Annual fees? Transportation facility? Co-curricular activities? Last admission form submission date?
These are some of the most common questions encountered by the education sector on a daily basis.
Customer service in education basically involves answering questions of the parents or students in the quickest way possible.
The right customer service software can help your educational institution to resolve the queries in a faster and better way to deliver seamless customer service and gain more students.
Listed below are 10 ways by which you can deliver a seamless customer experience to both parents and the students.
10 ways to enhance customer service in the education sector
Customer service in educational institutes is a great approach to show parents and students that you care. Whenever an issue or concern arises, educators must interact, answer questions, and assist in problem-solving.
That is how parents can tell you care about their children. They grow to trust you and believe that your school is the ideal environment for their children as time passes.
1. Omnichannel experience
42% of customers complaining on social media expect a 60-minute or less response time – Source
Omnichannel focuses on improving user experience across all mediums. That is, whatever material you supply, you are attempting to provide the greatest possible experience to the customer. It boosts revenue and improves customer retention.
Streamlining all discussions on a single platform allows your staff to communicate with students and parents via their chosen channel and handle concerns more quickly.
Using an omnichannel strategy gives the following benefits to educational institutions
- Students, alumni, and other stakeholders will have a more personalized experience.
- Gain significant insights into students’ issues and how to effortlessly handle them.
- Capable of ensuring educational delays via the use of e-learning and digital resilience.
- The omnichannel marketing approach saves money and time.
Kapture’s One Suite helps you deliver an exceptional omnichannel experience by bringing all queries via different channels to a unified dashboard.
Kapture’s Omnichannel Dashboard
2. Focus on improving First Response Time
Students and parents at your school or institution are pampered by the high quality of service that businesses provide. They expect speedy and efficient solutions to their concerns, not a service that inhibits a student’s growth.
It is the obligation of any educational institute to respond quickly and effectively to their questions, to offer enough information, and be available whenever a parent contacts them.
Students, like buyers, can grow irritated and unsatisfied fast, which is why you must respond to problems as soon as possible.
First Response Time can be a key differentiating factor between you and your competitors for the students and the parents.
3. 24/7 availability
A conversational AI bot – which interacts with consumers to offer customized humanoid responses to their inquiries – is being implemented across all customer assistance areas.
Following the AI trend of customer service in the education business will aid in the efficiency of newly deployed technologies.
AI Chatbot can provide answers to many topics including
- Admission processes
- Courses and specializations
- Campus life
- Fees and payment-related information
- Sponsorships and benefits
- An education chatbot can help students, teachers, and staff to provide instant access to information and support enhancing their experience with the institution.
Listed below are ways in which bots can help you in enhancing customer service-
- Bots can detect students’ or parents’ emotional states and respond appropriately.
- Personalized learning based on students’ needs and individual requirements.
- Because chatbots deliver rapid, pre-programmed responses to students’ frequently asked inquiries, the instructor may spend less time organizing and executing duties.
- Chatbots aid in the effective analysis of data while examining student assessment and development.
4. Collect feedback
To better understand your students’ and parents’ requirements, gather and evaluate their comments on teaching quality, interaction with your personnel, and learning environment.
Obtaining feedback is a wonderful technique to give superior customer service in the education business since it provides insight into how well your customer interaction plan is performing.
It is the most effective technique to determine whether your students and their parents are content with their experience. If not, explain what makes them uneasy.
5. Add a self-serve option
81% of all customers attempt to take care of matters themselves before reaching out to a live representative – across industries- Harvard Business Review – Source
With the self-serve portal, students and their parents may discover whatever information they need without any assistance from you. We also refer to it as a knowledge base, which is a one-stop resource that answers the most frequently asked questions.
A FAQ area may also help you promote your school’s online visibility, increase student enrolment, and improve the overall customer experience.
Benefits of using the self serve – Source
6. Social media visibility
Social media is the most trending medium of communication in the 21st century and so it is important for the educational institutes to be there.
It helps in improving customer service in the education sector and enhances satisfaction.
Millennials may go through Facebook and Instagram pages of the education institutes to gain clarity about the campus and life of the students there.
Notices, schedules, timetables, and admission updates can be easily conveyed through social media platforms. This saves your staff time as it eliminates these queries in one go.
Using social media for customer service in the education sector is highly effective for your brand awareness with the help of social influencers.
7. Right tools for an enhanced experience
One move that can help you get an edge over your competitors is choosing the right customer service tool.
A help desk can help manage the student experience by measuring and tracking student contact with various departments.
Help desks contain a variety of features that can significantly improve customer service in education.
Kapture’s Help desk ticketing system comes with the following features that help you deliver a five-star customer service experience.
- Omnichannel dashboard- Deeply integrates with social media, websites, cloud telephony, and other software to bring all queries to a unified dashboard.
- Automations- AI-powered bots, automated feedback or information form collection, and canned responses save time for your staff.
- Reporting and analytics- Reports help you analyze the key performance indicators of your customer service and help you improve your customer experience.
8. Train your staff
Employees at the very bottom of your organization’s hierarchy may have the greatest impact on client acquisition and retention.
They are the ones that interact with clients on a daily basis. Their interactions and behaviors will be used to rate your company.
Training your employees to answer politely to the students and parents is one of the ways to deliver excellent customer service in education.
Make them aware of the difficult situations and teach them ways to handle them beforehand.
Kapture’s Learning Management System makes learning fun and interesting for your staff so that they are always prepared to answer complex questions.
9. Monitor the key metrics
Whenever a new directive is launched, metrics that can assess and show its effectiveness should be developed. Without this, you may wind up utilizing inefficient approaches that result in increased expenses.
Setting both influenced and direct goals to measure the effectiveness of your customer support is a proven lucrative approach to prevent this issue. If your aim is to boost retention, you may compare the rate at the start and conclusion of plan execution.
You may also examine your Net Promoter Score (NPS) to better influence future actions. Remember that a single lapse in customer service can lead to a student picking a rival, costing your institute a huge amount of money.
10. Comply with FERPA
Student data protection is just as critical as any other client data protection. You are correct; you must treat your kids and their parents like clients or risk losing them to other schools (your competitors). Students leave massive volumes of personal data in your different IT systems, including your helpdesk, over their educational years.
While their grades may be less appealing to hackers, all other information, like names, home locations, and financial information, is unquestionably appealing.
Because of the value of the student data, US policymakers enacted the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
This legislation forbids the use of student data without the agreement of the student or their parents and establishes other safeguards for student data.
This brings confidence among the parents and the students that their information is in safe hands.
Kapture and customer service in the education sector
Kapture’s Education CRM is an all-in-one solution to enhance the customer service experience of parents and students reaching your educational institute.
The true omnichannel experience that comes with Kapture helps you deliver exceptional customer service to parents and students.
Kapture brings in a knowledge management system that centralizes all the data and makes it easily accessible for staff, students and parents. It ensures that parents and students can find the solution to their problems just by going through the knowledge base.
Implementing Kapture into your educational system can truly help you resolve queries in a faster and better way.
About the Author | |
 | Ankit Kochar |
| Ankit Kochar is a content writer at Kapture CRM who loves to write creative as well as informative content. He has worked as a creative and academic content writer in the past and has a keen knowledge of writing reports, essays and dissertations. His current field is helping him research and hone his SaaS knowledge. | |
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