Victoria University of Wellington wanted to grow its international student population, specifically the number of students studying postgraduate courses. To achieve this goal, the university needed to efficiently manage hundreds of enquiries from prospective international students and update its communication methods to better connect with potential students. It implemented the Oracle Service Cloud solution (formerly known as RightNow) to establish a single cloud-based student management system to improve the speed and quality of response to student enquiries, and better plan and execute new marketing strategies to recruit more international students.
The university can now respond to 560 student enquiries per week within one to two days, compared to four to six days previously. It has also reduced the number of enquiries it has to respond to by 25%, by establishing a knowledge base to provide students with searchable information online. More targeted recruitment campaigns have enabled the university to increase the number of acceptances from overseas students by 32%.
The university’s conversation with prospective students from overseas typically begins electronically, since the phone may be impractical because of cost or time-zone differences. Prospective students can look for information in the university’s Oracle Service Cloud-powered self-service knowledge base, which contains details on courses, university regulations, and fees and finances.
These pages provide students with much of the general information they need. This means staff can dedicate more time to providing tailored responses to specific enquiries and monitor and manage 100 enquiries per day, which are received in person or via e-mail, through the centralised platform.
As a result, the International Student Office has maintained a steady international student headcount since 2005, despite a rise in the number of international suppliers of education. It has also reduced the number of temporary staff hired during peak recruitment periods.
