With the cap on student numbers soon to be lifted, many institutions are hoping that Clearing will become less of a frenetic last chance saloon, and more of a measured late application process. But these are still late applications that need to be dealt with promptly and professionally. In order to secure fee income, student recruitment targets need to be met. But competition is fierce.

It is crucial that universities engage with as many prospective students as early as possible and provide them with correct, updated information at the right time. This can be a challenge; dealing with and resourcing the unpredictable nature of high call volumes over a short amount of time and capturing, routing and tracking to fulfilment messages from other channels such as SMS and social media which are becoming increasingly popular.

C3 offers a cost-effective and flexible on-demand contact centre to manage student engagement and the annual peaks in incoming communications (Clearing, Accommodation and Financing enquiries) across every single one of your supported channels. Our software can either be deployed on your network; giving you additional capacity and call control for the duration of peaks or we can manage your incoming call queues and take them outside from your University infrastructure and deliver them to agents when they become available.

With ‘flexible’ licensing, the C3 contact centre software captures, queues and routes calls, SMS, emails and social media enquiries, ensuring that each prospective student speaks to the designated member of staff as fast as possible. It is possible to increase capacity on the C3 contact centre temporarily and simply scale the system – up or down – to match the demands of clearing, as well as other peaks in traffic.  Our licensing model means you only pay for what you need when you need it rather than having to pay for resources that sit idle for large periods of the year.

• Our contact centre software can be installed Onsite, Hosted within our data centre or virtualised on your existing infrastructure
• The solution provides universities with the temporary additional capacity required to manage the peak in call volume
• The system is modular and can be built to support all supported channels (SMS, email, social media)
• Universities retain onsite control over call flow and user experience
• High level of call control – queuing, routing, reporting
• ‘Flexible’ licensing means that the system can be easily scaled up and down to match your traffic demands so you only pay for what you use, when you need to use it

Although the demands of these peaks mean that a comprehensive student engagement tool is critical for this period, the reality is that students expect a professional service from their education providers all year round. A solution such as C3’s Contact ensures that universities have a holistic view of their communication channels and can provide students with the information they require, whatever channel they choose to communicate with.

For more information on our applications please use the contact form or email sales@c3.co.uk