114 Curious about...Boosting your Lead Engagement thru Text & Chat in Higher Education w/Bill Hartford, VP of Business Development | The Connection Company
Come to the My Curious Colleague podcast with me, Denise Feneri. I am a twenty year practitioner in the consumer engagement space, having worked for two large CPG organizations. My intent here is really to share best with particular focus around the specialist and analyst roles and to give back to this great community because CPGCX rocks.
denise venneri:Hello, my curious colleagues. This week, I'm curious about boosting enrollment through lead engagement via text and chat in the higher education industry. Yes. You heard correctly. I said higher education industry, and I'm also gonna be saying lead qualification or lead generation, which are both out of my wheelhouse, to be honest.
denise venneri:Although I'm a CPG consumer products goods devotee, I think it's important to understand what may be going on outside of your industry or your vertical. So you may compare and contrast outcomes, maybe even test some of your hypotheses and open your mind just a tad. And to help me do just that is my colleague, Bill Hartford, VP of business development at The Connections Company. Welcome to the podcast, Bill.
bill hartford:My pleasure. Thanks, Denise. Appreciate the offer, and I'm glad to be here.
denise venneri:And I, you know, I so appreciate you sponsoring this episode too. You had mentioned when we had chatted that text and chat is a feature available to your higher ed partners, and I definitely wanna, dig into that, of course. But first, can you share a little background on The Connection company and your role with them?
bill hartford:Sure. Yeah. That's great. The Connection, we're a call center BPO. We've been in business for forty two years.
bill hartford:Wow. Still the same owner, Fred Wiener. He's been, with the company from the start. So I like to say we're family owned. The great thing about that is after forty two years, you're obviously doing something very well to stay in business that long, but we've also had the opportunity to serve many different industries.
bill hartford:And from government to health care to CPG. And now we're really have a big focus right now in the higher education industry or college universities and for profit, education space. Yep. So for for, like, most call centers, we we've adopted AI technology, and one of our industries was the higher ed industry, and what we've noticed with some of those clients is it was very difficult to communicate with prospective students on a single platform. And we went out to the market and looked at a bunch of different platforms that we're able to integrate if if chat came in through Instagram or WhatsApp or all the host of different chat platforms.
bill hartford:And there was nothing out there that provided us what we were looking for. And so we created our own platform specifically for this industry, which incorporates any of the different chat platforms, but also texting as well, which has become pretty powerful when it comes to new student enrollment.
denise venneri:Did you mention your role, Bill?
bill hartford:No. I did not.
denise venneri:Let's do it.
bill hartford:So I'm the VP of business development. I've been with The Connection for less than a year. However, I've been in the industry since I, was in college. I started as a telemarketer, and that was thirty three years ago.
bill hartford:So,
bill hartford:this industry is near and dear to me, and it's it's been my whole career. And, so now with the connection, my my primary role is to increase revenue by bringing in new clients. And and and in my career, I've done every role there is in the call center from the technology to training to operations, and I've settled for the last twenty years or so on the sales and marketing side of the business.
denise venneri:Oh, that's great. What a great background. Sounds like you are a believer, like many of us in this consumer, you know, experience and engagement space. Let's let's do it then. Let's as promised, let's dig into this text and chat feature that supports, I believe, in the enrollment part of the higher education space.
denise venneri:So let's break it down for me. How might this work? Okay. So say I'm a student or a parent, which I am.
bill hartford:Mhmm.
denise venneri:And I reach out to a college or university through their website. You know, I wanna talk about what that looks like, especially because having gone through this with my son five years ago, I, I personally know this college search process can be so stressful for both the student and the parent. Although the parent never shows how stressful it is to their student. Right? But what does the student or this parent, you know, experience when they're they're going to the, going to the site?
denise venneri:Take us through that, please.
bill hartford:Well, we have a link, to our platform, our chat platform on the on the on the university or college's website. So when the chat chat icon shows, that comes right to our agents. Our agents are we employ them twenty four seven. So anytime, any day, we have live agents available to those prospective students. And, yes, parents will also come in and and chat.
bill hartford:The interesting thing is I have three of my four children. I still they're still my children that are in college now. And one thing that I know for sure is in this, day, they're very comfortable with technology, and they like the control and flexibility of being able to chat versus speaking on the phone. And there's a bit of anxiety with with, them as well in terms of getting on the phone. So this works really well for that generation.
denise venneri:Interesting. Yet another reason, I think, for folks to to continue listening in on the episode because I'm gonna guess they are and we know how influential they'll be moving forward. And, interesting. So they see the chat. Go on.
bill hartford:Yep. So once the student engages through chat Mhmm. And, typically, it's gonna be on the admission side of the of the of the university or college's website. Yeah. And so we're, in a sense, we're not a full blown admissions counselor, but we're there to engage with them, to answer any of their questions that may come up, and we have a whole knowledge base for every single school, whether it's all the different degrees they have, the enrollment requirements.
bill hartford:And, inevitably, what we get to is setting up an appointment for that student to speak with an an adviser. And so we'll have all the different advisers at the school. We'll have their calendars based on the degree that that student respective student is looking for. We're able to schedule that appointment for them. The good thing about live chat, say, versus a chatbot, obviously, with a student, they know immediately, and and you and I both know immediately, if it's a chatbot versus a live agent.
bill hartford:And from our perspective, what we like is that there is a there's a different level of engagement from a human versus a chatbot. Yes. The chatbot's gonna answer the question quickly. It's gonna be able to give them the exact answer for whatever question they have, but what the chatbot isn't able to do is have that nuance or the empathy that a live human will. Also, troubleshooting or thinking outside the box or even a little more technical type of question.
bill hartford:So the live agents really are, from our perspective, they're able to secure more enrollments, a a higher percentage of enrollments than if a chatbot will.
denise venneri:So is the conversation with your live agents going back and forth in chat? And how do you get it to move to ever to text? Is there a reason to move it over to text, or what is that scenario?
bill hartford:That's a great question. And the texting is actually another great feature for of what we do. So when the student comes through the chat platform, they're opting in, and part of the information they have to provide is their name, their phone number, and email address. And the phone number, when they when they come through their with their mobile, they're opting in for texting. So a lot of times what you'll see is a prospective student will come in through the chat platform, whether it be through an Instagram ad that they've placed and instantly chats with us or it's through their website, and then the student just drops off for whatever reason.
bill hartford:And, well, we have their phone number to text them, and so our agent will actually try to reengage through text.
denise venneri:Okay.
bill hartford:Lots of benefits to that. One, chatting and texting, obviously, is different from a live voice conversation for customer service. Right? Mhmm. The agent isn't expected to have the answer immediately.
bill hartford:A chatbot will, but a live agent will. And that's sort of the nuance of of texting and chatting. Right? So if you ask me a question through chat, well, I may not answer for twenty seconds. That twenty seconds, the agent could look up the answer if they don't know, and the customer or the student has no idea that the agent had to look up that answer.
bill hartford:But we will reengage with the student up to seven days after their initial engagement on the on the chat platform to try to bring them back in Mhmm. Make sure we've answered their questions and try to set up that appointment with the with the admissions counselor. The other great thing is we've even found benefit to reach out even up to thirty days later. So, say, for instance, say, a college that we work with has a database of former prospective students that engage at some level, we'll just send out a text a month later and reengage, and we actually see up to 15% conversion of those after thirty days who will actually, meet with a counselor.
denise venneri:And that's the the metric is, will the is the student going to set up time with the counselor? Yes. That's the conversion there.
bill hartford:Okay. 15% of the ones that actually engage, that will actually then go on to set an appointment.
denise venneri:Mhmm. Very cool.
bill hartford:The one other thing, Denise, if I could. I'm sorry. Because we we Go ahead. There's some other benefits here. Yeah.
bill hartford:What we know just by working through with dozens of universities and colleges is that 50% of their, prospective students that come in as a lead through any channel doesn't and never gets answered. And so, there's a
denise venneri:By the enrollment.
bill hartford:By enrollment. That's correct.
denise venneri:Enrollment count counselor. Uh-huh.
bill hartford:So, 50%. And, by having that instant conversation, you're 400 times more likely to have that student enroll with the school Yeah. If you if you answer them within five minutes of them engaging. The other interesting part is it it goes a little bit further, but the longer you wait to engage Yeah. The lower your conversion rate gets.
denise venneri:Okay.
bill hartford:So, for instance, if we we found that if we reach out to somebody within an hour of them for their initial contact Mhmm. We're still 60 times more likely to convert that into an enrolled student than if we waited a day. Yeah. So it just goes up to show that the timing is everything, on top of that different level of engagement that a a live agent will will bring. Yeah.
denise venneri:Hey. There are some stats, Bill. And I would say if I were to think about the stats and test my hypothesis, maybe I've seen with my colleagues in CPG, I would say there are there's some potico. I think, you know, everyone feels as if they could have service levels that are a little bit longer. But the truth of the matter is the consumer behavior is such that they want to connect now or as soon as as soon as possible.
denise venneri:And that goes a long way. You know, back in the day when social media started, it was like, oh, okay. You know, twenty four hours is fine. Today, it's like within the hour or less. So I think if everyone listening is playing the game of, oh, how does that compare to my industry or my channels?
denise venneri:That's just one, one thought there. Can you tell me a little bit more about who who are these agents? Any attrition tips or tricks?
bill hartford:Yeah.
denise venneri:How are you training them, I guess, to to, I'm I'm thinking, limit their attrition?
bill hartford:Yes. That's a great question, and that's always something that any call center struggles with is the agent retention. Right? So Right. What we found, 100% of this group of agents work from home.
bill hartford:And so what we do is we provide them a lot of flexibility, their scheduling. And because we're twenty four seven, so we have to have the coverage. And so we have workforce management that takes a look at, you know, the text and chat arrival patterns, ensures that we have staffing at the appropriate times. But we let the agents pick their scheduling as long as we are with meeting those requirements for workforce management, we provide that flexibility, which also means higher retaining employees. The other thing about this group is at least 80% of them are and I'm not I'm not sure even how this happened, Denise, but they are they, they're military wives, which it just so happens to be in their mothers and their stay at home mothers that are military wives, and it seems to have worked.
bill hartford:This group has been in operation for ten years, and the average tenure of this employee is at least four years. We have very low turnover, and they're very knowledgeable. It's a well oiled machine in terms of, you know, their knowledge, and our turnover really is not we we have zero issues with turnover.
denise venneri:Good for you. Yeah. That's that's interesting agent base. How about, I mean, the stay at home part doesn't surprise me, but the other stuff you mentioned is is very interesting. Did not expect that about kind of who they the majority, the military moms, and the knowledge base.
denise venneri:I mean, I'm thinking you have one for every single university or college client.
bill hartford:Mhmm. That's true. Yeah. So what we do is during the setup phase of bringing on a new client, we scour their website for all the information that we can take from that. We also work very closely.
bill hartford:Our implementation team works closely with it's typically like the VP of admissions or enrollment at the university who will provide us with information that's relevant. And so all of that is within the fingertips of our agents, so when any question comes up, they have it there with them. It's also that knowledge base is always updated as well. So the good thing is across most college and universities, a lot of things are similar. So the agent may not know the specifics, you know, how long that degree would take and the classes that are involved with that degree for that school, but quickly can look it up.
bill hartford:But there's a lot of similarities across all of them.
denise venneri:As I'm thinking about comparing to CPG World oh, yeah. I hear what you're saying. So universities, they're a little bit more homogeneous based on what I'm hearing from you than, say, frozen food versus, you know, a cold beverage, you know, all all the nuances of the different products, and it's a little bit more complex. So I see how that might benefit might be beneficial in this case. Mhmm.
denise venneri:Let's let's continue with the benefits. We talked a little bit about service levels and statistics, a little bit about option and how you can go all the way out to thirty days. Is there any other benefits to the opt in?
bill hartford:Yeah. So that's another good question, which I didn't mention. The because, the cost of a of a four year degree is is a high dollar amount Yeah. We're more lead qualifying upfront. Right?
bill hartford:But there's a really high high ROI when it comes to what we cost versus just enrolling one student. Right? And so on an average week, we we show that one of our agents will enroll one to five new students. And, you know, five students, so that's one a day. It doesn't seem like a lot, but when you think about what what it takes to get that one to five students.
bill hartford:So say we we bring in five at the top of the funnel, admissions talks to all five, and then one actually ends up enrolling. So of the one to five, that that, agent could have brought in, you know, up to 20 different appointments
denise venneri:Mhmm.
bill hartford:With, admissions advisers at the school. And so when the when the schools look at our cost, well, we say, look at your ROI. And the thing is we really are low cost. What we do is we we know that based on the unique website visits to their their college website, we're able to say we would anticipate this many chats or texts. And based on that, we would tell them what we would expect in in terms of appointments.
denise venneri:Yeah. I would imagine that would be, you know, helpful, this sort of predictive ability. Let's stay with that. What else is or what else are the benefits to the clients who hire you?
bill hartford:Mhmm.
denise venneri:And then we're gonna wrap.
bill hartford:Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I I, another benefit is we can engage in any any language. So we actually have Google Translate as part of our platform.
bill hartford:And, so if somebody comes in speaking French, our agent will see that that's coming in in a certain language, but the agent will actually see it in English. And then the agent will type back the response in English, and it will translate back to French for the student Mhmm. Just very seamless. And, again, it's it's another beauty of using chat and ROI. We have over a hundred different languages that we can translate with.
denise venneri:Got it.
bill hartford:Another benefit is the we have dashboards for our clients that they're able to see performance live twenty four seven. Anytime they wanna see, you know, what's going on with, performance, they're able to tap into our live dashboard and and and see that. One other thing I'll mention, Denise, is, where we're seeing a lot of success is in these it's called conversational commerce, and part of that is these ads that the the the schools will put on, like, Instagram or Facebook, and you can see them all over. But they'll have a link perhaps to, the chat live. Twenty four seven, we're there, and we we see a lot of chats that come from those ads, but also through QR codes, which they put they integrate with their physical marketing materials, flyers, posters, you know, any of their packaging, and and then that will instantly pop up a chat app or messaging app Mhmm.
bill hartford:Where they can engage. So that's an I guess, another benefit from the school's perspective.
denise venneri:Yeah. The QR code is is back, Bill. There's another story. I think I thought COVID maybe brought that back. I'm not sure.
denise venneri:But as we're wrapping, here's my important most important question. If somebody was interested in learning more about these features, capabilities from the connection company, And I I believe a demo is available, but what are the next steps for somebody?
bill hartford:Sure. Well, you can reach out to me. My email is bill.hartford@theconnectioncc.com. That'd probably be the quickest. You can find me on LinkedIn, and I'm I'm under William Hartford.
bill hartford:K. So that's pretty easy to get in touch with me that way. And I do have demos that I can provide. I I have slideshows, anything and everything. You know, if you're looking for marketing material or even case studies, we we can provide that.
denise venneri:Thanks for, sharing that, and and thank you so much for sponsoring this episode and really taking time out of your day to to chat with us.
bill hartford:It was great. I really do appreciate the opportunity, Denise, and it's always great to talk with you. You have been listening to the My Curious Colleague podcast with Denise and Denise. Thank you for your time. Time.
