Transcript Slide 1

STEPPING
INTO THE
CLOUD
Robyn Shaw
Student Connections Dept
Victoria University
April 2010
A FAIRYTALE OR
AN EPIC
ADVENTURE?
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
•Amongst the largest and culturally diverse educational institutions in
Australia
•One of five multi-sector universities offering TAFE and HE courses
•VU attracts nearly 12,000 international students
•Total student body of more than 47,000
•At 2009 almost 3,000 staff comprised of research, teaching and
general staff
MAKING VU
Making VU was a major initiative that commenced in 2006. This
program was guided by five commitments:
Commitment 1: Collaboration
To focus on 12 industry and community clusters in which VU has
strong education and research capabilities and align them more
effectively with future needs, with input from roundtables chaired by
prominent industry and community leaders.
Commitment 2: Career
To make at least 25% learning in the workplace and community a
universal feature of VU courses.
MAKING VU
Commitment 3: Choices
To provide students with the ability to customise their learning
experience around course choice and learning support to best meet
their current needs and future demands
Commitment 4: Connected
To reshape VU vocational and workplace education for the greater
benefit of students and for connecting enterprises with the workforce
development services they require to upskill and reskill their existing
workers
MAKING VU
Commitment 5: Community
To resource three initiatives for a better life in Melbourne’s western
suburbs and to share this knowledge with other communities in
Australia or overseas that may face similar challenges.
STUDENT CONNECTIONS DEPT
The Student Connections Department has approximately 100 staff
members. The Department is responsible for:
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Admissions
Enrolments
Fees
Student Records
Assessments
Graduations
Student Systems and Reporting
Student Service Centres (9)
Student Contact Centre
STUDENT CONNECTIONS DEPT
The paper I am presenting will focus on the quality improvement
activities within the Student Contact Centre
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SCC comprises of 4 FTE staff members
Casuals and Students as Staff at various peak times
SCD employ over 60 students for various activities
Commenced rotating staff from other sections within the Department
STUDENT RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT TOOL
Our existing Student Relationship Management tool is powered by
RightNow.
•In place for approx 5 years, two interfaces developed:
•ASKVU – current students.
•GOTOVU – prospective students
•Marketing module purchased for our Media and Communications
Department
STUDENT RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT TOOL
•Used as a repository for FAQs and not much more.
•Product was capable, but our vision was limited
•At that time 1 staff member employed to be Content Manager,
Publisher and System Administrator. SCC Manager assumed a quasi
technical role
•Restructure impetus for change
STUDENT CONTACT CENTRE STAFF
• As a result of a restructure within the SCD many Contact Officers
were drawn from various parts of the Department
• Many with no previous Contact Centre experience
• No knowledge of SRM or its capabilities
• Not encouraged to learn
• Not encouraged to build a relationship with students
• No targeted training.
• Train the trainer
THE STUDENT CONNECTIONS DEPT
VISION
The issue of how we communicate with students was one that had
been gaining momentum for sometime within the Department.
At the time of restructure, a vision was slowly forming about how we
how we could communicate with our students, that VU students
should be able to contact us when, where and how they wanted,
and that we would have our staff members equipped to answer
their queries and problems professionally and efficiently
THE STUDENT CONNECTIONS DEPT
VISION
We envisage various channels of contact being used that includes:
face-to-face, telephone, web, social networks, mobile technology,
chat.
Furthermore, that this will be done within hours of operation that is
most suitable to our students.
THE STUDENT CONNECTIONS DEPT
VISION
We recognise that there is much that we could do to improve our
processes and importantly we now had a vision of what could be.
•Decision made to rethink the SRM position
•Consequently new position created – Web and Communications
Officer. This position oversees knowledge database and ensures
accuracy and timeliness of answers. Also a major role in
measuring SRM quality and general communications to students
•Due to staff transfers we could now review 2 current PDs to
include a focus on the technical aspects of the SRM.
•Web and Communications Officer, Systems Administrator,
Systems co-ordinator and myself are ‘cross’ department SRM team
LOOKING BACK
It should be acknowledged that the improvements we have
implemented to date have been largely unfunded. We rely on the
good will and eagerness of the SRM team members. Our Director
has been untiring in her efforts to champion the system and the
Department as a whole
LOOKING BACK
• First initiative was to commence writing notes on the SRM in respect
to what our future students were calling about
• In consultation with MCD we developed scripts and workspaces for
Contact Officers to use when dealing with prospective students.
Workspaces included fields for:
• Personal details
• Reason for calling, e.g. Course enquiry, brochures, fees etc.
• Details of how the call was handled, was the question answered, was the call
transferred, who was the call transferred to
• Notes from the conversation
LOOKING BACK
• Shortly thereafter we commenced collecting data on what our
current students were asking for:
• Fields collected include:
• Personal details
• What was the nature of the students call, e.g. Enrolments, fees, graduation
etc.
• How was the call handled, e.g. Did the Contact Officer answer the
question/resolve the problem, was the call transferred, who was the call
transferred to
• Notes of the conversation with the student
REPORTING
REPORTING
REPORTING
LOOKING BACK
•VUSIS (the University SMS) is unable to ‘talk’ to most external
systems
•Contact Officers manually enter in details of the student
• Good news is that we are implementing Callista during 2010
•Hopeful that in 2011/12 a project will be created to integrate
RightNow and Callista
•Eventual integration of the VU telephone system, Cisco
UPGRADE OF SRM
In January this year, the SRM was upgraded to a newer version.
This version now allows us to increase the channels that we
communicate with students. We now have available to us the
following tools:
•Chat
•Co-browse
•Social networking
•Cloud monitor
Each one of the tools that are available presents its own challenges
and benefits. I’ll address each of these separately.
CHAT
Our current SCC staffing levels are not adequate to cope with the
further addition Chat. The reality is also that our skill sets need to be
developed to support ‘chat’. Some further considerations are:
•Identify or recruit a ‘chat’ champion
•develop a set of guidelines/procedures that clearly outlines how we
use chat,
•research the hours that our students may want to use chat
•considerations of HR aspects of a type of ‘shift’ arrangements for staff
•Communicating to students in respect to the ‘chat’ channel
•Measuring the success and reviewing any ‘chat’ pilot
At this time, SCD are considering commencing a pilot late May 2010.
CO-BROWSE
Co-browse will allow an operator, with the student’s permission, to take
over a computer to assist the student with problems associated with the
screen in front of them.
With the implementation of Callista in 2010, it is expected that the Student
Contact Centre will see a large number of students ringing for assistance
in respect to on-line enrolment. We anticipate that co-browse will assist a
number of our students if they wish to allow this function.
CO-BROWSE
Again, there are considerations to this type of communication that include:
•Skill set development – equipping our operators to communicate
effectively with domestic and international students.
•The question of resourcing. How many operators will operate co-browse?
•Hours of operation for co-browse
•The need to develop guidelines/procedures that clearly outline how we
use co-browse
•Research the issues of privacy – what are they in respect to co-browsing?
•Timelines for implementation – should we release alongside the launch of
on-line enrolment to students?
•Measuring the success and reviewing co-browse
SOCIAL NETWORK
A feature of our current upgrade is the capacity to create our own social
networking site. There is currently a plethora of social network pages
that are associated with Victoria University in a variety of ways. Some
of these include VU sporting associations, individual faculties (both HE
and VE/FE), Alumni and various other interests.
There are many and varied ways for students to discuss what’s on their
mind, so we have no plans to create yet another area that is already
plentiful out in the Cloud.
CLOUD MONITOR
We now have the ability to hear what some of our students might be
saying about us in the social networking arena, whether it is positive or
negative by using the cloud monitoring tool.
In the past couple of months, we have stepped gently by placing our
toe into the ‘cloud’ and have used this tool to seek any ‘conversations’
about VU.
By monitoring social networking sites, we consider that this will enable
us to be more proactive with our relationships with students. For too
long we have been reactive to the needs of our students, this tool now
provides us with a proactive means in engaging with our students in a
positive and strategic way.
BRINGING OTHERS ALONG
• 2009 SCD approached by TAFE division to pilot SRM in two VE
schools
• Resources were stretched, particularly technical
• Towards the end of 2009 TAFE secured funding to rollout the SRM to
8 schools.
• VU College secured funding to 5 schools
• 13 schools in total
• Preparations are currently underway. Possible rollout June/July
• Recent addition of using SRM to receive feedback from students
WHAT WILL THE FUTURE BRING?
IMPROVED CUSTOMER SERVICE
• SCC underwent a review by RightNow in respect to the operations
and its synergy with the SRM
• Recommendations included:
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Improve our customer service
Look to enhance the student experience
Improve training and induction for Contact Officers
Better use the current analytics that the system provides
Improved use of agents workspaces
Emphasis the knowledge database to VU staff
• More recently CSBA Benchmarking exercise, results released at
ATEM Conference
WHAT WILL THE FUTURE BRING?
MEASURE PROGRESS - ANALYTICS
• Only been recent times that we commenced measuring our progress
• We will continue to measure and monitor key factors including:
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What information our students are asking
When they seek information
Is the information they are receiving answering their questions
Our turnaround times for answering student queries
• Weekly scheduled reports will continue, however we need to review
the reports and consider what is best for strategic planning purposes.
WHAT WILL THE FUTURE BRING?
STRATEGIC USE OF OUR WEBSITE
In the past two years, the VU website has undergone a major
redesign. Unfortunately, for various reasons, consultation in respect
to developing a strategic connection to the VU SRM did not occur. It
is our vision to work within the VU website so that students can reach
the knowledge database at the click of a mouse. It is an ambition to
create and embed ‘widgets’ that link to our knowledge database
within pages of the VU public website.
• With the proposed (and inevitable) use of ‘chat’ as an additional
communication tool, it is sensible to place access to this within the
website.
• The additional data that could be gleaned from linking the SRM and
the website provides a very powerful analytical and information
opportunities.
CHALLENGES FOR PROGRESS
• One of the largest challenges for this ‘program’ of projects will be the
limited funds and resources that are currently available to us. A
definite risk is that we are depending on the skills and good will of
people within the SRM team as well as the Contact Centre to
continue to be just as enthusiastic even though we will be asking
them to do more within their existing positions
• As the attributes of the SRM become more widely recognised, the
pressure will be on the Department to further roll it out. Apart from
the resourcing issues, we will need to keep a keen eye on ensuring
that we ‘don’t bite off more than we can chew’, but at the same time,
doing so, in a way that will not place a barrier to further progress
CHALLENGES FOR PROGRESS
• Change fatigue that inevitably leads to resistance to change will be
something that needs to be effectively managed. University
initiatives such as VU Sustainability and more recently the Jobs at
VU: Our Workforce Future may lead to the perception by Department
staff that their positions are once again under threat.
• Compounding all of the above is the impending implementation of
Callista and the expected additional pressures on staff members
• Furthermore, we are essentially engineering a cultural change in the
way that we will wish our Contact Officers to communicate with our
students and staff. This could potentially place the Department in a
volatile position.
CHALLENGES FOR PROGRESS
• Up-skilling and training of our staff members will need to be carefully
planned and implemented. Questions we need to consider include;
What skills do we need to develop in a post Callista world? What
skills will Contact Officers need to relate to students in the ‘cloud’,
can we train or recruit for this?
• A further complicating matter is that we recognise that there will need
to be a Department restructure to meet the needs of the University
now and into the near future. As a result of all these changes, we
openly acknowledge that the Department will not look the same in
twelve months time.
CONCLUSION
• Student Connections Department is ‘stepping into the cloud’ in a
couple of ways. One is that we are stepping into a virtual world that
has limitless promise of what is possible; a very exciting and
challenging time lies ahead.
• The second is that, as a Department, we are stepping into the
unknown with many of our initiatives; we haven’t done this before, we
are learning from our experiences and those of others who have
ventured into the often murky realms of the cloud
• The projects we have identified are realistic and achievable. They
need a very strategic and well planned approach to achieve
successful outcomes for the University. The momentum to use the
SRM across the University is gaining and as a University we will
need to keep up with our student and staff demands and
expectations of service.