range from campus customer service audits, workshops, training, presentations, institutional studies and surveys to research on customer service and retention. AcademicMAPS prides itself on its record of success for its clients and students who are aided through the firm’s services.www.GreatServiceMatters.com 413.219.6939 info@GreatServiceMatters.com

Schools Budgets Aren't Flush

There is an article in the current edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education that begs for a comment. The piece “In Turbulent Times, 2 Small Colleges Brace of the Worst” ( 5/09/08, P. 1, and A12-14) discussed how Tiffin University and Heidelberg College are going about their financial issues in what I have to consider traditionally dumb ways. They are trying to increase admissions, primarily by increasing their tuition discounting, trying to raise donations, cut costs and build perhaps a new building. You know,” if we build it, they will come” as if The Field of Dreams was a recruitment training film and not a well scripted fiction. The only thing that is guaranteed by a new building is increased debt load and more belt tightening. I can hear the budgets flushing now.

They are using a traditional frontloading approach, i.e. recruiting more and more students. Spend more and more money to do that. Cut more and more costs to cover the recruitment and discount costs. Sort of a Payday Loan approach for academia. Keep borrowing up front to keep spending more and more to try and stay afloat when the answer is not in taking out more loans but in conserving what they already have.

Not recruitment but RETENTION.

Heidelberg College has a 47.9 four year graduation rate and a 51.7% six year graduation rate. Tiffin University a 24.2% four year graduation rate and six year graduation rate 31.1% according to the Educational Trust. This means that each of them lose at least half of all the students who start at the schools prior to graduation. All the money they are spending to increase the size of incoming classes is going out the back door with the students who leave the school without graduating.

Let’s use some of the formulas in the new book Customer Service Factors And The Cost Of Attrition that help calculate the losses schools suffer from attrition to clearly see the folly of frontloading without retaining. Formula 1 states CSF1 = [(P x A = SL) x T] or population times attrition equals the number of students lost times tuition which tells us how much money has been lost by a school.

So for Heidelberg’s current year it can look forward to a loss of at least $4,800,950 from its annual budget.

(using the figures from the four year graduation rate from the Educational Trust CSF1 = 1565 X 52.1% = 815 headcount x $18,190 = $14,824,850 over the four year period. Even if students left in an equal rounded down attrition distribution of 203 students a year that would mean Heidelberg is losing $3,692,570 a year by not focusing on retention.

By the way, every one of those students would need to be replaced and at least the average recruitment cost of $5460 (which is low for Heidelberg since it is using consultants and many people and money to recruit students). CSFactor 2 lets us know that Heidelberg is then losing another $1,108,380 in wasted recruitment cost just to bring in the students who have left and double that to replace them.

Tiffin University (using 6 year graduation rates since they have a fairly large non-traditional on-line population) loses an annualized $13,479,263 a year from attrition.

If either could cut their attrition rate, they would realize a significant increase in revenue and fiscal relief.

When will schools realize that the success comes not from bringing in more and more students to replace the ones they lose but from retaining the ones they have? And it costs a heck of a lot less and results in a self-perpetuating situation.

Students who stay become alumni.

Student who stay recruit other students.

Students who stay help build the strength of a school.

Students who stay do not have to be recruited again and again and again.

Students who stay are key to the long term stability and growth of a college or university.

If schools want to spend money, spend it on programs and assistance to keep the enrollment they have. That is the smart thing to do.

The First Step in the Hierarchy- Can I Get In?

This is part 2 of a 6 part discussion on the Hierarchy of Student Decision-Making

The first issue Can I Get In? is of course the most primary and pragmatic of the concerns. After all, if a student can’t gain acceptance to a school, all the other issues are moot. If they cannot be admitted they never have to worry at all about whether they can pay for it or if they will be able to graduate from the school. Not be admitted generally answers these questions by making them rather moot. Therefore, students put the most effort into choosing schools they believe they can gain entry into.

This does not mean they do not attempt to get into schools for which they know are long shots because if they do somehow get into a “selective college” they have still answered the question. In fact, if they are accepted into a school that was a “stretch” they feel better about their initial acceptance.

But they are also immediately thrown into an at-risk situation because they may believe they could be able to succeed and graduate, but the school may actually be less sure. Too many schools accept students who are marginal so they can assure they have the “right number” of students to start the year and revenue stream. These schools may partially delude themselves into believing they are providing a chance to the student but too very often the acceptance is to meet less altruistic goals. Keep in mind that colleges build what they believe may be the annual attrition percentage into the budget. If it is planned for then that is an “acceptable attrition number”. It may not be as acceptable to the students who either fail or decide that this college was not for them. But let’s keep in mind the budgetary needs of the school even if they could not be compatible with the financial condition of a marginal student.

As you might have guessed from the minor irony above, not only is selling the wrong school to the wrong student poor customer service, it is ethically challenged. Admitting students who really are marginal is neither fair to the students nor the school. Clearly the students who are accepted into the wrong school and drop out because of bad fit are cheated. The have wasted money, time and a more importantly, a large part of their self-confidence and emotional investment.

The school also loses. Sure, it loses money but it also is cheated out of its ability to fulfill a section of its mission. It has defaulted on its chance to improve on someone’s life and future. The college have lost the ability to make a difference in the future not just of a person but the society and culture.

So, perhaps schools should be certain that they use a variation of the primary question to assure they provide appropriate customer service to its clients, students and itself. That question that should be answered honestly.

1. Should this student get in to begin with?
   

Is an enrollment that important? Should it be?

Keep in mind that a rather steady and strongly correct argument I have been making is that retention has power. Retain more students and the admission numbers can actually become less important. Retention reduces the need to replace drops which is a major factor in the admission’s quota. Simply put, if admissions does not have to replace as many emptied slots, they and the school will have fewer students required to come in.

For the beginning installment of Hierarchy of Student Decision-Making clck here

The ROI of Retention part 3 CSFactor 3

A school loses an average of 12% of its potential enrollments as soon as a prospective student makes contact with it. Whether that contact be the website which was created by the tech designers of Sites That Hoover, by telephone, email, or make it onto campus, 12% of probable enrollments are lost with actual contact. And these are most often people who were seriously thinking of enrolling in the college.

They had found an enough interest in the school to explore it and consider applying or enrolling. But then they made contact. And that contact convinced them that they were no longer interested. That leads to

Customer Service Factor 3

[(AE x12%=EL) x tuition] = CSF3

IE - Initial actual Enrollment

12% is what is lost on initial contact

EL - is the Enrollment Lost and

T once again is the tuition.

So, continuing with Mammon U, (which has just written a formal complaint about US News and World Report for not including it in its top tier of colleges and universities which everyone at Mammon knows is an error and just makes education a commodity in the minds of the public which should care about purer motives while Mammon knows that a top ranking will improve its application flow and mean a more likely full class and reduced advertising expenditures and can actually consider raising tuition for more revenue because it can still attract a class at the higher cost from the increased ranking…..)

Mammon’s original enrollment is budgeted at 200 in the Fall. They aren’t there just yet so the admission’s folks are beating the bushes and going through every potential applicant they have. They are at 180 enrollments at this point so the CFO is concerned that the budget they created in June will not be met for the third year in a row. And the president is now reading the Chronicle starting with the career section. So if Mammon does not find the last 20 enrollments, CSF3 will be calculated like this.

CSF3 [(200 x 12%% = 24) x $13,000] = ($312,000).

The point that may hit you immediately if you are not an admissions or enrollment management person is the revenue loss of $312,000. That is a solid amount of lost revenue which may lead to starting the year with some budget, employee, equipment, maintenance or other cuts. That will usually catch most everyone’s attention. We all hate cuts.

But if you are in admission’s what you will be thinking now is “DARN (well maybe stronger than that) “Darn, we would not have just hit the 200 goal but we would have exceeded it by 4! We would be celebrating instead of commiserating”. The formula could have shown

[(200 +12%% =+224) x $13,000] = +$312,000.

Okay, So Now What?
So now the issue is what to do in the future to gain, rather than lose 12%. The list is unfortunately long for some schools but realize it all has to do with how the school presents itself and provides its services to potential customer/ clients/applicants on their first contacts with the school. Since the list is long, we will address parts of it in other postings. But for now, one of the first customer service turn-offs.

Websites and CSF3
Far too many of them simply vacuum. They do not provide viewers with what they want but with what we, a group of adults, out-of-contact with our potential students’ world and technology, think they should want. We load them up our web pages with words when the web is a visual medium. The words we use are those we are comfortable and generally have little meaning to those outside of academia. This is so since they are too often our academic-ese technical or vernacular language. The information we provide is how we would want to see our college and not how a potential student might wish to see it.

We make sure we load the web site up with things the staff and faculty ask for such as a link labeled FACULTY that if a viewer clicked on, he or she would be told it’s not for them. Foolish viewer. Thinking one might learn about the faculty from a tab labeled faculty.

We often even include the whole college catalog on our sites as if someone would want to try and read a long, turgid, ponderous, tedious, self-important document that even less than 5% of the college has ever read through. And they had to since they were assigned to do so on the catalog update committee. And what’s even more foolish is on the websites, the catalog do not even come with an active index. There is no search protocol to help users find what they are looking for. There may be the original index but fear not, the entries are not active links to take the reader to a specific section. Would not want to make the catalog accessible after all. By the way if you do want to have the catalog on the we site,at least use a program like Leadwise to make it accessible and personalized.

Even if we discount all the many, many, many words on a web page, the graphics and the layout of the pages immediately tell potential students “old skool technology.” BORING! The designs and layouts are old fashioned and the graphics used too often clichéd. There is little that conveys a message that this university is technologically exciting or even up to date. And the so-called “blog postings”, c’mon. Everyone realizes that they are either written by the PR office or by people so carefully chosen that they sound like advertising copy. They do not make the college sound up-to-date but manipulative. If you you want to use blogs, take a chance and let people say fully what they want to say.

I could go one quite a bit more but then I will sound to much like an entry on one of these web sites. Just one more issue. One that really ticks off potential students and viewers. Difficult or impossible navigation. This includes links that don’t work (and yes, I know I too have created and apologize for them). Links that take you to a page you cannot return from since there is no return link. Or links that say a reader can make contact or ask a question that take people to an “apply on-line” or fill in the request for an “admission’s person to contact you” form. That pushes the issue and makes the viewer feel once again, manipulated.

Sure the goal is to get the potential student contact admissions. But let them make the decision. Web users like to at least have a semblance of control over their use of a site. They want to be the ones to initiate the contact. So let them click on, contact admissions or apply on-line or some such link. Don’t manipulate. Even if they do complete the contact the college form that goes to admissions without their assent, the college is not getting anything more than a very weak inquiry. It is not a lead.

We will get to other negative CSF3 factors such as poor phone protocol, messages not returned, misleading or just plain ugly signage, parking problems, rude greeters and a few other issues in other postings. This one has gone on long enough.

15 Principles of Good Academic Customer Service Updated

There has been a change in the 15 Principles of Good Academic Customer Service. (If you'd like a copy, click here) It became obvious to us that the old Principle 7 Websites must be well-designed, easy to navigate, written for and focused on students and actually informative was actually starting to be heeded. More and more colleges and universities were calling to ask for help in redesigning their websites to meet Principle 7. The recognition of the importance of the web is a reality for most schools.

I also realized that there has not been a school, college or university that I have worked for or studied that the faculty at least did not feel their students were not quite good enough for them. Most every institution wanted to know how to recruit better students.

Every school seems to be after better students (than what they have I suppose though few can actually annunciate a clear definition of better). Even colleges and universities that are considered selective to highly selective want better. No one seems to be satisfied with the level of their students’ abilities, intellectual curiosity or aptitude. They all believe admissions needs to recruit better students. It is admissions job and fault after all. They seem to want students who can already write, do calculus, think and know subjects at the college level. Students who will love learning in all subjects just as they who want the better students did not.

But the reality is that most students will not fall into that already smart group. In fact, they are coming to college to get smart because they are not there yet. It is our job not to recognize their brilliance but to amplify and add to what they bring with them so they can become more intelligent in general and even competent in other areas so they can leave college and get a career/job.

Keep in mind that even the best universities have to offer developmental courses to some of their top students. Yes, I know. Your school does not offer remedial courses. Your students are above the norm. Right. Check out some of the introductory course curricula. Giving a course other than a developmental name does not make it non-developmental. Some of these courses are even watered down enough so their geniuses can pass. Poetry for Physics Majors anyone?

There is not a school in the country that does not have to at least supply tutors for some of their students so they can pass a course or two. And this has always been true. Not every student, brilliant or not, is good in all subjects. Maybe not even the “PhD in Molecular Biology at 15!” whiz kids. Come to think of it, I will wager that even some of you reading this struggled and asked for help in some area of study. Maybe even, heaven forbid, did not get an A or B in every course as we expect of our students.

The admission folks have not failed you when they recruit a class for you to teach. The students they bring in are what they could sign up for the school. They come from high schools which may or may not have really prepared them well for future study. They may be nerds, artists, math whizzes, writers, jocks, generally intelligent, over achievers, under-performers, unmotivated, awkward, smooth, tall, short, fat, thin, excited or bored. The one thing they have in common is they have decided to trust you and your school to get them to their goals. They are putting their future in your classroom. They may not yet be bright but then your job is to help them get closer to intelligence and ability.

They may not write well. You are to help them learn to communicate better.

Algebra could be just a total blank. Fill in the spaces.

Science a foggy notion. Clarify.

Bored by your class. Excite them!

And just as someone helped make you into the brilliant member of the collegiate community you are, you have the same job for each and every student in your care. To elevate them so they can join whatever career and community they seek in life.

If they already knew and could do, they wouldn’t need you or your university. If they were already their best, what would there be for you to do? But don’t worry; our high school grads do need you and college to become their best.

So, Principle 7 has changed to become

The goal is not necessarily to recruit the best students.

It is to make the students you do recruit their best.

FOR A COPY OF THE UPDATED PRINCIPLE LIST, CLICK HERE!

Figuring the ROI of Retention and Customer Service - CSF1

Following a presentation on customer service and retention at a major conference, I was asked by one of the attendees if I would supply the way I figure ROI from retention and customer service. In my presentations I always review the students’ seeking of their personal “ROIs” as well as the fiscal ROI the school should be looking at. His interest was to use the information in his marketing to show his company would provide a good return on investment.

I was inclined to help this person since his company is one I feel most schools could benefit by using. They supply counseling to students that helps keep them enrolled. But since I receive no remuneration from companies I recommend (income-wise it would be wise to take it but ethics-wise, it would not be wise except from Leadwise™ (personalized on-line view books, catalogs and web sites which I helped create….wise) I thought it best to share the formulas with everyone who can use them.

They help schools figure out how much revenue they are losing, or could and would gain if they focused on improving service to students. Keep in mind that 72% of all attrition is due to poor, weak, even average customer service at a college or university. The formulas come from years of research I and very smart assistants conducted during college service audits, workshops, presentations, retreats and other services we provide as well as just pure research. . We have been studying aspects of retention it seems before retention was an issue. Just think back just eight years ago when I started AcademicMAPS. Who talked about retention as an important aspect of a college.? It was, , admissions, admissions and again admissions and still is at too many places. I recall quite well the statement of the CEO of a large career college group who said “there isn’t a problem that exists that can’t be fixed by enrolling more students.”

Keeping them? Not so much.

How many did we admit and did commit to the next freshman class? When we lose students, “okay. It’s planned for in the budget as long as we don’t lose too many more than we budgeted…..” Dumb business model. Planning to lose all those customers and all the costs associated with acquiring them is a confident way of making sure the institution is always running a tight budget.

Over the years, when I asked some administrators how much admitting a student cost, the general answer was to add together the marketing budget with the admission director’s and recruiters’ salaries divided by the number of new freshman and that was the cost. Not even close. Even for-profit schools use the same basic approach. That explains why some run deficits.

(Can a school that loses money claim to be for-profit? Don’t you have to make a profit? By the way, what is the difference between a good for-profit and a good not-for-profit? Accounting terms. In a for-profit, it is called profit. In a not-for-profit, it is called “fund balance” or “surplus” and most every college president is called upon to develop one – profit or surplus that is.)

So here is the first part of what will be a three or four part series on figuring retention and customer service ROI, the CSFactors™, at your school or business. By the way, if you use the formulas and publish results for any reason from marketing to self-flagellation, please be kind enough to provide attribution to us. It will be appreciated.

CSFactor 1 The Value of Retention (or the Losses from Attrition)

CSF1 helps a college figure out how much revenue/money it is losing from its actual attrition.

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 numbers and that is an error. The assumption is that attrition occurs most in the first six weeks of the freshman year. That may be close to correct but the reality is that students are leaving colleges and universities in any one of their six plus years of a four year degree and in the four plus years of a two-year degree. Students leave your school throughout their experience at the school. In fact, some schools are beginning to realize this and worry about the Sophomore Bubble. But the 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. Colleges need to be concerned with every student every day of their attendance for it could be his last.

So we look at the total population.

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 back in the population and bringing in revenue until they actually do return. If they pay a “place holding fee”, that does not count them as an student until they are actually back in classes.

Fudge with the numbers if you are overly deluded or insecure, or unethical enough to keep the PR machine going or the Board feeling better but when you use our formulas, be fully honest. It will help you understand why the budget is not working or may suddenly implode. Remember, no one likes surprises, especially ones that have parentheses around them in the budget and lead to freezes, cuts and the like.

By the way, if your school is like most everyone I work with or call for help, you likely do not have a clear fix on an annualized attrition rate. Many schools have never figured it. Go figure and use an annualized attrition rate.

SL stands for students lost annually from total population and revenue production. And T equals tuition at the school.

So here is what showed up when we analyzed CSF1 for a particular college which for our purposes we will call Mammon University. You may know it. Its motto is Omnes Por Pecunia. Anything for a Buck. More on Mammon U later.

Its total population was 500 students.

Annualized attrition was at 39.6%

So SL (students lost annually) was 198.

Times an average tuition of $13,000.

The school uses a differentiated tuition scale per program.

So, the formula becomes:

[(500 x 39.6% = 198) x $13,000] =

a revenue loss of (sound of a trumpet flourish but on a kazoo since Mammon U cannot afford a real trumpet since it has lost) ($2,574,000)!!!!

To carry this forward a bit, 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, …. 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.

Any school, college or university that doesn't want at least another $325,000 in the budget?

Plug your school’s numbers in and see how increasing retention affects your budget and instructional strength.

Taxonomical Issue 3 Can I Graduate? and What You Can do to Make the Answer YES

When a student finds resolution or answers to the first two questions in the taxonomy, he or she then has to face certain realities. Now is when taxonomy question 3 comes into play. “Can I graduate?”

During the can I get in and pay for it levels, there is an undying optimism. “Sure I can do okay here. I’ll just study harder and apply myself. This is college and I will buckle down and get to work.” Phrases well learned after being used after every high school break, midterms, finals, grades, and even a few botched tests. But the results are quite often the same as New Year’s resolutions – unused exercise equipment and unread text books.

Consider that most students have been told that “You won’t be able to get away with that in college.” Even if that is not necessarily true. You can often get away with much more. For example, attendance. Do you REQUIRE attendance? Likely not, so it is much easier for students to skip class and get on the road to failure. (In fact, not having an attendance policy is surely very poor customer service to students and faculty. But more on this later because it really is a big service issue.)

Students know their own adequacies and inadequacies. They know if they may have trouble. And since the goal of attending college is to graduate and get that certification, that ticket to a career, that degree, they will focus on whether or not they can make it. They will ask themselves “Can I graduate?” regularly.

They care about graduating. Just look at the joy on graduation day and all the folks they want to invite to see them walk across the stage and get that empty folder (Your degree will be mailed to you). That day is what most every other day is about for them. And if they ever get the feeling they may not be able to graduate from your school, they will leave it to find another they can graduate from.

You may not realize that because most schools don’t really focus on graduation. They, we, focus on enrolling them in the first place. What happens after that. Well that is up to the student. Sink or swim approach. You’re in college now. Schools spend so much time and money recruiting yet retention is not a big enough issue on most campuses.

I’ll bet your school is like that new pair of jeans or shoes you bought. You spent a long time searching for the right ones, tried it on, checked it out in the mirror, maybe even asked a fiend to add an opinion. Now that you got it home and worn the jeans or shoes, they have lost their importance. Shoes have gone unshined and the jeans washed whenever and folded up into a draw with others and you are now thinking about something new to go and seek out. The new almost always outweighs the interest in what we’ve got. That applies to the jeans, the shoes and surely to students at our schools.

Do you even have a director of retention whose job is to be responsible for retaining each and every student? If you have anything close to this, does he or she have a staff anywhere as large as the admissions staff? Your answers will quickly tell you if there is a commitment to retention or admissions.

Learn and Earn or Churn and Burn?

For most schools, life is a treadmill. Just keep running and lose calories? Not quite. More of churn admissions and burn enrollments. That’s our basic M.O. And it is a losing one too. Loss of students does equal loss of revenue, loss of morale, loss of integrity and loss of the chance to actually meet that mission statement so prominent in catalogues but not many other places I fear. Churn and burn is a loss not just for students but for schools. (If you’d like a copy of the article from University Business “Learn and Earn, not Churn and Burn”, just let me know at nealr@greatservicematters.com)

And graduation? Just a day to have a small committee arrange, get a speaker, pull out the academic robes and see if anyone else from the school shows up unless they have to.

But just because we don’t care all that much, does not take the concern away from students. This is especially true of neo-traditional students. Those students who used to e called non-traditional (adults, single parents, minorities, lower socio-economic students…) but have become sought after admits for schools to make their admission quotas. The neo-traditionals know that their cohorts graduate at much lower rates than the traditionals who came from better schools, families with an educational focus and money to at least obtain loans and be able to pay them off.

The March 23 Chronicle of Higher Education article "The Graduation Gap" states that

..students from low-income backgrounds are less likely to graduate from college than their wealthier peers. For college students from families with annual incomes of $25,000 or less, slightly one in four earns a bachelor’s degrees within six years…For students from families with annual incomes of $70,000 or more, that figure is 57% percent.

One in four. Wonder if students in the lower-income cohorts are concerned about their own chance to be in that 25%? You bet they are.

And the 57% from better economic backgrounds? Wonder if they…. Hey wait a minute! Only 57%. That means 43% of all students who start higher education do not get a degree? Do not graduate in six years? Sure some take longer but this means that a huge number of students just do not graduate. THEY DO NOT GRADUATE! NOT FROM YOUR SCHOOL? NOT FROM ANY SCHOOL?????

With those numbers in mind, do you start to see why question 3 is “Can I graduate?” And if the answer is “No” or Maybe not” can you also see that since graduation and the degree is why people attend and pay for college, students will quit or at least transfer to another school where they feel they may have a better chance to graduate?

If students do not believe you will help them answer their taxonomic question 3, you will lose them. Sink or swim is not a good retention or customer service position. Think and help them swim is a much better way to go for you and for them.

Focus on helping them succeed.

Not just in remedial courses freshman year but with help, assistance and attention to needs every year, every week and every day. They ask the question over and over again. Some every week, every day. Be there to help answer the question with assistance, with tutoring services that are important enough to make sure tutors know enough to really tutor. Students might be nice in class, but that does not necessarily make them good tutors.

I have a bet for anyone reading this. You name the stake. Here is the bet. I wager your school does not care enough about students graduating to either have enough tutors or to ever train them in how to tutor, to teach. If you do, let me hear about it. Consider also that most schools use "peer tutors" - a euphemism that means we use the cheapest labor we can find even if they may not know all that much more than the people they try to help. Peer tutors are other students, often from the same class! They may be bright enough in class but not smart enough to e able to find ways to explain and help the student in need. I mean let's face it, we have enough people with Ph D's in front of classes who do not know how to teach and they do have more education. Plus they have experienced more teaching so perhaps by some form of amoeba-like osmosis they picked up some techniques. But, why believe an under-educated peer/student with no teaching ability can do the trick for the weakest students. If tutoring is supposed to help retain students by supplying help to make them believe they can succeed, at least train the tutors. Give the students and the tutors a chance to be successful. Correspondingly, get some classroom professionals to do the tutoring and drop the peer idea. A rather small investment in professional tutors can reap very large revenue savings. One tutor at say $30,000 plus benefits who helps keep 20 students in school at 20 X tuition... You do the math.

Another Starting Place

Okay, so now where to start. Here it is. Give enough of a damn to require students actually attend all their classes. Make attendance obligatory. Make learning required. Drop the “right to fail” approach and replace it with a demand to succeed. And don’t wait until they are in “academic difficulty”. Waiting until they are in grade trouble is like watching a person who can’t swim go down three times and then trying to help when a good swimming lesson could have saved everyone some trouble.

Make students believe they can graduate and you will be there to help before the question becomes so prominent that the only true answer is “Don’t know.” If you wait, they will answer it for themselves, or you will and you will lose a student, they a chance at their dreams. And all of us the opportunity for our society to get stronger and better.

Reverse Alchemy Turning Gold into Leaden Enrollment Numbers

Some colleges have discovered the secret to reverse alchemy. These colleges take the golden success of recruiters, marketers, advertisers and enrollment managers and turn it into leaden failure. They turn the gold into lead with some of the worst customer service found anywhere. They are able to take enthusiastic, motivated students whose only goal is to enroll and attend the college and transform them into people who cannot wait to get away from the college.

In fact, twelve percent of enrollments are lost once a student steps onto your campus to enroll and or attend classes. That’s right. Students who have come to your college or university with every intention of being a matriculated student, a precious FTE, are turned away by experiences on your campus as they try to complete the enrollment process. Before they complete the process you lose 12% of your potential enrollment by what is done to them as they are trying to enroll.

And once they do manage to enroll, the college continues its reverse alchemy by tarnishing students with customer service that will forever stain the student’s feelings about the college. What’s worse, these students share their blemished experiences with at least six others just to make sure that the recruiting job remains stressful and demanding.

Colleges are able to work their alchemy from the moment students step onto the campus right through to their stomping out the door mumbling their own incantations, never to return.

An example from Embrace the Oxymoron: Customer Service in Higher Education.(LRP Publications 2002); the first and only book to address the issue of customer service in colleges. This actually occurred just as it appears here.

“A young woman had arrived on campus with her parents. She was all set to enroll at the college. This was obviously a moment of family solidarity and pride at the daughter going to college. She had made up her mind. She would attend this school. The young woman and her parents found their way to the admission’s office. They obtained an application form after waiting in line for over nine minutes. They sat down and the young woman completed the form. She walked up to the “Welcome Desk” and handed it to an unsmiling clerk who sat behind the counter. Then she returned to sit with her parents and wait to see a counselor to choose courses. As a new student, she was required to get an admission’s counselor’s signature before she could register for courses.

After sitting for five minutes, the parents said they would take a walk around the campus while she waited. They returned 35 minutes later, walked up to their daughter. "All set Hon? Let's go."

She informed her parents that she had not seen a counselor yet and was still waiting. The father was appalled and marched right up to the admissions desk. "My daughter has been waiting here for over half-an-hour to see somebody. What’s the deal? Why hasn't she been waited on yet?"

The woman seated behind the desk coldly stared at him, purposefully waiting about 20 seconds (a period of time that would seem like another half hour to an irate customer) before she spoke. Then she said, "There are other people here too. Your daughter is not the only one trying to see a counselor who’s busy doing things. They have other things they have to do besides seeing students. Your daughter's turn will be as soon as her turn comes. There are a few people before her."

"Not anymore," the father said as he motioned to his wife and daughter. "Let's go. You don’t want to go here. For what they charge, they should be jumping to help you."

With that, they left the college.

She did not enroll there.

She went somewhere else.

15 Principles

There are appropriate “incantations” against reverse alchemy. These are the 15 Principles of Good Customer Service. If you’d like to get a free copy, just let me know. NealR@GreatServiceMatters.com.

In this case, the following the principles were violated.

1. EVERY STUDENT WANTS TO ATTEND

CHEERS UNIVERSITY AND EVERY

EMPLOYEE WANTS TO WORK THERE!

“where everybody knows your name

and they’re awfully glad you came”

2. All members of the community must be given courteous,

concerned and prompt attention to their needs and value.

3. Students come before personal or college-focused goals.

Students really are more important than you or I are.

Following the 15 principles can lead to enrollment alchemy that is golden. If the college, or in this case, the admissions desk people, had followed principles, the young woman would have enrolled. She and her parents would have been happy supporters of the college rather than angry ex-customers.

Review the principles with your college. Have workshops to discuss and implement them and you’ll see leaden frowns turn to the brilliance of golden happiness and enrollment/retention success.

College Tours to Nowhere Can be to Additional Enrollment

One of the most important parts of the enrollment sequence – the campus tour - is also one of the worst for many potential students and their parents. We have cited before that at least 12% of potential probable enrollees is lost as soon as the interested potential enrollees encounter the campus. The poor customer service of the tour is a major contributor. Not the only one by any means, but can be a major one.

Most colleges relegate the tours to a group of students who likely start out enthusiastic and interesting but soon devolve into the bored rote voices of students who have more important things than this #$%ing tour on their mind. This is especially so for students doing the tours to make minimum wage.

And the tour itself…. “Here is a typical classroom (yawn). A computer lab (Woopie! Computers in rows) This is a sample dorm room (which is almost always staged much better than any other room). This is our cafeteria (where the food sucks but I have to pretend it is fine), And on and on. How exciting and motivating.

The tone of an article in today’s (2/13/07) New York Times summarizes rather well.

College tours are pretty standard. A student walking backward will show you the library, the athletic center and a typical dorm room. Then there will be the requisite safety talk. The tour guide will point out blue boxes -- emergency call buttons for the campus police -- and extol the security systems in the residence halls. The spiel usually includes a bit about how, if a student feels uncomfortable walking alone at night on campus, he or she can simply call security for an escort.

Gee, wouldn’t that tour just light up your “gotta go there juices”? Not really since most any tour of one school could also be the tour of another. Sort of interchangeable like school catalogs and websites. No wonder the student tour guides lose their enthusiasm too even though taking students to the library might be their only visit too.

The idea is that a student will provide a more authentic voice and customer service that will seem genuine. Can’t be done when the tour is trying to please two audiences at once – parents and students. These are two very different audiences and one rule of customer service is that it must e focused correctly on the correct audience. And well, let’s face it. Students have different interests than their parents.

Students want to know they will get a good education but also have a good time. Parents walk through the tour focused on the ROI for their tuition dollars, yes the library because they believe students will use books rather than the web, safety issues and how much this all is going to cost me.

Okay, the solutions. First, have two tours and two tour guides. The potential students should go off with a student without the parents. That way they can see the aspects of the school they really want to see and ask real questions like “where do people really eat? Is one dining hall better than another or should I skip them entirely?” “What dorms are the ones you don’t want to get stuck in?” “What’s with web access for downloading on campus?” “If I rush a frat/sorority which is really which?” And so on. Take them to where students really hang out. Buy them a cup of coffee or the such and talk there, in their habitat; not the schools official one. They will feel more comfortable and will feel as if they have joined the school community already. And community is one thing this generation craves. They feel isolated by the society so they have a need to feel as if they can belong in some community. Sitting and talking in an environment they are familiar with sets them into a sense of community with the group around the table. We already suggested this sort of structure for admissions to increase enrollment in another posting.

Parents should go with an adult tour guide and be shown a classroom, a library tour, safety including a brief meeting with the head of security, an introduction to the financial aid office and director to set appointments, an quick introduction to an academic officer, a dean or a chair if you schedule by academic interests. They should meet the Dean/VP/Dir/ Head Honcho of student services too. They want a feeling that there are real people there to help them and their potential tuition provider.

If it is not possible to have two tours, then hire professional tour givers or train the admissions officers to give the tour. And I do mean train. Do not assume that because a person is an admissions representative, he or she can give a good tour. Simply walking with people and pointing out the classrooms like a flight attendant pointing out the emergency doors “two doors aft and two doors in the back…” is not pointing out the safety aspects of our Boeing College 387. Teach them how to fake enthusiasm if it is not there and then wonder why you keep a less than enthusiastic admissions rep. Train them how to get the tourists to talk more than the reps. Teach them questioning and listening as a touring technique.

Combine aspects of the student tour with the parents tour on a checklist and ask the tourists what they want to see. Let them decide or at least provide them the illusion they are deciding. Ever been on a guided tour and felt like you were really missing the good stuff on the “okay everyone, over here now!” Find out what interests them and not what you assume they want to see. Then show it to them.

Keep in mind that this is the ME generation. The I will Manage my Experience generation which by the way is more a state of mind than an age. From what music they load on their IPod, to designing their own home and Face Book pages, to Tivo-ing to watch 24 when they wish to rather than the time the network set, to most everything, they want to make the decisions on how their experiences will be set up and managed. They want control and community. They want to control/manage their experiences. So let them make some decisions and don’t assume you know what they want to see and experience.

Also when setting up the basic concept of the tour, you may want to get external guidance that knows what students really want on a tour. There are consultants who can help. Or get some focus groups pulled together from high school students and learn from them. Let them guide you so you can guide them on their tours of their school - if the tour doesn't lose them somewhere out by Classroom Building B.

Feel free to contact us at AcademicMAPS with any thoughts, questions or issues you'd like to discuss. We are always there to help. Or contact Neal directly at Nealr@GreatServiceMatters.com at 413.219.6939.