Chat is a popular contact channel at study information team of Hogeschool Rotterdam
More than 35,000 students study at Hogeschool Rotterdam. Current and future students have questions all year round about which study is the best for them, what it is exactly that they can do with their diploma and questions about the registration process and how they can be eligible for a study. Yearly, Study information team conducts over 30,000 talks with students via the desk, phone, e-mail and web chat.
They have been using the chat software of Livecom for web chat since 2011. We talked to Angelique Bron, Coordinator of the Study information team and Mineke Goudswaard, Study informer, from the Study information department to hear how they have organized customer contact with students at the hogeschool.
Honest and elaborate study information
“The way in which we give study information is not commercially-based”, says Angelique. “We feel it’s important that everyone makes a good choice and that they end up in the right place where they are happy. That calls for honest and elaborate information”.
Growing offer of contact moments – web chat most popular
“About 7 years ago, we also added web chat to our client contact channel,” Angelique tells us. “The pressure on telephony and e-mail was very high and we really wanted to add an efficient channel. That led us to the chat solution. The study information team can handle several calls at the same time and the biggest advantage is that these are actual conversations. It’s possible to ask in-depth questions and conclude the cal in a good way, making the student feel the call was really helpful. This is much harder with, for instance, e-mail. Live chat also fits well with our school and the era in which we are living in.”
“We see that we have achieved more customer contact because we offer more channels. In our view a positive development!” according to Angelique Bron, Coordinator of the Study information team.
“Web chat is our most popular channel”, says Mineke. “Of course, it really fits well with our target group which mainly consists of young people.” Angelique adds, “In numbers, we still receive more phone calls than anything else. Last year that amounted to over 13,000 calls. After that came web chat, with over 10,000 chat messages and 850 students came by at the desk. What is remarkable is that telephony has rather increased than decreased in the past years. We see that we have achieved more customer contact because we offer more channels. In our view a positive development!”.