Good Practice Guide #45

Student Experience

Good Practice Guide #45

AUA Office University of Manchester, Sackville Street Building, Sackville Street, Manchester M13 9PL Tel: +44 (0)161 275 2063 Email: aua@aua.ac.uk aua.ac.uk Š AUA 2017

Authors Contributors Amanda Chetwynd Provost for Student Experience, Colleges and the Library

Luke Davis Student Communications Manager

Clare Riding Head of Marketing

Jess Walmsley Team Leader, The Base

Tom Finnigan Director of Student Based Services

Editor Claire Povah Head of Strategic Development (Student Based Services)

Brian Green Innovation and Mobile Development Manager

Assistant Editor Mike Ryder PhD candidate, English

Contents

Foreword

Foreword by Professor Amanda Chetwynd

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Why map the student journey?

How to map the student journey

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Understanding the student journey when choosing a university What do we know?

Key insights

3

What to do with the information?

Create a roadmap and designate your drivers Involve students as co-producers Make your project a series of sprints, not a marathon Don’t make perfection the aim Don’t just give students faster horses Define success and evaluate Case study: iLancaster

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You said, we did: once you’ve done it, tell them Why is it important to tell students how their feedback has been used?

Consider your audience Create great content Choose your channels Develop an identity Keep the channels open Case study: ‘you said we did’

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Continuous improvement and customer service excellence Accreditation: what’s the point?

Managing change Changing the culture Case study: Professional Services, Lancaster University

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References (continuous improvement section)

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Here at Lancaster University, we’ve learnt a great deal over the past few years in our efforts to understand the student journey. With our staff and students we have created a ‘roadmap’ that provides us with a high level view of the student journey at Lancaster.

One of the lessons we have taken to heart is the importance of putting students first in everything we do. While it may seem an easy thing to say, in practice the very idea of putting students first has required a shift in the way we think and act across all levels at the university.

This has included the need to listen to, and act on, the feedback we receive. Our aim has been to use the data available to us to ensure that we develop services that meet the needs of our ever-changing student population.

Of course, we have learnt lessons along the way, and if I could share just four of our most important lessons with you, they would be: 1.

To enhance student experience, first you need to understand it from the student’s perspective

2.

Student expectations can (and often do) change over time

3.

Remember to consider the increasing digital literacy of students and ensure that your own services take this into account

4.

Resist the urge to go fully digital. People still like to receive something tangible, and remember, not all students are the same

Naturally, we appreciate that all universities are different, and not every student journey is the same. We hope however that this guide will prove a useful insight to show some of the initiatives we have taken at Lancaster University that you may choose to adapt at your own university. At the very least we hope that it provides some inspiration to drive change and enhance the student experience at your university.

Good luck, Professor Amanda Chetwynd Provost for Student Experience, Colleges and the Library

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Why map the student journey?

Do you know what the student journey at your university looks like? Answer honestly.

Unless you can show a genuine journey map, created and designed with all your key stakeholders (students and staff), then the answer is ‘no’.

Mapping the student journey is important, because in order to enhance the student experience you first need to know what it looks like.

Once you have your journey map you can drill down to identify the pain points for students and staff, you can then use the information to influence change, creating what renowned change management expert John Kotter terms a ‘sense of urgency’ for change.

Understanding the student journey when choosing a university Following the development of a market research function as part of the Lancaster University Marketing Team, one of the key projects that was delivered in February 2016 was the ‘Prospective Student Journey’ research.

The team wanted to explore the undergraduate decision-making process to understand how students make their decisions. Specifically: 

What do they want to know?



Where do they look for information?

How to map the student journey

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Who influences their decisions?

There is no right or wrong way to do this. What is essential is that you involve all your stakeholders and ensure that you place your students at the heart of your approach.

Be creative, make it fun. You will still get the data you need and this approach will ensure that people are more relaxed and willing to share.



How do they feel about university?

A co-design approach is essential in order to understand the complexity (or simplicity) of the different perspectives. Keep the different groups (students and staff) separate when collecting the data as this will help you to:

What do we know?

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Identify where variations occur in the journey from the different perspectives

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Avoid the situation where students are not as honest given staff are present

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Visualise the complexity of the processes which support the student journey at your university

One thing to remember is that the journey starts before your potential students have even decided that yours is their preferred university. So, as we outline in the next section, make sure you capture data on this early stage in the journey.

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Focus groups, that included main cycle and clearing/adjustment applicants from the UK, EU and overseas, were used to gather the answers.

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Selecting a university is not just one decision; it is many

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Prospective students need different types of information and support at different stages

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They love experts; and unfortunately, that’s not always us

Key insights The chart below will look familiar to anyone who has worked in student recruitment. All the major decisions and touchpoints are in there, but we have also included some of the examples of how emotions play a part in decision making, which came out during the research.

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What shall I study?

Where shall I study?

Apply through UCAS

“Black Hole of Frustration”

Interviews/ offers/ rejections

RESULTS DAY

Not got the grades?

“...and then it all fell off a cliff…”

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Select firm and insurance

Got the grades?

Where shall I study?

Contacting universities

Getting the grades

Preparing for university

Select institution

We wanted to understand how students felt at different stages of the journey and adjust our marketing and communications activity accordingly. We also wanted to identify who the key influencers are for prospective students. The main people these students consulted during their research were: 

Parents – students often turned to parents for reassurance and moral support. Parents also knew them well and were able to help them decide what sort of university would be right for them. They were also regarded as an excellent source of transport.



Teachers – teachers were seen as being more objective than parents; better able to identify a student’s strong subjects. They were also regarded as experts in their subject area and able to recommend universities with good courses (this might include universities initially excluded in the heuristic process).

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Friends – students shared a common experience with their friends. They would discuss the different universities they were considering and discounting, occasionally making recommendations to one another.

However, whilst they might research a new university on the basis of a friend’s recommendation, they would not accept/reject one solely on this basis. They also discussed aspects of the university experience that they wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing with parents, for example social life and the importance of accommodation.

We were also interested to find out how students actually carry out their research. From our insights it seems that prospective students do the majority of their online research on a laptop or a PC. The bigger screens make it easier for them to process large amounts of information, and they find it easier to flick between multiple tabs on a computer. Also, researching universities is seen as an important task, which warrants a serious approach using a computer, rather than the more relaxed approach that a handheld/small device might suggest.

‘If I read something on my phone I’m not going to take it as seriously as if I read it on my computer’. ¹ Although it is of course vital that websites are mobile-ready, understanding how and where students do their research is key in planning communication and content. ¹ This quote was obtained from an anonymous participant in our applicant focus group research, 2016.

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What to do with the information Create a roadmap and designate your drivers Any student journey mapping exercise is likely to uncover a wide range of issues to tackle. The diversity of the audience and the speed with which expectations change make that inevitable.

Incentivise involvement Promote opportunities for students to make a positive difference and have their voices heard, as well as the potential benefits to their CV and employability.

Some budget should also be reserved for rewards or payment depending on the work required.

Be inclusive

Once you have identified those areas that require attention, the first step is to define which teams or individuals should have responsibility for developing solutions. Technical, academic and support services may all have a stake in working on items and, in some cases, share responsibility.

The nature of the project may lead you to recruit students in certain academic departments, but it is often beneficial to have input from students from a wide range of backgrounds, study levels and disciplines, especially if you are keen to receive representative feedback (see below).

From our own experience, we suggest you map these relationships and document who will be involved, before liaising with those contacts to gather further details such as suggested solutions, progress, deadlines and evaluation.

Brief effectively

To make that happen, here are a few positions you may consider occupying:

Define the scope of the project and the nature of the tasks as clearly as you can.

Project sponsor – typically a senior figure who can oversee, approve and promote a project, ensuring it has exposure at senior levels of the organisation.

Communicate with peers and champion change

Project owner – someone who is knowledgeable in the field of change, and who has the authority to take the project forward. The project owner may consult with a range of stakeholders, but to ensure direction is clear and progress swift, they will act as the client and take the lead in making key decisions.

Students involved in the project can provide a very effective method of championing developments among peers and advising on communications.

Project team – those listed above, as well as the technical or service experts and/ or third parties who will be involved in implementing, testing and evaluating solutions.

It is tempting to use the small group of students you have involved in a project as an ad hoc focus group, but their proximity to the work may skew their feedback. Size and demographics may also impact their usefulness as a representative group.

Stakeholders – should be consulted at regular intervals, inform decisions and be kept up to date with progress and challenges.

Involve students as co-producers As we know, working with students to understand their needs and design solutions is crucial in achieving user-centred services and systems.

To be even more effective, consider moving to the next step: co-production – the practice of involving students in the implementation and delivery of the solution.

Students can prove to be an invaluable resource at every stage of the project. Here are a few tips on how to effectively involve them: 6

Gather feedback, but with caution

Make your project a series of sprints, not a marathon Some student experience projects may appear to be long-term, complex and difficult to complete. If so, cut them up into sprints – a concept often used in software development.

A sprint will typically involve bringing the team together to work intensively on completing a specific set of tasks over the course of one to three weeks. It encourages collaboration and can be used to quickly get results, helping make swift progress towards your ultimate aims.

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Define success and evaluate Don’t make perfection the aim Seeking gradual improvement is not the easy way out. In fact, when it comes to improving the student experience, incremental change is often the only realistic means of making progress. That’s because in many cases there is no such thing as the perfect solution – at least not for long.

It is natural to seek the ideal remedy and to feel the job is done. But in higher education, our services and systems have to evolve along with our ever-changing student population. As we welcome new generations, we face new expectations, and as technology, services and culture shift, the possibilities of what we can achieve change too.

To stay as close to that ideal solution as possible we suggest you be flexible, use small pilots, schedule regular reviews and don’t be afraid to adapt and shift direction. And of course, it is also crucial to underpin developments with fresh journey mapping data and research.

Don’t just give students faster horses ‘If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.’ It’s questionable whether Henry Ford ever said it, but this quote often attributed to him is still worth bearing in mind.

Understanding the student journey enables us to meet student needs and provide a user-centric experience, but don’t entirely discount your own expertise and experience or that of your colleagues.

Solutions suggested by students may not always be the best way of improving their journey. Combine your own research and expertise with student input to deliver considered solutions with the best chance of success.

What would success look like for your project? Make sure that your targets are SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.

Statistics and analytics can be useful but can also be misleading. For example, if students spend time on a particular page or engaging with a certain service, is that because they find it useful, or because it is difficult to comprehend? If new students are using your digital maps, does that suggest they are a success, or does it indicate physical wayfinding is a failure?

Complement quantitative measurement with further qualitative feedback to get meaningful insights and make sense of the figures.

Case study: iLancaster iLancaster is Lancaster University’s free mobile application. It offers staff and students a wide variety of tools and services from exam results to local bus times.

Students are crucial to the app’s ongoing improvement, with a team of 15 parttime students responsible for the majority of development. They contribute ideas and complete the hands-on work of implementing an ever-growing list of applets.

The team leader has been careful to select students from a range of disciplines, including those without advanced technical skills, meaning they can draw upon a mix of insights and experiences that are more representative of the student population they deliver to.

‘They are closest to the problem – they understand the University and the student experience,’ says team leader Brian Green. ‘You almost have a ready-made focus group.’ It is also an opportunity to provide the student with skills, experience and a part-time income.

While student input is of course vitally important to the project, we also recognise that students don’t always know what they will want, and there are often other requirements that also need to be taken into account.

As such we have learnt to balance student input with the demands of other relevant stakeholders, in order to drive growth and provide the best outcomes for both students and the wider University.

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You said, we did: once you’ve done it, tell them Why is it important to tell students how their feedback has been used?

There are three good reasons to ensure you communicate feedback-based developments to those who provided the initial input: It encourages them to continue to provide feedback It shows their voices and opinions are valued It offers a sense of ownership over new developments

Consider your audience The first consideration in any communications exercise is the audience. Its mix of characteristics will help you define the most appropriate channels and create content that resonates. Having completed a student journey mapping exercise, you should be in the ideal position to understand their habits and what makes them tick.

Question to consider include:

Find a newsworthy angle Newsworthiness depends on a range of factors: extraordinariness, significance, impact to the audience, proximity, and how recently it occurred. The higher your message scores in these factors, the greater the chance it will merit inclusion in news channels and the more likely your audience is to take note.

Make it sharable What better way to spread your message than through students sharing it? The instinct to share information tends to stem from how it makes us feel. Content that elicits a reaction such as excitement, amusement, surprise or sympathy tends to perform best on social platforms. Consider how your feedback-based changes might affect the audience.

Care about the visuals Whether your content appears on a university news site, social media platform or publication, it is vying for attention with surrounding items. Ensure your content grabs the eye with striking visuals. Posts with images are, for example, proven to perform more strongly on social media.

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Where do they go for university information?

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What formats do they prefer – video, infographics, text, audio or face-to-face?

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Which devices are they likely to use to consume content?

Find the right tone of voice

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What topics are they interested in both generally and at specific points in the calendar?

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How much time do they have to consume information?

Feedback is by definition conversational, so affect an appropriate tone.

Informal, friendly and to the point is often suggested as the preferred tone among students.

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Are there barriers to overcome, such as language, culture or disability?

Use the right format Create great content ‘Content is king,’ has become a well-worn phrase among journalists, marketers and communicators. As the choice of channels and devices continues to grow, it’s a useful reminder not to become too consumed by the technology – and certainly not at the expense of crafting great content. These pointers will help you select your messages and express the changes you have made:

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Research into your audience’s favoured sources of information will guide you to the right mix of formats. And once you have made your decision, use it in the most effective way. Thinking of online video? Bear in mind a significant proportion are viewed on mobile devices and without sound. Writing an online news story? Avoid confronting mobile users with solid slabs of text by breaking for a new paragraph after each line. It’s also worth considering the online journey – is it easy for users to reach the right destination?

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Choose the right author Depending on your message, it may be appropriate to come from a university leader, an academic department or specific service. Remember that students will be more likely to pay attention to information that comes from people they know and who are significant in their lives and study.

Include a call to action What do you want students to do next? It may be to make use of a new system or service, or provide further feedback. Be sure to clearly state the call to action in any content you create.

Ensure accuracy Develop credibility and avoid confusion by being transparent about what has been done, why, and by whom. But also be clear on what has not been achieved or what is yet to come.

Choose the right length The shorter the better is often the preferred approach with online content, especially video. But there are instances where long-form content can be incredibly effective. In crafting your message and deciding on length, bear in mind your channel, your audience, your content and its purpose.

Choose your channels You may already have clearly defined university-owned student communications channels with a responsible team who can input content. At other institutions, student communications may be much less centralised with each department or team responsible for selecting and using its own methods – or there may be a mix.

Whichever situation your institution is in, here are some channels you may like to investigate: Social media Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat tend currently to be among the most popular social media channels, and are ideally suited for creating conversations.

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Intranet/student portal Such channels may enable you to make use of targeting to provide tailored messages to different student groups.

Student news pages and newsletters These may be institutional, departmental or service-specific.

Posters, digital screens, window graphics or banners Find out who can provide you with access to physical display spaces.

Mobile app You may like to consider developing a student applet or mobile tool where students can both submit feedback and see results of what has been suggested.

Face-to-face meetings or events From lecture shout-outs to meetings with academic representatives, face-to-face meetings are an excellent opportunity to demonstrate action and signpost feedback opportunities.

Dedicated feedback site Have you considered a central webpage dedicated to student feedback – both how to give it and what happens as a result?

Develop an identity It may be effective to create an identity for your student communications content and channels. This can help students recognise opportunities and help compound and connect the messages. A key element may be a familiar sign or icon that signals feedback and makes your feedback channels easier to identify. Colour palette, typeface, motifs and photographic style may also play a role in developing a clear identity.

Keep the channels open You may have completed your journey mapping or feedback exercise and be ready to report back on action, but what can they provide input on next, and how? It’s important that feedback is a continuous process and students remain aware of simple, accessible methods to offer their views whatever the topic.

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Case study: ‘you said we did’ To ensure students could see what was happening as a result of their feedback and encourage them to give more; Lancaster University launched a ‘you said we did’ campaign in 2015.

Around a dozen messages that related to feedback-based improvements were selected. These were drawn from across the University, including teams such as IT, Facilities, the Library and Student Services, and were used to populate large format window decals, a central web page, social media posts and printed collateral.

Template artwork was also produced so that academic departments could create their own digital screens, lecture slides and posters containing messages specific to their students but using the same motif and colour palette.

The campaign itself was designed using student feedback. At a series of focus groups, a range of students offered their views on identity, channels, messaging and design.

In 2016 Lancaster University achieved a record NSS response rate. Seventy-eight percent of final-year students offered their feedback, a four percent increase on the previous year’s then-record total and four percent above the national average.

Continuous improvement and customer service excellence So, you have your map, you’ve shared it across your University and you have used it to drive change and improve the student experience. The question now is how do you embed this approach into everything you do?

One way is to focus on continuous improvement through Customer Service Excellence accreditation².

Accreditation: what’s the point?

Accreditation doesn’t simply benefit the customer; it also benefits the wider university. The accreditation enables the organisation to: 

Review and confirm the appropriateness of what is already in place



Identify the quality of what needs to be put in place



Improve the standard of what is currently in place ² Cabinet Office, Customer Service Excellence ® available online at: customerserviceexcellence.uk.com

In short, accreditation provides the university with an assurance that the services on offer have been assessed against accepted standards recognised as the industry or professional norm.

Consistency is key Be careful though, as there is not always a simple link between the services delivered and levels of perceived customer satisfaction. Smaller associated services can often pull satisfaction levels down if they are not operating at the same level as core services.

Consistency of experience is key and requires a commitment across the university. This means that you must involve staff in services across the university.

Managing change Accreditation can be beneficial in that it can give staff the ability to question existing processes, however, this does require an organisational culture that accepts these behaviours. If the organisation can accept this change in behaviour then research tells us that accreditation can have a positive impact on organisational culture.

Changing the culture It is absolutely essential then that the organisation as a whole is committed to the process of accreditation and the associated cultural change.

According to Abraham et al., (2000) this change is absolutely critical as without significant changes in culture the quality of the services being delivered will not improve, for they suggest that ‘real change in quality is tantamount to a cultural transformation’.

If you want to improve quality then you need to be prepared for cultural change.

Bottom-up approach Morest (2009) recognises that cultural change is difficult to achieve in most organisations. She identifies that the way that an organisation goes about seeking to change the culture can have a significant impact on success: 15

‘…undertaking cultural change ultimately must be a bottom-up, as opposed to topdown, decision. As long as building a culture of evidence is perceived as an external demand which has been translated into an administrative priority, staff are unlikely to see value in investing limited time and resources.’ (Morest (2009), p. 23) The change then needs to come from within, and needs to be driven from the bottom-up.

It also, as Peccei et al., (2011) suggest, requires an organisational commitment and overall management engagement that will in turn help reduce resistance to change.

There is also the added benefit that this engagement may also in turn increase staff commitment to the organisation.

No silver bullet What these studies and our own experience go to show is that accreditation on its own is not a ‘silver bullet’ for the challenge of improving customer service. This is because accreditation also requires a simultaneous shift in culture that necessitates a commitment to change on the part of the organisation and for management to be fully engaged with the project.

Case Study: Professional Services, Lancaster University The initiative to seek Customer Service Excellence accreditation was proposed and championed at a senior level by our Director of Student Based Services. His aim was to start a process which would help move all services provided by the Professional Services team towards adopting a more customer-focussed service culture. The proposal was that change could be initiated by all services through working towards the government-endorsed external accreditation standard for Customer Service Excellenceᶟ.

The aim of the initiative was also to create a benchmark to allow Professional Services to move towards the introduction of a continuous improvement service delivery model, while maintaining staff morale. The idea being that creation of a positive and engaging environment among staff members would then facilitate further change within the organisation.

Recruiting champions The journey to accreditation was led in each service area by a champion (a volunteer). The champions were supported by the Director of Student Based Services. He considered it necessary that this was seen as a grassroots-led change by staff and not as a directive from senior management. Therefore, it was important that the champions, as a team, took the lead and were seen to be taking the lead by staff across Professional Services.

This was a challenge for the champions in that they were predominantly frontline staff and not service managers. They therefore had no organisational authority to instruct others to engage with the initiative to achieve accreditation or to make changes relating to the delivery of customer service. For the initiative to have a successful outcome the champions had to achieve everything through engagement and influence.

We should also note here that the volunteers were not bought out from their normal roles and set up as a separate team; they undertook this initiative alongside their normal roles. This required a considerable commitment from the team members. The Director of Student Based Services hoped that this would demonstrate to staff in Professional Services that customer service should be part of normal day-to-day activity and not a special project.

Outcomes Customer Service Excellence accreditation was achieved at Lancaster in 2012. As part of the process there are annual surveillance visits to check not only that we adhere to the standard, but that service is continuing to develop.

As part of the re-accreditation event in 2015 we introduced a journey mapping process. Although journey mapping is not a new concept, we innovated by allowing students to interact with the map electronically. This allowed us to get good customer insight at every point of the journey, with the aim of further enhancing the student experience.

Our work in this area helped us to retain accreditation for another three years. We also achieved ‘compliance plus’ in eight categories, indicating that we had exceeded the standard in these criteria.

We are now preparing for 2018 with the intention of seeking accreditation for the University as a whole and not just for Professional Services.

ᶟ Cabinet Office, Customer Service Excellence ® available online at: customerserviceexcellence.uk.com

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References (continuous improvement section)

Reddy, Y. M. 2008. Global Accreditation Systems in Management Education: A Critical Analysis.

Abraham, M., Crawford, J., Carter, D and Mazotta, F. 2000. Management decisions for effective ISO 9000 accreditation. Management Decision, 38, 182-193.

Walker, R. H., Johnson, L. W. and Leonard, S. 2006. Re-thinking the conceptualization of customer value and service quality within the service-profit chain. Managing Service Quality, 16, 23-36.

Alexander, J. A., Weiner, B. J., Shortell, S. M. & Baker, L. C. 2007. Does Quality Improvement Implementation Affect Hospital Quality of Care? Hospital Topics, 85, 3-12.

Dowlatshahia, S. and Urias, C. 2004. An empirical study of ISO certification in the maquiladora industry. International Journal of Production Economics, 88, 291-306.

Greenfield, D. 2009. Are accreditation surveys reliable? International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 22, 105.

Li, S.-J., Huang, Y-Y. and Yang , M. M. 2011. How satisfaction modifies the strength of the influence of perceived service quality on behavioral intentions.

Leadership in Health Services, 24, 91.

Mishra, D. P. 2006. The role of certification in service relationships: Theory and empirical evidence Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 13, 81-96.

Morest, V. S. 2009. Accountability, accreditation, and continuous improvement: Building a culture of evidence. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2009, 1727.

Nicolau, N. J. L. and Sellers, R. 2010. The quality of quality awards: Diminishing information asymmetries in a hotel chain. Journal of Business Research, 63, 832839.

Paccioni, A., Sicotte, C. and Champahne, F. 2008. Accreditation: a cultural control strategy. International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 21, 146.

Peccei, R., Giangreco, A. and Sebastiano, A. 2011. The role of organisational commitment in the analysis of resistance to change. Personnel Review, 40, 185204.

Pomey, M.-P., Contandriopoulos, A.-P., Francois, P. and Bertrand, D. 2004.

Accreditation: a tool for organisational change in hospitals? `International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 17, 113-124.

Pomey, M.-P., Lemieux-Charles, L., Champagne, F. O., Angus, D., Shabah, A. and Contandriopoulos, A.-P. 2010. Does accreditation stimulate change? A study of the impact of the accreditation process on Canadian healthcare organisations.

Implementation Science, 5, 31-44.

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