5 Ways Salesforce Service Cloud Rocks Your Student Services
Author: Nick Van Haeften
Technology is embedded into nearly every aspect of our lives and students entering post-secondary institutions rely heavily upon it. These students also want the same level of service from their Higher Education institutions that they get from their other online service providers. This means that student expectations regarding up-to-date communication and support are high. Consequently, enabling your Student Services team to respond quickly and efficiently has become vital.
This seems to put an immense amount of pressure on higher education institutions. The way these expectations are handled, however, can make providing a positive student experience seem like an overwhelming and impossible task. Enter Salesforce Service Cloud, a comprehensive solution that can help you deliver resolutions to students.
It’s a Win-Win on Both Sides of the Student Services Desk
Your students are communication-savvy so it’s sensible to allow them to reach out to you on their chosen channel – email, phone, social media, online communities, chat, text, and more. Service Cloud converts these exchanges into cases that are issues, requests, or support tickets. Cases are then dispersed to your agents who can respond and attain a positive resolution.
This achieves an incredible amount of accessibility and support for students via the technology they use every day while providing student services staff with a reliable and transparent method for tracking, addressing, and responding effectively. Response time will be decreased so the need for follow-up emails and visits will be as well.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the many ways that Salesforce Service Cloud works, and how it’s able to simplify and improve the student service experience on both ends:
1. Expanding Communication Channels to Reduce Caseload
Emailed cases can be submitted to Service Cloud immediately. With a setup flow for email-to-case, you can resolve student inquiries swiftly. Additionally, the workflow will have your cases routed to department-specific email addresses.
Students can start exchanges with Student Services by sending texts to your phone numbers or sending Facebook Messenger messages. Incoming communications are displayed in the Service Console, where representatives can accept a message and start chatting via LiveMessage.
Real-time chat support on your website is also available. Site visitors can initiate a chat quickly or accept a chat request from an agent. Requests can be routed to the right agent based on readiness and qualifications. Yes, AI chatbots are also an option – Salesforce Einstein Bots save precious time handling routine requests, gathering information, answering questions, or by directing the matter to the right department.
2. Quick Access to Case History
Message continuity is incredibly important. As mentioned above, with a case is automatically created in a centralized location, Student Services representatives have access to this information. Cases can be linked to a student’s record, allowing staff to clearly understand the case, any modifications to it, and not contradict previous messages.
3. Customized Knowledge Base
Another invaluable benefit of Salesforce Service Cloud is the ability to build and share instructions and protocols across the entire team. You can build your institution’s customized Knowledge Base, which encompasses searchable, documented solutions, also known as knowledge articles. This database can include information such as your standard procedures or frequently asked questions. With these available at the click of a button, your support team can consistently and freely provide guidelines for common issues.
The availability of these “how-to” type articles springboards into allowing students to self-serve and access the same Knowledge Base via a Community – all available to them 24/7/365.
4. Emails and Tracking From Salesforce
Salesforce Service Cloud provides a tracker system to assess open rates, meaning staff is able to see when a student opens a response emailed from the system. Not only does this enable team members to verify that a student has received and seen the response, but also the number of times it’s been viewed. This offers integrity when staff needs to readdress students about issues that have already been dealt with.
5. Technology Integration
When students call support staff, an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system can gather information before a student speaks to them. The IVR communicates with Salesforce Service Cloud’s CTI (computer telephony integration), allowing Student Services to access records tied to that student’s ID number as they’re answering the phone.
Quick and Efficient Resolutions
Service Cloud is a solution that allows student questions to be answered without delay, coupled with tackling these issues with less effort by your team. In addition, communication is uniform, transparent and traceable. The more effective your interactions are, the more student success, as well as Student Services team success, you will cultivate.