Helping Universities meet student demand with Cinos Clearing: Powered by Webex Contact Center.
May 16th, 2023
From Monday 5th July 2023, universities across the UK will become inundated with calls from thousands of students looking to secure a course placement through the UCAS clearing system.
What is the UCAS clearing system?
It’s an annual process in which universities and colleges fill any places they still have on their courses, after the standard admission process has taken place, and requires operational agility from the university and their communications systems to cope with the increased demand.
For universities, each year the clearing process becomes more intense. Each placement is important. Not only do universities want to ensure the best suited candidates are placed on their courses, generally speaking, an unfilled course slot represents a missed opportunity for the university to generate revenue from tuition fees. There may still be fixed costs associated with offering the course that the university needs to cover. An unfilled course slot can be considered a financial loss for the university of approximately £28,000 over a three year course.
Competition between universities to place students intensifies every year. Come July 5th, universities who do not have the correct systems in place seriously risk losing candidates to the competition.
What’s more, a generation of students forged in the fires of social media and distance learning of a global pandemic now expect that organisations will offer more ways to communicate than by simply calling a phone number and waiting in the queue. Universities cannot afford to have students waiting on hold to discuss placements, they need a solution in place that facilities for this surge in demand for contact and eliminates applicants dropping off to speak to the competition.
Simply put, dated systems offering limited ways to contact the university, such as directing everyone to the telephone queue just doesn’t cut it anymore. Universities need to move to meet the ways in which students want to initiate contact, and improve the ability of the faculty staff to dynamically meet demand.
Cinos Clearing with Webex Contact Center
Powered by Webex Contact Center, Cinos Clearing has been constructed with a digital-first engagement methodology to proactively meet the students where they want to be, to maximise course enrolment and ensure those spaces are filled by the most suitable individuals.
Built to deliver an exceptional customer experience, Cinos Clearing enables universities to give students the answers they need in the communications channel they prefer, with exceptional speed and accuracy. Built on the cloud omnichannel cloud-based Webex Contact Center, our service utilises the security and scalability of the Webex backbone, delivering 99.99% uptime for a reliable, risk-free, globally available communications service, ideal for universities during clearing.
From a financial perspective, investing in Webex Contact Center just makes sense. Flexible subscription options give universities the ability to scale up and down based on demand. The average service cost of the solution is comparable to securing just three students a year. Not only does this mean your return on investment will be recognised almost instantly, it means you can capitalise on future revenue opportunities with a world-class contact centre solution already established and in place.
If you are considering a contact centre solution for your university, myself and the wider team are on hand to answer your questions. To help inform your decision, we have collated some of the features and benefits of using Cisco Webex Contact Center for clearing below:
| Pain Point | Feature | Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| How do I meet the increased demand without paying for it all year round? | Flexible consumption-based subscription service paid monthly based on your actual usage with the Cisco Flex Plan. | No need to overpay, simply scale up during clearing and only pay when users log in and take calls. |
| How can I improve the way our organisation engages with students? | Powerful cloud digital-first messaging/SMS customer engagement service to support the contact centre. | Proactively reach out to an alert prospective student, allow them to contact digitally and self-serve instead of going into the contact centre queue. |
| My staff are working from home, how do I keep the contact centre open? | Routes calls to any user in any location, including home phones and Microsoft Teams. | Bring in extra staff to help take calls, regardless of their physical location. |
| How will I make sure I fill all course and accommodation slots? | Intelligent routing with AI-enabled virtual agents allows students to self-serve, escalating to a human only where required. | Deliver a frictionless student experience, connecting them with the information and experts they need first time. |
| Clearing is competitive how do I stand out from the other universities? | No matter how students contact you (telephone, SMS, email, web or social chat) all interactions are handled in one simple web-based interface for full context awareness. | Build a world-class reputation by providing an exemplary student experience and generate greater demand from the best student applicants. |
| Technology services are complex and time consuming to procure, how do I ensure ROI? | Cinos Clearing is built on the Cisco Webex cloud, a highly-resilient global cloud service with 99.99% uptime and available from any Internet enabled connection. | A ready-made cloud service means no long build and deployment, simply sign up and start using the service, with the latest features automatically available as they are released. |
Why Choose Cinos for Your UCAS Clearing Solution
So, if you are a university who is looking to set themselves apart from the competition and make clearing 2023 a rousing success, please get in touch with our team. We would be delighted help you navigate the world of cloud contact centres and discuss any specific requirements you have ahead of July 5th, 2023.
