Want More Admissions Candidates? Catch Them in Their Natural Habitat
People who've spent time recently on high school or college campuses will notice that students spend a considerable amount of time in the digital world on mobile devices. Students use them to get information, communicate, complete tasks, and are notified of important (or interesting) things.
Successful institutions must excel at engaging their candidates in ways that are natural to them on mobile devices.
This video shows how a candidate requests information, learns how to apply, begins an application, and gets status -- all from their mobile device.
In the video, we showed the how the experience was optimized for mobile device use.
- The candidate received an email immediately after requesting information from the institution's website
- The email was easy to read on a mobile device, was personal, and had links for next steps
- After the candidate clicked the link to begin an application, that user experience was simple and worked well on a mobile device
- The application integrated with other systems in real-time, allowing the candidate to continue and/or complete the process immediately.
- The candidate received real-time text notifications confirming the completion of key stages of the application as they occur -- including information on next steps and how to get help
In conclusion, students interact with the world primarily vial their mobile devices. Therefore, successful admissions teams must have the tools and processes for optimal engagement on this form factor. This means the following:
- The candidate's journey must be simple to navigate on mobile devices
- The application experience must be optimized to work on mobile devices
- Each step of the admissions process needs to occur real-time, without delays due to slow / batch integration between supporting systems
- The candidate must also be engaged real-time, with notifications and communications that are appropriate for how candidates engage on mobile devices