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In my Career College Central magazine article, I discussed a few "boulders" keeping career colleges from reaping the full benefits of contact centers. Another boulder I thought I’d save for my blog is … pride. We are sales people and we do not like others touching our leads. Many sales people have a "that’s mine" attitude, and our pride inevitably gets in the way and clouds our judgment.
I remember the first time a director asked the admissions staff to swap leads with other team members. I was furious! No way was anyone else going to touch my leads! I had been working too hard on these leads to have someone mess up the rapport. In all reality, a fresh new voice may have been all those leads needed to enroll.
Instead of looking at admissions support centers as an outside organization possibly messing with our leads, they should be viewed as members of the same team, working toward the same goal.
I sometimes feel the relationship we build with leads can be our downfall. In many cases, we have developed such a good relationship that our leads do not want to let us down by expressing their true feelings. This can cause reps to spend time working leads who don’t have the heart to say that they are no longer interested. This wastes both our time and that of the lead.
Adding a trained ASR to the process can alleviate this issue. Speaking to another friendly, knowledgeable voice representing the school can free that lead to be honest, both with themselves and with the school. It can also serve to increase the lead’s faith that the school is staffed with people who are genuinely interested in their success.
What we must keep in mind is that, though we try, directors and admissions reps cannot be everything to everyone. To get the job done in the best way possible, we have to set our pride aside and accept a little outside help. A fresh new voice, packed with energy and empathy like the ASRs at TASC, can give an admissions department an extra step toward meeting their enrollment goals.
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3 Comments on "Admissions support centers: not your typical call center"
You could not have said it better David. To succeed in todays world it takes Team Work in all facets of life. Everyone can use a helping hand and a new perspective on attaining ones goals.
honestly, no… having some random call center call people over and over doesn’t work. telemarketing didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now… look up your phone numbers on google and see just how many people are beyond pissed to receive your phone calls.