👨🏼‍🎓 This week, I had an insightful conversation with Bill Hartford, VP of Business Development at The Connection Company, on how text and chat technologies are supporting student enrollment in higher education. We explored how text and chat platforms are transforming the way colleges and universities engage prospective students and boost enrollment rates.
Here are the key takeaways from our chat w/stats per Bill:
🔑 Boosting Enrollment with Speed & Personal Touch:
• Immediate engagement through live chat makes universities 400x more likely to secure enrollments within the first 5 minutes of contact. Fast response time is critical!
🔑 Texting Takes It Further:
• Texting allows schools to re-engage prospective students, with up to 15% conversion after 30 days – creating valuable opportunities for long-term connections.
🔑 Empathy & Expertise Over Chatbots:
• Live agents, with real-time access to a school’s knowledge base, offer a higher level of personalized, empathetic service compared to AI chatbots, which ultimately drives more enrollments.
🔑 Flexibility for Both Students and Agents:
• The Connection Company supports 24/7 engagement with flexible scheduling for their agents, which is key to their success in serving a diverse, remote workforce.
If you’re curious about how text and chat technologies can improve your lead engagement strategies, check out my conversation with Bill Hartford. Don’t miss this opportunity to rethink how you connect with prospective students ... AND, if how this might inform your channel strategies in other industries ie CPG! 🎧 Â
Bill's (ie William's) LINKEDIn link: linkedin.com/in/xpertvendor
Thanks again Bill for sponsoring this episode...!
#highereducation #texting #leadgeneration #customerengagement #cpgcx #podcast #innovations #studentenrollment #textmarketing #customerengagement #leads #enrollment #studentrecruitment #digitaltransformation #edtech #educationtechnology #remoteagents #studentengagement #educationmarketing #marketingstrategies
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
denise venneri (00:00):
Come to the My Curious Colleague podcast with
me, Denise Feneri. I am a twentyyear practitioner in the
consumer engagement space,having worked for two large CPG
organizations. My intent here isreally to share best with
particular focus around thespecialist and analyst roles and
(00:21):
to give back to this greatcommunity because CPGCX rocks.
Hello, my curious colleagues.This week, I'm curious about
boosting enrollment through leadengagement via text and chat in
the higher education industry.Yes. You heard correctly. I said
(00:42):
higher education industry, andI'm also gonna be saying lead
qualification or leadgeneration, which are both out
of my wheelhouse, to be honest.
Although I'm a CPG consumerproducts goods devotee, I think
it's important to understandwhat may be going on outside of
(01:02):
your industry or your vertical.So you may compare and contrast
outcomes, maybe even test someof your hypotheses and open your
mind just a tad. And to help medo just that is my colleague,
Bill Hartford, VP of businessdevelopment at The Connections
Company. Welcome to the podcast,Bill.
bill hartford (01:27):
My pleasure. Thanks, Denise. Appreciate the
offer, and I'm glad to be here.
denise venneri (01:32):
And I, you know, I so appreciate you sponsoring
this episode too. You hadmentioned when we had chatted
that text and chat is a featureavailable to your higher ed
partners, and I definitelywanna, dig into that, of course.
But first, can you share alittle background on The
Connection company and your rolewith them?
bill hartford (01:54):
Sure. Yeah. That's great. The Connection,
we're a call center BPO. We'vebeen in business for forty two
years.
Wow. Still the same owner, FredWiener. He's been, with the
company from the start. So Ilike to say we're family owned.
The great thing about that isafter forty two years, you're
obviously doing something verywell to stay in business that
(02:15):
long, but we've also had theopportunity to serve many
different industries.
And from government to healthcare to CPG. And now we're
really have a big focus rightnow in the higher education
industry or college universitiesand for profit, education space.
(02:40):
Yep. So for for, like, most callcenters, we we've adopted AI
technology, and one of ourindustries was the higher ed
industry, and what we've noticedwith some of those clients is it
was very difficult tocommunicate with prospective
students on a single platform.And we went out to the market
and looked at a bunch ofdifferent platforms that we're
(03:04):
able to integrate if if chatcame in through Instagram or
WhatsApp or all the host ofdifferent chat platforms.
And there was nothing out therethat provided us what we were
looking for. And so we createdour own platform specifically
for this industry, whichincorporates any of the
(03:26):
different chat platforms, butalso texting as well, which has
become pretty powerful when itcomes to new student enrollment.
denise venneri (03:35):
Did you mention your role, Bill?
bill hartford (03:38):
No. I did not.
denise venneri (03:40):
Let's do it.
bill hartford (03:42):
So I'm the VP of business development. I've been
with The Connection for lessthan a year. However, I've been
in the industry since I, was incollege. I started as a
telemarketer, and that wasthirty three years ago.
So,
this industry is near and dearto me, and it's it's been my
(04:03):
whole career. And, so now withthe connection, my my primary
role is to increase revenue bybringing in new clients. And and
and in my career, I've doneevery role there is in the call
center from the technology totraining to operations, and I've
(04:24):
settled for the last twentyyears or so on the sales and
marketing side of the business.
denise venneri (04:29):
Oh, that's great. What a great background.
Sounds like you are a believer,like many of us in this
consumer, you know, experienceand engagement space. Let's
let's do it then. Let's aspromised, let's dig into this
text and chat feature thatsupports, I believe, in the
(04:51):
enrollment part of the highereducation space.
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 (05:02):
Mhmm.
denise venneri (05:02):
And I reach out to a college or university
through their website. You know,I wanna talk about what that
looks like, especially becausehaving gone through this with my
son five years ago, I, Ipersonally know this college
search process can be sostressful for both the student
and the parent. Although theparent never shows how stressful
(05:24):
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?
Take us through that, please.
bill hartford (05:37):
Well, we have a link, to our platform, our chat
platform on the on the on theuniversity or college's website.
So when the chat chat iconshows, that comes right to our
agents. Our agents are we employthem twenty four seven. So
(05:57):
anytime, any day, we have liveagents available to those
prospective students. And, yes,parents will also come in and
and chat.
The interesting thing is I havethree of my four children. I
still they're still my childrenthat are in college now. And one
(06:18):
thing that I know for sure is inthis, day, they're very
comfortable with technology, andthey like the control and
flexibility of being able tochat versus speaking on the
phone. And there's a bit ofanxiety with with, them as well
in terms of getting on thephone. So this works really well
(06:39):
for that generation.
denise venneri (06:42):
Interesting. Yet another reason, I think, for
folks to to continue listeningin on the episode because I'm
gonna guess they are and we knowhow influential they'll be
moving forward. And,interesting. So they see the
chat. Go on.
bill hartford (07:01):
Yep. So once the student engages through chat
Mhmm. And, typically, it's gonnabe on the admission side of the
of the of the university orcollege's website. Yeah. And so
we're, in a sense, we're not afull blown admissions counselor,
but we're there to engage withthem, to answer any of their
questions that may come up, andwe have a whole knowledge base
(07:26):
for every single school, whetherit's all the different degrees
they have, the enrollmentrequirements.
And, inevitably, what we get tois setting up an appointment for
that student to speak with an anadviser. And so we'll have all
the different advisers at theschool. We'll have their
calendars based on the degreethat that student respective
(07:48):
student is looking for. We'reable to schedule that
appointment for them. The goodthing about live chat, say,
versus a chatbot, obviously,with a student, they know
immediately, and and you and Iboth know immediately, if it's a
chatbot versus a live agent.
(08:09):
And from our perspective, whatwe like is that there is a
there's a different level ofengagement from a human versus a
chatbot. Yes. The chatbot'sgonna answer the question
quickly. It's gonna be able togive them the exact answer for
whatever question they have, butwhat the chatbot isn't able to
(08:32):
do is have that nuance or theempathy that a live human will.
Also, troubleshooting orthinking outside the box or even
a little more technical type ofquestion.
So the live agents really are,from our perspective, they're
able to secure more enrollments,a a higher percentage of
(08:56):
enrollments than if a chatbotwill.
denise venneri (09:00):
So is the conversation with your live
agents going back and forth inchat? And how do you get it to
move to ever to text? Is there areason to move it over to text,
or what is that scenario?
bill hartford (09:17):
That's a great question. And the texting is
actually another great featurefor of what we do. So when the
student comes through the chatplatform, they're opting in, and
part of the information theyhave to provide is their name,
their phone number, and emailaddress. And the phone number,
when they when they come throughtheir with their mobile, they're
(09:38):
opting in for texting. So a lotof times what you'll see is a
prospective student will come inthrough the chat platform,
whether it be through anInstagram ad that they've placed
and instantly chats with us orit's through their website, and
then the student just drops offfor whatever reason.
(09:59):
And, well, we have their phonenumber to text them, and so our
agent will actually try toreengage through text.
denise venneri (10:08):
Okay.
bill hartford (10:09):
Lots of benefits to that. One, chatting and
texting, obviously, is differentfrom a live voice conversation
for customer service. Right?Mhmm. The agent isn't expected
to have the answer immediately.
A chatbot will, but a live agentwill. And that's sort of the
nuance of of texting andchatting. Right? So if you ask
(10:30):
me a question through chat,well, I may not answer for
twenty seconds. That twentyseconds, the agent could look up
the answer if they don't know,and the customer or the student
has no idea that the agent hadto look up that answer.
But we will reengage with thestudent up to seven days after
(10:53):
their initial engagement on theon the chat platform to try to
bring them back in Mhmm. Makesure we've answered their
questions and try to set up thatappointment with the with the
admissions counselor. The othergreat thing is we've even found
benefit to reach out even up tothirty days later. So, say, for
(11:14):
instance, say, a college that wework with has a database of
former prospective students thatengage at some level, we'll just
send out a text a month laterand reengage, and we actually
see up to 15% conversion ofthose after thirty days who will
(11:35):
actually, meet with a counselor.
denise venneri (11:38):
And that's the the metric is, will the is the
student going to set up timewith the counselor? Yes. That's
the conversion there.
bill hartford (11:46):
Okay. 15% of the ones that actually engage, that
will actually then go on to setan appointment.
denise venneri (11:54):
Mhmm. Very cool.
bill hartford (11:57):
The one other thing, Denise, if I could. I'm
sorry. Because we we Go ahead.There's some other benefits
here. Yeah.
What we know just by workingthrough with dozens of
universities and colleges isthat 50% of their, prospective
students that come in as a leadthrough any channel doesn't and
(12:20):
never gets answered. And so,there's a
denise venneri (12:24):
By the enrollment.
bill hartford (12:26):
By enrollment. That's correct.
denise venneri (12:27):
Enrollment count counselor. Uh-huh.
bill hartford (12:29):
So, 50%. And, by having that instant
conversation, you're 400 timesmore likely to have that student
enroll with the school Yeah. Ifyou if you answer them within
five minutes of them engaging.The other interesting part is it
(12:55):
it goes a little bit further,but the longer you wait to
engage Yeah. The lower yourconversion rate gets.
denise venneri (13:01):
Okay.
bill hartford (13:02):
So, for instance, if we we found that if we reach
out to somebody within an hourof them for their initial
contact Mhmm. We're still 60times more likely to convert
that into an enrolled studentthan if we waited a day. Yeah.
So it just goes up to show thatthe timing is everything, on top
(13:25):
of that different level ofengagement that a a live agent
will will bring. Yeah.
denise venneri (13:31):
Hey. There are some stats, Bill. And I would
say if I were to think about thestats and test my hypothesis,
maybe I've seen with mycolleagues in CPG, I would say
there are there's some potico. Ithink, you know, everyone feels
as if they could have servicelevels that are a little bit
(13:51):
longer. But the truth of thematter is the consumer behavior
is such that they want toconnect now or as soon as as
soon as possible.
And that goes a long way. Youknow, back in the day when
social media started, it waslike, oh, okay. You know, twenty
(14:12):
four hours is fine. Today, it'slike within the hour or less. So
I think if everyone listening isplaying the game of, oh, how
does that compare to my industryor my channels?
That's just one, one thoughtthere. Can you tell me a little
bit more about who who are theseagents? Any attrition tips or
(14:34):
tricks?
bill hartford (14:37):
Yeah.
denise venneri (14:37):
How are you training them, I guess, to to,
I'm I'm thinking, limit theirattrition?
bill hartford (14:42):
Yes. That's a great question, and that's
always something that any callcenter struggles with is the
agent retention. Right? SoRight. What we found, 100% of
this group of agents work fromhome.
And so what we do is we providethem a lot of flexibility, their
scheduling. And because we'retwenty four seven, so we have to
(15:05):
have the coverage. And so wehave workforce management that
takes a look at, you know, thetext and chat arrival patterns,
ensures that we have staffing atthe appropriate times. But we
let the agents pick theirscheduling as long as we are
with meeting those requirementsfor workforce management, we
(15:26):
provide that flexibility, whichalso means higher retaining
employees. The other thing aboutthis group is at least 80% of
them are and I'm not I'm notsure even how this happened,
Denise, but they are they,they're military wives, which it
(15:50):
just so happens to be in theirmothers and their stay at home
mothers that are military wives,and it seems to have worked.
This group has been in operationfor ten years, and the average
tenure of this employee is atleast four years. We have very
low turnover, and they're veryknowledgeable. It's a well oiled
(16:10):
machine in terms of, you know,their knowledge, and our
turnover really is not we wehave zero issues with turnover.
denise venneri (16:22):
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 stuffyou mentioned is is very
interesting. Did not expect thatabout kind of who they the
majority, the military moms, andthe knowledge base.
I mean, I'm thinking you haveone for every single university
(16:48):
or college client.
bill hartford (16:50):
Mhmm. That's true. Yeah. So what we do is
during the setup phase ofbringing on a new client, we
scour their website for all theinformation that we can take
from that. We also work veryclosely.
Our implementation team worksclosely with it's typically like
(17:11):
the VP of admissions orenrollment at the university who
will provide us with informationthat's relevant. And so all of
that is within the fingertips ofour agents, so when any question
comes up, they have it therewith them. It's also that
knowledge base is always updatedas well. So the good thing is
(17:31):
across most college anduniversities, a lot of things
are similar. So the agent maynot know the specifics, you
know, how long that degree wouldtake and the classes that are
involved with that degree forthat school, but quickly can
look it up.
But there's a lot ofsimilarities across all of them.
denise venneri (17:54):
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 homogeneousbased on what I'm hearing from
you than, say, frozen foodversus, you know, a cold
beverage, you know, all all thenuances of the different
(18:15):
products, and it's a little bitmore complex. So I see how that
might benefit might bebeneficial in this case. Mhmm.
Let's let's continue with thebenefits. We talked a little bit
about service levels andstatistics, a little bit about
option and how you can go allthe way out to thirty days. Is
(18:35):
there any other benefits to theopt in?
bill hartford (18:40):
Yeah. So that's another good question, which I
didn't mention. The because, thecost of a of a four year degree
is is a high dollar amount Yeah.We're more lead qualifying
upfront. Right?
(19:01):
But there's a really high highROI when it comes to what we
cost versus just enrolling onestudent. Right? And so on an
average week, we we show thatone of our agents will enroll
one to five new students. And,you know, five students, so
(19:24):
that's one a day. It doesn'tseem like a lot, but when you
think about what what it takesto get that one to five
students.
So say we we bring in five atthe top of the funnel,
admissions talks to all five,and then one actually ends up
enrolling. So of the one tofive, that that, agent could
(19:48):
have brought in, you know, up to20 different appointments
denise venneri (19:54):
Mhmm.
bill hartford (19:55):
With, admissions advisers at the school. And so
when the when the schools lookat our cost, well, we say, look
at your ROI. And the thing is wereally are low cost. What we do
is we we know that based on theunique website visits to their
(20:18):
their college website, we'reable to say we would anticipate
this many chats or texts. Andbased on that, we would tell
them what we would expect in interms of appointments.
denise venneri (20:29):
Yeah. I would imagine that would be, you know,
helpful, this sort of predictiveability. Let's stay with that.
What else is or what else arethe benefits to the clients who
hire you?
bill hartford (20:43):
Mhmm.
denise venneri (20:44):
And then we're gonna wrap.
bill hartford (20:46):
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 ourplatform.
And, so if somebody comes inspeaking French, our agent will
see that that's coming in in acertain language, but the agent
(21:08):
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 ofusing chat and ROI. We have over
a hundred different languagesthat we can translate with.
denise venneri (21:26):
Got it.
bill hartford (21:27):
Another benefit is the we have dashboards for
our clients that they're able tosee performance live twenty four
seven. Anytime they wanna see,you know, what's going on with,
performance, they're able to tapinto our live dashboard and and
and see that. One other thingI'll mention, Denise, is, where
we're seeing a lot of success isin these it's called
(21:51):
conversational commerce, andpart of that is these ads that
the the the schools will put on,like, Instagram or Facebook, and
you can see them all over. Butthey'll have a link perhaps to,
the chat live. Twenty fourseven, we're there, and we we
see a lot of chats that comefrom those ads, but also through
(22:15):
QR codes, which they put theyintegrate with their physical
marketing materials, flyers,posters, you know, any of their
packaging, and and then thatwill instantly pop up a chat app
or messaging app Mhmm.
Where they can engage. So that'san I guess, another benefit from
the school's perspective.
denise venneri (22:36):
Yeah. The QR code is is back, Bill. There's
another story. I think I thoughtCOVID maybe brought that back.
I'm not sure.
But as we're wrapping, here's myimportant most important
question. If somebody wasinterested in learning more
about these features,capabilities from the connection
(22:58):
company, And I I believe a demois available, but what are the
next steps for somebody?
bill hartford (23:04):
Sure. Well, you can reach out to me. My email is
That'd probably be the quickest.You can find me on LinkedIn, and
I'm I'm under William Hartford.
K. So that's pretty easy to getin touch with me that way. And I
do have demos that I canprovide. I I have slideshows,
(23:27):
anything and everything. Youknow, if you're looking for
marketing material or even casestudies, we we can provide that.
denise venneri (23:38):
Thanks for, sharing that, and and thank you
so much for sponsoring thisepisode and really taking time
out of your day to to chat withus.
bill hartford (23:50):
It was great. I really do appreciate the
opportunity, Denise, and it'salways great to talk with you.
You have been listening to theMy Curious Colleague podcast
with Denise and Denise. Thankyou for your time. Time.
Come to the My Curious Colleague podcast with
me, Denise Feneri. I am a twentyyear practitioner in the
consumer engagement space,having worked for two large CPG
organizations. My intent here isreally to share best with
particular focus around thespecialist and analyst roles and
(00:21):
to give back to this greatcommunity because CPGCX rocks.
Hello, my curious colleagues.This week, I'm curious about
boosting enrollment through leadengagement via text and chat in
the higher education industry.Yes. You heard correctly. I said
(00:42):
higher education industry, andI'm also gonna be saying lead
qualification or leadgeneration, which are both out
of my wheelhouse, to be honest.
Although I'm a CPG consumerproducts goods devotee, I think
it's important to understandwhat may be going on outside of
(01:02):
your industry or your vertical.So you may compare and contrast
outcomes, maybe even test someof your hypotheses and open your
mind just a tad. And to help medo just that is my colleague,
Bill Hartford, VP of businessdevelopment at The Connections
Company. Welcome to the podcast,Bill.
bill hartford (01:27):
My pleasure. Thanks, Denise. Appreciate the
offer, and I'm glad to be here.
denise venneri (01:32):
And I, you know, I so appreciate you sponsoring
this episode too. You hadmentioned when we had chatted
that text and chat is a featureavailable to your higher ed
partners, and I definitelywanna, dig into that, of course.
But first, can you share alittle background on The
Connection company and your rolewith them?
bill hartford (01:54):
Sure. Yeah. That's great. The Connection,
we're a call center BPO. We'vebeen in business for forty two
years.
Wow. Still the same owner, FredWiener. He's been, with the
company from the start. So Ilike to say we're family owned.
The great thing about that isafter forty two years, you're
obviously doing something verywell to stay in business that
(02:15):
long, but we've also had theopportunity to serve many
different industries.
And from government to healthcare to CPG. And now we're
really have a big focus rightnow in the higher education
industry or college universitiesand for profit, education space.
(02:40):
Yep. So for for, like, most callcenters, we we've adopted AI
technology, and one of ourindustries was the higher ed
industry, and what we've noticedwith some of those clients is it
was very difficult tocommunicate with prospective
students on a single platform.And we went out to the market
and looked at a bunch ofdifferent platforms that we're
(03:04):
able to integrate if if chatcame in through Instagram or
WhatsApp or all the host ofdifferent chat platforms.
And there was nothing out therethat provided us what we were
looking for. And so we createdour own platform specifically
for this industry, whichincorporates any of the
(03:26):
different chat platforms, butalso texting as well, which has
become pretty powerful when itcomes to new student enrollment.
denise venneri (03:35):
Did you mention your role, Bill?
bill hartford (03:38):
No. I did not.
denise venneri (03:40):
Let's do it.
bill hartford (03:42):
So I'm the VP of business development. I've been
with The Connection for lessthan a year. However, I've been
in the industry since I, was incollege. I started as a
telemarketer, and that wasthirty three years ago.
So,
this industry is near and dearto me, and it's it's been my
(04:03):
whole career. And, so now withthe connection, my my primary
role is to increase revenue bybringing in new clients. And and
and in my career, I've doneevery role there is in the call
center from the technology totraining to operations, and I've
(04:24):
settled for the last twentyyears or so on the sales and
marketing side of the business.
denise venneri (04:29):
Oh, that's great. What a great background.
Sounds like you are a believer,like many of us in this
consumer, you know, experienceand engagement space. Let's
let's do it then. Let's aspromised, let's dig into this
text and chat feature thatsupports, I believe, in the
(04:51):
enrollment part of the highereducation space.
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 (05:02):
Mhmm.
denise venneri (05:02):
And I reach out to a college or university
through their website. You know,I wanna talk about what that
looks like, especially becausehaving gone through this with my
son five years ago, I, Ipersonally know this college
search process can be sostressful for both the student
and the parent. Although theparent never shows how stressful
(05:24):
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?
Take us through that, please.
bill hartford (05:37):
Well, we have a link, to our platform, our chat
platform on the on the on theuniversity or college's website.
So when the chat chat iconshows, that comes right to our
agents. Our agents are we employthem twenty four seven. So
(05:57):
anytime, any day, we have liveagents available to those
prospective students. And, yes,parents will also come in and
and chat.
The interesting thing is I havethree of my four children. I
still they're still my childrenthat are in college now. And one
(06:18):
thing that I know for sure is inthis, day, they're very
comfortable with technology, andthey like the control and
flexibility of being able tochat versus speaking on the
phone. And there's a bit ofanxiety with with, them as well
in terms of getting on thephone. So this works really well
(06:39):
for that generation.
denise venneri (06:42):
Interesting. Yet another reason, I think, for
folks to to continue listeningin on the episode because I'm
gonna guess they are and we knowhow influential they'll be
moving forward. And,interesting. So they see the
chat. Go on.
bill hartford (07:01):
Yep. So once the student engages through chat
Mhmm. And, typically, it's gonnabe on the admission side of the
of the of the university orcollege's website. Yeah. And so
we're, in a sense, we're not afull blown admissions counselor,
but we're there to engage withthem, to answer any of their
questions that may come up, andwe have a whole knowledge base
(07:26):
for every single school, whetherit's all the different degrees
they have, the enrollmentrequirements.
And, inevitably, what we get tois setting up an appointment for
that student to speak with an anadviser. And so we'll have all
the different advisers at theschool. We'll have their
calendars based on the degreethat that student respective
(07:48):
student is looking for. We'reable to schedule that
appointment for them. The goodthing about live chat, say,
versus a chatbot, obviously,with a student, they know
immediately, and and you and Iboth know immediately, if it's a
chatbot versus a live agent.
(08:09):
And from our perspective, whatwe like is that there is a
there's a different level ofengagement from a human versus a
chatbot. Yes. The chatbot'sgonna answer the question
quickly. It's gonna be able togive them the exact answer for
whatever question they have, butwhat the chatbot isn't able to
(08:32):
do is have that nuance or theempathy that a live human will.
Also, troubleshooting orthinking outside the box or even
a little more technical type ofquestion.
So the live agents really are,from our perspective, they're
able to secure more enrollments,a a higher percentage of
(08:56):
enrollments than if a chatbotwill.
denise venneri (09:00):
So is the conversation with your live
agents going back and forth inchat? And how do you get it to
move to ever to text? Is there areason to move it over to text,
or what is that scenario?
bill hartford (09:17):
That's a great question. And the texting is
actually another great featurefor of what we do. So when the
student comes through the chatplatform, they're opting in, and
part of the information theyhave to provide is their name,
their phone number, and emailaddress. And the phone number,
when they when they come throughtheir with their mobile, they're
(09:38):
opting in for texting. So a lotof times what you'll see is a
prospective student will come inthrough the chat platform,
whether it be through anInstagram ad that they've placed
and instantly chats with us orit's through their website, and
then the student just drops offfor whatever reason.
(09:59):
And, well, we have their phonenumber to text them, and so our
agent will actually try toreengage through text.
denise venneri (10:08):
Okay.
bill hartford (10:09):
Lots of benefits to that. One, chatting and
texting, obviously, is differentfrom a live voice conversation
for customer service. Right?Mhmm. The agent isn't expected
to have the answer immediately.
A chatbot will, but a live agentwill. And that's sort of the
nuance of of texting andchatting. Right? So if you ask
(10:30):
me a question through chat,well, I may not answer for
twenty seconds. That twentyseconds, the agent could look up
the answer if they don't know,and the customer or the student
has no idea that the agent hadto look up that answer.
But we will reengage with thestudent up to seven days after
(10:53):
their initial engagement on theon the chat platform to try to
bring them back in Mhmm. Makesure we've answered their
questions and try to set up thatappointment with the with the
admissions counselor. The othergreat thing is we've even found
benefit to reach out even up tothirty days later. So, say, for
(11:14):
instance, say, a college that wework with has a database of
former prospective students thatengage at some level, we'll just
send out a text a month laterand reengage, and we actually
see up to 15% conversion ofthose after thirty days who will
(11:35):
actually, meet with a counselor.
denise venneri (11:38):
And that's the the metric is, will the is the
student going to set up timewith the counselor? Yes. That's
the conversion there.
bill hartford (11:46):
Okay. 15% of the ones that actually engage, that
will actually then go on to setan appointment.
denise venneri (11:54):
Mhmm. Very cool.
bill hartford (11:57):
The one other thing, Denise, if I could. I'm
sorry. Because we we Go ahead.There's some other benefits
here. Yeah.
What we know just by workingthrough with dozens of
universities and colleges isthat 50% of their, prospective
students that come in as a leadthrough any channel doesn't and
(12:20):
never gets answered. And so,there's a
denise venneri (12:24):
By the enrollment.
bill hartford (12:26):
By enrollment. That's correct.
denise venneri (12:27):
Enrollment count counselor. Uh-huh.
bill hartford (12:29):
So, 50%. And, by having that instant
conversation, you're 400 timesmore likely to have that student
enroll with the school Yeah. Ifyou if you answer them within
five minutes of them engaging.The other interesting part is it
(12:55):
it goes a little bit further,but the longer you wait to
engage Yeah. The lower yourconversion rate gets.
denise venneri (13:01):
Okay.
bill hartford (13:02):
So, for instance, if we we found that if we reach
out to somebody within an hourof them for their initial
contact Mhmm. We're still 60times more likely to convert
that into an enrolled studentthan if we waited a day. Yeah.
So it just goes up to show thatthe timing is everything, on top
(13:25):
of that different level ofengagement that a a live agent
will will bring. Yeah.
denise venneri (13:31):
Hey. There are some stats, Bill. And I would
say if I were to think about thestats and test my hypothesis,
maybe I've seen with mycolleagues in CPG, I would say
there are there's some potico. Ithink, you know, everyone feels
as if they could have servicelevels that are a little bit
(13:51):
longer. But the truth of thematter is the consumer behavior
is such that they want toconnect now or as soon as as
soon as possible.
And that goes a long way. Youknow, back in the day when
social media started, it waslike, oh, okay. You know, twenty
(14:12):
four hours is fine. Today, it'slike within the hour or less. So
I think if everyone listening isplaying the game of, oh, how
does that compare to my industryor my channels?
That's just one, one thoughtthere. Can you tell me a little
bit more about who who are theseagents? Any attrition tips or
(14:34):
tricks?
bill hartford (14:37):
Yeah.
denise venneri (14:37):
How are you training them, I guess, to to,
I'm I'm thinking, limit theirattrition?
bill hartford (14:42):
Yes. That's a great question, and that's
always something that any callcenter struggles with is the
agent retention. Right? SoRight. What we found, 100% of
this group of agents work fromhome.
And so what we do is we providethem a lot of flexibility, their
scheduling. And because we'retwenty four seven, so we have to
(15:05):
have the coverage. And so wehave workforce management that
takes a look at, you know, thetext and chat arrival patterns,
ensures that we have staffing atthe appropriate times. But we
let the agents pick theirscheduling as long as we are
with meeting those requirementsfor workforce management, we
(15:26):
provide that flexibility, whichalso means higher retaining
employees. The other thing aboutthis group is at least 80% of
them are and I'm not I'm notsure even how this happened,
Denise, but they are they,they're military wives, which it
(15:50):
just so happens to be in theirmothers and their stay at home
mothers that are military wives,and it seems to have worked.
This group has been in operationfor ten years, and the average
tenure of this employee is atleast four years. We have very
low turnover, and they're veryknowledgeable. It's a well oiled
(16:10):
machine in terms of, you know,their knowledge, and our
turnover really is not we wehave zero issues with turnover.
denise venneri (16:22):
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 stuffyou mentioned is is very
interesting. Did not expect thatabout kind of who they the
majority, the military moms, andthe knowledge base.
I mean, I'm thinking you haveone for every single university
(16:48):
or college client.
bill hartford (16:50):
Mhmm. That's true. Yeah. So what we do is
during the setup phase ofbringing on a new client, we
scour their website for all theinformation that we can take
from that. We also work veryclosely.
Our implementation team worksclosely with it's typically like
(17:11):
the VP of admissions orenrollment at the university who
will provide us with informationthat's relevant. And so all of
that is within the fingertips ofour agents, so when any question
comes up, they have it therewith them. It's also that
knowledge base is always updatedas well. So the good thing is
(17:31):
across most college anduniversities, a lot of things
are similar. So the agent maynot know the specifics, you
know, how long that degree wouldtake and the classes that are
involved with that degree forthat school, but quickly can
look it up.
But there's a lot ofsimilarities across all of them.
denise venneri (17:54):
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 homogeneousbased on what I'm hearing from
you than, say, frozen foodversus, you know, a cold
beverage, you know, all all thenuances of the different
(18:15):
products, and it's a little bitmore complex. So I see how that
might benefit might bebeneficial in this case. Mhmm.
Let's let's continue with thebenefits. We talked a little bit
about service levels andstatistics, a little bit about
option and how you can go allthe way out to thirty days. Is
(18:35):
there any other benefits to theopt in?
bill hartford (18:40):
Yeah. So that's another good question, which I
didn't mention. The because, thecost of a of a four year degree
is is a high dollar amount Yeah.We're more lead qualifying
upfront. Right?
(19:01):
But there's a really high highROI when it comes to what we
cost versus just enrolling onestudent. Right? And so on an
average week, we we show thatone of our agents will enroll
one to five new students. And,you know, five students, so
(19:24):
that's one a day. It doesn'tseem like a lot, but when you
think about what what it takesto get that one to five
students.
So say we we bring in five atthe top of the funnel,
admissions talks to all five,and then one actually ends up
enrolling. So of the one tofive, that that, agent could
(19:48):
have brought in, you know, up to20 different appointments
denise venneri (19:54):
Mhmm.
bill hartford (19:55):
With, admissions advisers at the school. And so
when the when the schools lookat our cost, well, we say, look
at your ROI. And the thing is wereally are low cost. What we do
is we we know that based on theunique website visits to their
(20:18):
their college website, we'reable to say we would anticipate
this many chats or texts. Andbased on that, we would tell
them what we would expect in interms of appointments.
denise venneri (20:29):
Yeah. I would imagine that would be, you know,
helpful, this sort of predictiveability. Let's stay with that.
What else is or what else arethe benefits to the clients who
hire you?
bill hartford (20:43):
Mhmm.
denise venneri (20:44):
And then we're gonna wrap.
bill hartford (20:46):
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 ourplatform.
And, so if somebody comes inspeaking French, our agent will
see that that's coming in in acertain language, but the agent
(21:08):
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 ofusing chat and ROI. We have over
a hundred different languagesthat we can translate with.
denise venneri (21:26):
Got it.
bill hartford (21:27):
Another benefit is the we have dashboards for
our clients that they're able tosee performance live twenty four
seven. Anytime they wanna see,you know, what's going on with,
performance, they're able to tapinto our live dashboard and and
and see that. One other thingI'll mention, Denise, is, where
we're seeing a lot of success isin these it's called
(21:51):
conversational commerce, andpart of that is these ads that
the the the schools will put on,like, Instagram or Facebook, and
you can see them all over. Butthey'll have a link perhaps to,
the chat live. Twenty fourseven, we're there, and we we
see a lot of chats that comefrom those ads, but also through
(22:15):
QR codes, which they put theyintegrate with their physical
marketing materials, flyers,posters, you know, any of their
packaging, and and then thatwill instantly pop up a chat app
or messaging app Mhmm.
Where they can engage. So that'san I guess, another benefit from
the school's perspective.
denise venneri (22:36):
Yeah. The QR code is is back, Bill. There's
another story. I think I thoughtCOVID maybe brought that back.
I'm not sure.
But as we're wrapping, here's myimportant most important
question. If somebody wasinterested in learning more
about these features,capabilities from the connection
(22:58):
company, And I I believe a demois available, but what are the
next steps for somebody?
bill hartford (23:04):
Sure. Well, you can reach out to me. My email is
That'd probably be the quickest.You can find me on LinkedIn, and
I'm I'm under William Hartford.
K. So that's pretty easy to getin touch with me that way. And I
do have demos that I canprovide. I I have slideshows,
(23:27):
anything and everything. Youknow, if you're looking for
marketing material or even casestudies, we we can provide that.
denise venneri (23:38):
Thanks for, sharing that, and and thank you
so much for sponsoring thisepisode and really taking time
out of your day to to chat withus.
bill hartford (23:50):
It was great. I really do appreciate the
opportunity, Denise, and it'salways great to talk with you.
You have been listening to theMy Curious Colleague podcast
with Denise and Denise. Thankyou for your time. Time.
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