The challenge
Competition between universities to fill places is fierce — and clearing is a vital function of ensuring each place on each course is filled. Sheffield Hallam always strives for excellence and they acknowledged that their clearing solution was not delivering the required results.
Their call waiting times were often too long, leading to high rates of call abandonment. The infrastructure capacity was restricted to only 30 agents on the front line, which limited the volume of calls that could be handled. It was almost impossible to keep up with demand during clearing.
Answering more calls fills more places on courses
They deployed Liberty Converse, our omnichannel contact centre solution, which enabled increased inbound lines and improved infrastructure capacity for the clearing period. The solution was a fully scalable option and was highly cost effective.
“When we started working with Netcall to maximise our clearing operation, we had very firm ideas about what we wanted and how we wanted to achieve it. Throughout, Netcall has been very supportive and worked alongside us every step of the way. They successfully helped us to develop and implement a new system that other companies in the industry had said couldn’t be done!”
Lindsey White
Student Recruitment Manager (Operations), Sheffield Hallam University
The solution
With Liberty Converse, call wait time was dramatically reduced. The average dropped to under 10 seconds – reducing by more than 99%. Students could get through to front-line staff quickly to answer their questions. And, because the levels of frustration and disappointment were lowered, the calls were easier for agents to handle.
The call abandonment rate nose-dived. Call hang-ups reduced by a huge 92%. If a student did abandon their call for any reason, they were called back using CLI reports. So, no callers were missed.
When delays built up or average handling times were creeping up, the management team were able to moderate the queues and make changes to utilise additional resource.
This is because real-time data was now able to be displayed on user-friendly dashboards. This was a game-changer.
Previously, phone lines were used to both queue and answer calls which limited call answering availability. With Liberty Converse, the resilience and scalability of the hosted calls meant that all available phone lines could be used to answer calls.
It amounted to a 37% increase in the number of calls answered. Effectively this amounted to 3 more agents on the front line.
The result
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37% increase in number of calls answered
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Waiting times were cut significantly to less than 10 seconds
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92% lower abandonment rate
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Equivalent of 3 x more agents on the front line
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Shorter waiting times and more capacity to help each caller reduced stress on students, who were calling at an already anxious time – feedback on student experience was greatly improved
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The management team had a full view and control of the situation in real-time – they could respond quickly to changes in demand
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As it’s a hosted system, Sheffield Hallam could implement a robust contingency plan, which could be replicated at another site or location if there were a disaster or emergency evacuation
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15% more offers made – a direct financial impact on the university
Increased clearing offers made
Caller experience was transformed. Clearing was much more manageable for staff to handle all calls and to manage the peaks.
The end result was that the University was able to fill a massive 15% more places on courses for the following academic year. This was due to the faster, more effective management of calls during the clearing period. Sheffield Hallam have continued to benefit from these results year after year.