by Camille Perlman
Student housing customers are much like customers everywhere. They want products and services immediately, and they want an exceptional experience while shopping. The convenience of online shopping (and a pandemic that made that necessary) has only accelerated customer demand for products and the demand for quick, exceptional service. And in the case of student housing, this conversation translates into the customer wanting to know about the newest residence hall with the best amenities and location, along with answers to questions about admissions, credit hours, and financial aid.
The front desk has been the customer service hallmark in student housing offices for decades, and one could say it is the ultimate customer service venue because it provides face-to-face interaction. However, when online customer service proved you could still feel seen and heard as a customer and get what you need, student housing professionals started to rethink their approach. How can campuses improve their customer service and get customers the information they need in a timely manner while at the same time providing positive human interaction? For some campuses, the answer is call centers. They have found that this strikes the right balance because it enables them to serve the customer in a way they have become accustomed to and to know in real time what questions customers have and what resources they need. It also lets customers do all their shopping in one place. These call centers can answer questions about housing, residence life, admissions, and more.
Taking a page out of the game book of business giants like Amazon and Apple, several student housing operations have decided to set up call centers complete with software that supports the work. They recognized how these companies were handling substantial customer service loads with this software. In 2018 at Temple University, housing operations staff turned to their Information Technology Client Services Team and their Help Desk Operations to find out what software they were using for customer service. “We knew that we wanted to make customer service better and knew we needed software to support that, but we also knew that there were products already out there and didn’t need to reinvent the wheel,” says Sean Killion, senior director of housing administration at Temple University. After discussions with the IT team, Killion’s team decided to mirror their approach and use a ticketing system to document issues and escalate them to the correct department or person for a solution and a phone system to provide better customer service and enable them to track caller questions. Ultimately, this led to the housing team being able to handle more calls during peak times like move-in or housing selection and consequently better serve families and students during these high-stress time periods.
The University of Cincinnati has taken a similar path. They have a similar call center setup and, like Temple, were motivated to do it to improve customer service. “We were not able to keep up with the calls and voicemails that we received at peak times,” says Margaret Fogler, the assistant director of housing administration at Cincinnati. “We needed to come up with a solution because enrollment and housing occupancy continued to rise.” They went from a front desk setup to a call center during 2018-19 and have made improvements each year since then to support their rising housing occupancy, which increased from 4,523 in 2018-19 to 7,895 in 2023-24.
An important first step for both campuses was to outline specific goals that would improve their customer service. They set goals like having a better way to handle emails and voicemails, having more information on hand to answer a wider variety of customer questions, answering questions quickly, and reaching more customers. These goals also drove how they set up their systems. They used these objectives to determine what prompts should be used in the phone tree, how questions are categorized so that the call is transferred to the correct person, what the protocol is for escalating questions, what metrics should be tracked, and what the priority should be for handling emails, voicemails, and calls.
Taking a page out of the game book of business giants like Amazon and Apple, several student housing operations have decided to set up call centers complete with software that supports the work.
Both Fogler and Killion agree that one of the most exciting outcomes of using this software (aside from improving their customer service) is the data. As is well known on many campuses, data provides a foundation for telling the department or unit’s story. In this case, it allows them to support the case for staffing the call center (to determine how many professionals and students are needed), to identify what the most asked questions are (reports give information at a granular level, so directors don’t have to rely on anecdotal descriptions of call questions), to pinpoint peak times and how long they last (which allows directors to see when they need to pull in extra staff), to see what changes need to be made in the workflow, and to identify what training is needed. As Fogler explains, “One of the major successes of using the call center is that the available data allows us to shift our communication strategy in real time based on the types of calls we receive. We've sent additional emails, updated our web pages, and communicated with campus partners right away in the event that we discover clarity is needed.” Killion concurs and adds, “These successes have led our unit to meet our goals in servicing our students and their families more effectively. We provide information and communicate details about our process, which leads to a more informed and better-satisfied customer experience.”
The flexibility of the software also adds to the success of the call center. Since it is a web-based product, it allows for hybrid work configurations, and it provides the capability for additional staff to simply sign in when extra help is needed. As Fogler notes, this flexibility was very helpful during the pandemic because it allowed for remote work and for employees to physically distance themselves from one another. Hybrid work schedules were also established during this time and remain today for some staff. Currently, Cincinnati has eight students, two full-time staff members, and one full-time temporary employee working in their call center. Temple’s is currently staffed with 15 students and five full-time professional staff.
While their call centers are doing well, both campuses have plans for enhancements. Fogler says they are adding a full-time staff member and creating service level expectations to provide more clarity around staffing needs. And because these expectations cover issues like wait times, how long it takes staff to handle calls, and how many times staff need to escalate an issue, she will add them to their staff training processes and documentation. “I want to continue using call center reporting data to ensure that our communication is as accurate, timely, and clear as possible.” Killion notes that they are looking for ways to improve how they categorize tickets, allowing for better categorization when they run reports. They are also considering bringing other work areas into the call center environment. “We are looking to expand the use of our system to units within the department in other focus areas such as our residential life and maintenance operations unit for greater department-wide synergy and efficiency.”
Although call centers have demonstrated how they are improving customer service, there still needs to be a balance between the efficiency that call centers and their software provide and human interaction. As Killion reminds professionals, “I often refer to this as the art of our business. While automation and use of systems to make us more efficient is always a welcomed thing, we also have to be mindful about our students and families and their experience and how this connects to their customer experience overall with our processes.”
Camille Perlman is the managing editor of Talking Stick for ACUHO-I.