Creating a Student Journey Map

Full Transcript

Confessions episode 12 - Renee Seltzer

Jaime Hunt: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm a higher ed CMO and I have a confession to make well, I think that student journey maps are incredibly valuable to institutions. They can be so much work that can be daunting to tackle that type of project. That's why I'm excited today to bring in Renee Seltzer. Who's gonna talk a little bit about how to create a student journey map for your institution, how to get buy in and how to make the process as easy as possible so that you can better serve your students and your institution.

Welcome to confessions of a higher ed CMO, the podcast designed for higher education marketers. I'm your host, Jaime hunt. And I am so excited to have this opportunity to share insights and inspiration with confessions of a higher ed CMO. I'm designing a [00:01:00] different kind of podcasting experience with each episode.

I'll be bringing in a guest for a deep dive into the challenge. And joys. We all face in higher education marketing. After each episode, you can join the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag higher ed CMO. I would love to see this become like a book club, but for a podcast and be sure to follow me on Twitter at, at Jaime Hunt IMC that's J A I M E H U N T I M C for more opportunities to connect.

So I'm really excited to have here with me today. Renee seltzer. She is an agency owner and a fractional CMO. Hey Renee, welcome to the show. Hi, 

Renee Seltzer: so excited to be. 

Jaime Hunt: I'm super excited for our conversation today. Um, so today, Renee and I are gonna be talking about creating student journey maps. And, um, before we jump into that, Renee, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your 

Renee Seltzer: background?

Sure, absolutely. So coming on [00:02:00] 25 years of higher ed experience, which is kind of bananas to think about, started with a number of different OPMs before they were really called opiums and through that went in house and then started my own consultancy. And now pivoted to agency owner. So I'm really excited about all of that.

And then, you know, through the process, you, you really see that industry evolve and change over that 20 plus years. um, yeah. Tell 

Jaime Hunt: me a little bit about what being a fractional CMO 

Renee Seltzer: means. Yeah, this is so it's kind of a new coin. So we've been used to it when it comes to legal, you know, sometimes we'll have a part-time, uh, council on staff.

So this is really where we're looking at it from the marketing perspective, where you get a higher level executive CMO and they come in and they help set up the systems, the processes, the people, and really just audit everything and see, do we have the right metrics set up? And then that person you don't always need.

That level of leadership to stay on. So they either stay on, on a monthly to make sure everyone's rowing in the right direction. And after that [00:03:00] initial big lift, that way you could work with a number of different university systems. Um, my most recent was with the university of Arizona global campus and came and helped them through that transition that they had with XO.

That sounds 

Jaime Hunt: really interesting and fun. And I kind of wish we were talking about that a little bit today, but, um, another day. Yeah, absolutely fascinating. The idea of being able to like build things and then, you know, move to the next and into that 

Renee Seltzer: sounds. Yeah. And you, you stay in, um, almost like a board of director, so you stay in quarterly and you check in on that progress and then you pivot and, and really you keep evaluating your staff and skill sets as they go through.

Because when you're hiring marketing folks, a lot of times there isn't a leader in the organization that knows marketing well enough to give them that needed guidance. So that's really where that helps is. How do you make sure that marketing is staying on point when you don't have that marketing, um, skill set on staff at that level?

So, 

Jaime Hunt: Renee, we were chatting on LinkedIn about your recent work, talking to a university. That's looking to map [00:04:00] its student journey from awareness through start, and eventually through graduation beyond, I wanna dive into that a little bit. But let's just start with the basics. What is a journey map? 

Renee Seltzer: So one of the things that came out and they have this often in, in lots of other businesses, so it's relatively new to higher ed and I've worked with other businesses where you would map out the journey of, let's say a consumer who's writing the subway, and then you would actually walk through that whole experience of their journey from buying a ticket on the subway, writing the subway.

What is their feelings while writing it? Their frustration points. The same thing can be applied in higher ed you're mapping out the experience of enrollment or in that case, it could also be with a current student or alumni. And you're capturing every touchpoint, every different system that that student has to go through.

And you're really identifying where are those friction points? So if you look at it most times in a university where we're somewhat silo, By, um, organizational, you know, person by or department and what [00:05:00] happens is no, one's looking at it from the student's perspective and what's that journey look like and what is their feelings and expectations through that journey?

We're really looking at it with operationally. How do we improve our department? So this is that across the board, outside of departments. What is that journey? And is it as good as it can be? And are we delighting perspective or current students in that journey? I think the answer is usually. Great. So that's why it's so important to understand where we are today.

And then as we start to iterate and improve it, how is that impacting the business? And I think that's a big part too. You can't, um, you know, you can't measure you, you can't improve what you can't measure. So it's really important to start this process of a student journey, um, mapping and then start to improve it.

And. See, how does this impact sediment, net promoter scores, but also enrollment and retention. You know, all of those numbers are impacted by how that student feels and is serviced through their journey. I 

Jaime Hunt: really love journey map. Um, and [00:06:00] when I've worked on these in the past, one of the things that we were trying to get people to think about outside of those silos is that the tuition bill.

Is part of that marketing effort, you know, it's part of the experience of coming to your institution and in a lot of ways, it's the most important document that you send to students. Um, and so having the right tone in those messages and making sure that you're. Communicating what a student needs to know in conjunction with their bill and all of that.

This was a, a huge process. Why is it important to undertake this type of 

Renee Seltzer: work? Absolutely because it's, it's one of those things that we're all struggling with driving enrollments, getting enough, more referrals, and then also retention. So these are all things that we could help. And especially I've talked to big universities that are overwhelmed with applicants and they're like, well, that's not.

That's not important to us, you know, they, they actually said that and I was like, well, the, the people who are not struggling with your enrollment process are often, especially if you're an [00:07:00] undergrad, are the ones where parents are helping them. And that is something that we don't think about is if I was a, um, A first generation immigrant parents, no help.

I filled up my FAFs son. 19 times. There was a time I was going to quit before I even started, because I couldn't get past that hurdle. And I thought, if this is this hard, just to get in and fill out my paperwork, I'm never going to do well in college. I got in four years, college was a breeze. That was the hard part.

And I almost quit before I even got started because it was just such a cognitive load and it killed my, you know, any form of self confidence that I could have with college. And that's a lot that we have to think about these prospective students, especially if they're first generation. English as a second language students, we have to make this just a delightful experience, especially if we want inclusivity and equity and all of that, we have to make that process a lot easier and smoother and clear.

A lot of times, um, even my kids' school, I was reading something was like an opt out [00:08:00] form, but it was a double, double negative. And I'm like, I don't know. You know, me and my husband are like, we both are college degree students, you know, and I dunno how to read this. And everyone's like, yeah, this is really confusing.

And we have to think about that and ask, is this confusing? Did this help or hurt what you were trying to do and improve that intuition's incredibly challenging to understand. Sometimes they require. Insurance. Sometimes they require this. You could opt out of this. It's unclear and it gets really frustrating and scary, and we're potentially scaring away, um, certain types of students that we so desperately want to come to our, our institution before they even, so there's an 

Jaime Hunt: equity 

Renee Seltzer: element to this.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. If, you know, that's what we think sometimes is, oh, the students aren't having a problem because we got 5,000 applicants or 5,000 people pursued, but we don't know how many of those, the parents helped you know, how many did they? It was a family collaborative effort and how many of them dropped out because they, they just didn't know what to do.

We don't have visibility into that. but doing the student [00:09:00] journey mapping and doing user studies and really understanding when somebody fill on an application, but doesn't matriculate, let's start asking them why focus on those students too. The ones that don't matriculate from applicant to start, and that's across the board from undergrad to graduate, you know, and start understanding what was, what were the hurdles in your way and how do we smooth those hurdles out?

The best that we. 

Jaime Hunt: Is there an element of resilience in this like students, um, maybe today with COVID, um, have less resilience because of all the hardships they've experienced in the past two and a half years. And so they might run into obstacles and stop and say halt, or have you not seen that as a, 

Renee Seltzer: as an issue?

I think what happens is a for, for so many people, their cup is. You know, their water cup is full and any one thing it's just enough for that cup to, to, to spill over. So I think that we're, we're very close to people's cups. You know, rents are going up, um, they don't know where they're gonna get live. I know some people, their rent went up a [00:10:00] thousand dollars a month and now they have to go look for new housing or they're homeless now.

And we don't realize that any little frustration point more than it needs to could be all impacting that. But those are the students who need education. Social mobility the most. And, and that's where I always am an advocate. This student journey map is about that student. That one that's desperately needs social mobility.

And how do we just smooth it out, make it easy, um, you know, create widgets that help that person know what the next thing is. Um, CRMs are amazing, but they're not utilized the way that they should. They should be sending out videos, you know, even text message where it says, Hey, I'm your enrollment coach.

This is what's gonna happen next. Or I'm your financial aid person. These are the three things I needed to fill out and why I need you to fill them out and how you would get that information. Um, I think we could look back at all the frequently asked questions that we get through enrollment processes or onboarding or matriculation [00:11:00] and create video components to that and make it really easy.

Somebody could watch it on their own at two in the morning when they're finally filling something out, they could just access that video and be like, Ugh, I get it. Okay. They shown me what that buttons for, 

Jaime Hunt: you know? Yeah. Yeah. Cuz there's so much jargon in higher ed and then there's also this tendency. I call it PhD, speak where we write our copy.

In the manner that we would want a faculty member to read it versus how a 17 year old. and, and, or maybe not their parent yeah. Who may not have any background into it. And that barrier to understanding what's going on could potentially be a barrier to enrollment. 

Renee Seltzer: Exactly. Exactly. And, and then they end up saying, this is really frustrating.

I'm gonna do this later. And then later never comes and you know, or that's why they become a nontraditional student at 34, because now they have a little bit more of these, these skills and they're persevered and. Okay. Now I could fill out tax paperwork you know, and now I could take these things. Um, but that's where we get so many [00:12:00] non-traditional students is because the higher ed system made it so hard that they just felt like they didn't have the confidence.

To do the next thing. And, and, you know, even in community colleges, I, I go to their websites. A part of what I do for universities is I audit their process and I audit all their awareness and okay. Even on Google business profile, what do you look like? And have you even declared ownership of that profile because that's how people will find you.

And what's the next thing, like, are you making it easy for them to get to understand what the next step. Like there's a persuasive architecture to how we want people to move along. Um, and are we thinking about what's the next thing we want them to do? And is it clear? I mean, that's a part of how to do it.

A really good student journey map, and then start iterating is ask yourself, okay, I'm looking at this page here, or I'm doing this. Is it clear what the next thing should be to them? And if not, that's your first step. That's how you start to tackle this process is. Can they easily find the programs that you [00:13:00] have offered the modality?

Is it online? Is it on ground? Um, what's your tuition and does it make sense? Is it needlessly complicated? you know? Right. And yes, the answer is yes, it is needlessly complicated. 

Jaime Hunt: Hey, all I hope you're enjoying this episode of confessions of a higher ed CMO. I wanna take just a quick moment to thank my friends at Nector who made this new enroll.

I podcast possible Nector brings affordable communications infrastructure to college campuses. It's like slack, but for the higher ed student experience, Nector integrates seamlessly with all major LMSs, making it easy for instructors and administrators to build emergent learning communities in all of their classes and groups without the extra work.

Their focus is on boosting student engagement and reducing instructor stress by building a learning community in every classroom by leveraging familiar technologies like instant messaging channels, Nector prepare students for the remote yet collaborative work environment of the future. You can learn more about their platform by heading on over to NEC.[00:14:00] 

That's N E C T I R dot I O. And be sure to tell the team that Jamie sent you their way. 

Renee Seltzer: And then, you know, if you look at the university of Phoenix at, out of almost every school, they have a beautiful tuition page and it just makes super se you know, it's, it's incredibly clear, and this is what I'm gonna pay then.

Okay. I got it. This is what I'm gonna pay. Yeah. Um, and so we have to look at it from that perspective, and then what's the next thing, the application, um, Well, there was one university that I was auditing and I couldn't request their information because they had a, um, invisible. And you're thinking, oh my gosh.

Yeah. And I'm like, and the only reason I knew to find the invisible button is I highlighted the form cause I kept rejecting it. And um, and then I see there's an invisible button and I'm like, have you, did you guys know that? No, one's even submitting your form because there's this an invisible check button that, you know, wasn't there.

Oh gosh. So there's little things. Um, a lot of times there's a clear and submit button right next to each other. And they're often reversed order. How many times have you filled out an [00:15:00] application and the, and you click that clear. Why do you have a clear. And right. and I've talked, it's clearing up. Who's clearing it.

It's like all of a sudden, this is not my personal information anymore. No, no, I'm doing it for someone else. You know, like, and I've heard web developers tell me when I ask 'em why. And they're like, well, what if they wanna put someone else's info? I'm like, okay, well, what if they don't wanna do it? I'm like we close the browser.

If we don't wanna do it, we close the, we don't need to clear the button. It's just a friction point. Um, and so I would say too, as a part of this process is go through all your forms, go through your application, go through everything and ask yourself, do we need this question now? You know, even early in the application, do you need all that stuff or can you get it once they start to matriculate in, um, you know, let's not have more hurdles and ask for more pieces of info.

Um, just because we, we would like our serum to be completely filled out for our it's just great for us. you know? Yeah. Um, yeah, so it's, it's like little simple things. And I think of that user, does he on his mobile? Oh, this is another big one. [00:16:00] Most people are doing everything on mobile, including their online application.

And if that sounds bananas, it is. Um, but I think 85%, 65 to 85% of students are now doing it on mobile. Is your application working on mobile? And are you making it easy that they could attach something later to, you know, and append their application or orientation or whatever they need easily through mobile.

So things like that 

Jaime Hunt: that's. So when you're creating these journey maps, you're showing a university where all these touchpoints are, um, where the friction points are. What does the final deliverable 

Renee Seltzer: look like? Um, it's generally a big document and even things. When I, when I do it, I look at this was this.

Kind of a, a quick little story. It was a big state system univers. And they noticed that people were dying, like falling off in matriculation and it's because they were going into this black hole and weren't getting caught. So there was no system to alert them that someone fell through this [00:17:00] hole and they were staying in there for two, three months and they never.

Matriculate until that student finally says, Hey, I thought I was gonna start and I haven't started. And another term goes by and I haven't started. Um, but what you wanna do in that map is not only include what are all the touchpoints possibly, what are the feelings, if you can grab that through sentiment and there's ways to do that, but then you also wanna say, okay, what systems.

Do they, that student goes through. And how do they move from the other person? Is it manually by Betty who puts it in at night? Is it all of a sudden, a feed at, in the middle of the night that goes from one system to the other, um, that often happens, um, who has to touch something to make that person move to the next level, because at each ring, somebody falls.

You know, at each system at each touch point. And then do you have the safeties to say, okay, the next day, let's check this area, this trough, um, or let the CRM say if nothing happens in two days, do this instead. So [00:18:00] there's ways you could start to create your systems to, um, you know, kind of shake things out a little bit better, but you have to, you have to think about that, you know, if nothing happens, but they said they were gonna do something.

What should happen next? Yeah. 

Jaime Hunt: That makes sense. When I was at a previous institution and we did this work for incoming first time freshman, um, One of the things that we implemented was a AI chat bot so that students could ask questions. Yeah. And then we were also pushing out text messages. So we slimmed down the number of steps that they had to do for enrollment made that very, very clear on the landing page and then implemented this AI chat bot, cuz for a lot of what we had researched was that a lot of first generation college students don't wanna admit that they don't know something.

Renee Seltzer: Exactly. But they, yeah. That's it's, it's, it's them. . 

Jaime Hunt: Yeah, so it's it, but it's a chat bot, then you feel much more comfortable. And, and the result of that is, you know, we had 36%, fewer inbound question, phone [00:19:00] calls and 8% increase in freshman yield. Yay. And a 74% increase in bills paid on time because we were.

We were laying it out as simple as it could possibly be with consistency. So it wasn't housing saying the deadline is at midnight on the first where, um, the, uh, the financial aid office is saying the deadline is at five on. The 31st mm-hmm or, you know, everything's in alignment, everything's super clear.

Renee Seltzer: Well, and one of those things, and I love that you did that. Even Strayer university, they have a case study on their website about Irving, which is what they call their, their, um, bot. And I think they had 600,000 engagements when a very short amount of time. And then in their case study, they share the, the results of that.

Um, but that's exactly it. It's it's first generation college students. It's English is a second language. Um, as, as. English is a second language and first generation college student, the reason you're so scared is you don't want people to be onto you. , you know, it's such a weird thing because your parents, when your parents [00:20:00] come in from another country, they, they create this culture of hang low.

Don't, you know, have no one notice you. And that's kind of what you grow up with. So when you do start to go into the college system, you don't know how to advocate for yourself, cuz if anything, you always wanted to just, you know, kind of go under. Radar. And that that lack of advocacy is what happens. They don't know to say, Hey, this is a really frustrating process.

They internalize it and say, no, it's me. I don't know how to do something. You know? So that, that confidence level is so different. Like my husband. he always complains about the system where I might complain that it's me, you know, and it's our confidence level of how we view a situation. Um, but that's that's to your point.

So that case study of, of just your implementation is so impactful and powerful, you know, to, to show, um, I'll give you another one with that big state system. Another thing that they had, not only did they lose people matriculation, but they also founded this process while it was aware the students, the, the faculty or the.[00:21:00] 

Internally knew of this problem. It, it took me to help kind of, um, bring it to the surface that online students were getting all the stuff about housing online students were getting all the information about vaccines and what they needed to do is create a separate list and suppress 'em. So even going through this, you start to audit.

What is that cadence of communication look like? How often are people getting it? And if you start to see. Saying amount of communication, people get you start to realize why no one, they all say I don't check my email anymore. Right. We, we know that they don't look at their email, but yet we just keep emailing them saying we sent it to you.

So that's not good communication. If the other person didn't receive it and, and, and do something with it. Oh, a 

Jaime Hunt: hundred percent. When you think about, well, I remember somebody saying, well, you know, We tell them they have to read their email. So if they're not reading it, that's on them their fault. And it's like, okay, but then they're not gonna matriculate.

So it harms us, right. If they, if we don't make [00:22:00] this simpler, I think having text messaging really, really made the difference too, because that's how they were engaging with their friends and their peers. And I don't know, I'm not the kind of person that lets um, notifications go uncheck. 

Renee Seltzer: There's a stat, Jamie that says that, um, you know, emails may be open maybe at 20% at the best of the best email, uh, text messages are opened at 98% and they're read within three.

So you send a text message and it could be a quick little gift. Like don't forget to fill out your FAFSA. You have three more days. Um, and the little gift is something cute and you could, you could have personality and you can gauge them and, and you can communicate the specific things that they really have to do through text and, and not bombard them.

But you also, they will be happy that you communicated and they knew what to do next. So it's not a true, you know, people think it's an intrusion I'm like not if you wanted what they sent. Exactly. 

Jaime Hunt: I love when I get text messages about like, oh, your flight is still on time. Yeah. Good. I [00:23:00] didn't have to go look that up.

I didn't have to check. Thank you for letting me know. 

Renee Seltzer: That's exactly it. Yeah. That's exactly it. That was a great professor. Um, I, I, I won't say his name because it's it, I don't know how to pronounce it correctly, but he said the two things of loyalty is frictionless. Like how easy, the reason we all buy things on Amazon and they own 70 or 80.

All online sales is cuz you could click with one button and almost guarantees. You could find what you want and it's, it's a frictionless purchasing experience and it just comes to you. Um, so that's the one biggest thing with loyalty is how easy can you make it for me? And you think, oh, it's brand, it's all these other things of loyalty.

No it's cognitive load. , you know, make it easy for me. And I will be as loyal as I possibly can. So, 

Jaime Hunt: what, what kind of, when you talk about cognitive lows, I think about like the emotional labor that a lot of women in gen generally speaking do in their families. And I'm wondering if. If this even makes life better for women, um, or the people [00:24:00] that are carrying that, that cognitive load on other things that emotional burden on other things 

Renee Seltzer: absolutely helps with that.

Absolutely. I mean, I just went through summer camps with my kids and I felt like it was a part-time job. You know, you had to figure out the, the, which camps they're gonna go to, what weeks they're gonna go to, who's gonna go to what camp. And I'm like, ah, that includes my job and all the other things I have going on.

So we don't realize, you know, All the things that we have. So if we can exactly remove that little level of stress, imagine all the extra, the folks that we could get into the university. And, um, I think one of the biggest cohorts of students are non-traditional that keep starting a college and keep dropping out of a college.

That cohort is much bigger than under. in general, like they all undergrad together. So we're always fighting over that 17 year old student. I'm like, really? It's this non-traditional student that we've, we could figure it out. We could unlock them. We could, we could help them and help society at the same.

That is my passion. 

Jaime Hunt: Yeah, same here. The degree completion. [00:25:00] Um, my husband was one of those students that, you know, kind of went back and forth on being able to afford college and had to drop out and went back in his thirties to finish in a degree completion program. And it's completely changed his life.

Um, and there's millions of Americans. Who've started college and not. Finished. And a lot of times people are paying student loans for a degree 

Renee Seltzer: they never earned, which is really sad, right. So not only do they have the burden of interest and loans, but they don't get the benefit of that degree into the workforce.

And, and, you know, and then the problem too is if they own that, they owe that school a little bit of money, then they can't, um, release those transcripts to another school too. So we're just, um, bearing students on lack of opportunity through education. But then we say education is so. You know, and I'm like, okay, fling and, 

Jaime Hunt: and we say equity is important to us.

Yes. And then we're not looking at our own processes and systems that 

Renee Seltzer: hold people back. Right? Exactly. So this is one of the biggest things that if you want those numbers to shift and, and improve this process, and you will start to see your [00:26:00] numbers really drastically shift. I was talking to a private school, um, maybe like a month ago.

And they said, you know, I can guarantee you, I could tell you the outcome of that student based on how much that parent. And I just wanted to cry when I heard that, because yeah, if that's, if that parent makes 300,000, they know that student's gonna do really well and the lowest quadrant of 10% that comes into their school, they do the worst.

And, and, you know, he, he said it a little bit flippant and it just made my heart just wanna cry for those students, you know? And I'm like, well, what can we do? How do we give them a leg up? How do we help them through that process when they don't have availability of the most expensive tutor? You know, and the most expensive, um, support and tools that they could have.

And maybe those students that are in the lowest 10% or 20%, they also have one or two jobs to pay afford school. While the top quadrant, their parents are paying for their apartment. You know, they, they just have to focus on school. So that, that makes it easier to go. [00:27:00] 

Jaime Hunt: Yeah. And they don't have that, that cognitive load of having to pay their bills themselves.

Right? Like that the pressure of making sure that you have enough money at the end of Mon of the month to pay your bills and all of that, like, that's just. 

Renee Seltzer: It makes it easier toing to me. Yeah. It makes it easier to focus on school when you don't have to focus on going to your second job at the cafeteria, so you could afford to eat that day, you know?

And so, um, those are, those are all things that, you know, if we start to look at the system and how do we support those students, I think, um, this is a first step. And then once you get more of those students also thinking about what are the support services that we could offer them to, to help them persevere.

Absolutely. 

Jaime Hunt: It's interesting that a, a industry that speaks so much about de and I sometimes is only doing the very surface level of that, that work. So for our listeners who are listening to the podcast, What is the first step that you take in building a customer journey map? 

Renee Seltzer: Wonderful. So what you need is an internal advocate or [00:28:00] champion, and that is really, really important because that person internally needs to help organize the different meetings and really help set the stage of what you wanna accomplish from this activity.

And then what you do is you start to meet with each different department. That owns that student journey. So marketing with what's the awareness. What do you, you know, what are the different channels driving that prospect into your system, and then you start to touch, okay, the website is the website really clear.

You, you, so you wanna, you wanna document all of it. Then once that person fills out a request for information form, if you have one, um, what does that form look like? Who owns it? Who gets that form? And what happens to that prospect? Once they start to inquire, is there an email communication, cadence? you have to look at all of those.

And it starts to put them all into one big document. I actually really like Miro. And what I do is I take those documents and upload them into Miro. And I start to see that visually, cuz it allows me to do that. And then I also, you have to ask the questions. How long does it take from when I get this information for [00:29:00] the next person to do something?

What if they send it in on a Friday? Will it take a Monday to get back with them? Will it, sometimes I've known some university systems that if they get. The, the paper, the mailer back in, they put it in a closet for four to eight months until they're ready to do the next term. And then I cried a few tears when I heard that.

Oh my gosh, because that student hears nothing, they have no idea if they got their mailer and they just move around along with their life. And they're like, we have really low yield. I'm like, I, I think I understand why, you know, um, so that you have to understand. Okay. So when people are requesting information, where does that really go?

I'll give you another, um, point. So somebody, another university I work with, they're running Google ads and they have call extensions. So a phone number, I call the phone number. It says voicemail is full. Oh no. And then I bring it to the university and I say, Hey, this voicemail is full. And they're like, oh, that person doesn't work here.

Oh, no, you're running ads to those phone numbers. [00:30:00] So that's a friction point, right? That student wanted to call someone and talk to someone and all they got was a voicemail is full and that's the end of their journey possibly. Or they go back to the website. So really auditing all of the touchpoints and you will realize how many of those touchpoints don't work and then, and how many are frustra?

And you just keep going and the same thing with financial aid, what do you send them out? Okay. Send this big, long email and then what happens? Well, if they don't send it back, nothing happens. Okay. which is what often happens in financial aid. And then at the end of financial aid, you wanna see how many people go into financial aid?

How many people come out of financial aid and look at that segment because eventually you're going to wanna improve just that experience, cuz that is a big piece where we lose the most students and how do we make that better? And there's a lot of. To, to make that better. And then when they come out, they go to the ER and they go to here and they go to here.

So you want to document that, including the systems that they're using, um, who transfers in and out of the system? [00:31:00] Is it automatic? Is it nighttime batch? And, and then once you have that documented, you start to ask, which ones are we losing? Are we losing the most from the first a section? Section B section C or section D depending on how it looks and you start to tackle each one, um, possibly by ownership area, let's say financial aid seems like they're gonna be the hardest to work with.

But also you lose the most there. So you kind of have to start say, how do we get the advocate in there to help us with change management? Cause it's, it's, you're now changing behavior. Mm-hmm so what that's where you, that's where the big lift is, is how do we start to improve more B to C consumer driven processes versus internal department processes?

How do we make it easier for the student and, and not just focus on how do we make it more efficient for the department? And that's the, and I that's change. . 

Jaime Hunt: Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing like, I, I think higher ed is so siloed. I, I, this is something I rant about a lot, but we don't think like the end [00:32:00] user enough and we don't, we worry about what's good for us.

Not what's good for the end user. Absolutely user what's the best process 

Renee Seltzer: for them. And, and then politics, we feel like we can't say anything to the other department. Like we are so afraid of each department and I don't understand this fear. Um, that happens in higher ed as if, if you step outside your career is at risk and, and we should be able to advocate for the student without fearing retribution.

You know, mm-hmm, , there's a there's I feel like in higher ed, you get. uh, this is my little soapbox, but you, you, by putting your neck out and trying to change only, you, you could only risk blow back as opposed to doing nothing is safer. Yeah. Right. So it's a really weird way. We don't, we don't, um, innovate because we don't reward innovation.

If anything, the person tries to innovate and is constantly shut down and then people start to say, he's a troublemaker or he's doing this. Yeah. So it's only a. Reinforcement of [00:33:00] innovation as opposed to a positive Infor reinforcement of innovation. I 

Jaime Hunt: found that when we, when we did this, um, one of the big gaps was between financial aid and student accounts, cuz they reported to different vice presidents and they didn't really communicate with each other, but they're both part of that same process.

One is sending bills. One is saying here's money to pay those bills. Um, they ought to be in sync. Um, so getting those in sync was really, really, I think, critical. another thing I found through this process is that there was now muscle memory for working together on solving a problem like this mm-hmm like, people could say, okay, we've done this for the incoming first time freshman, Hey, let's look at this for transfer students.

What does this look like for graduate students or whatever population? Um, and it gets, I found it got easier. The more times you did it, have you had that experience 

Renee Seltzer: as well? Absolutely. And, and really once you get over the we're, we're willing to change, we're willing to have some [00:34:00] numbers. I think one of the big things is how many people need to report on how many people go into financial aid and how many people come out.

And once you start to report on those numbers as. An institution internally. I think it makes it easier to say, what process did you change and what was the output? Because right now it's very anecdotal. We know that it's, it, there's a lot of issues. Um, and then also we have to look at, are we staffing folks in that department enough to do the work that they need to do?

Um, we know that. Debt. And people's perceptions of the value of college related to tuition costs is, is out of, you know, alignment right now. So that's the department that we really should have the most customer service in. That's the department that we really should be explaining. What do you get for your tuition?

Um, how do we go through financial aid? How do you get these scholarships? And, and maybe that's where we look at as an institution. Um, we, we have to put more dollars into that department in order to get more dollars out of tuition revenue. So [00:35:00] mm-hmm, . 

Jaime Hunt: And it training to you on customer service and relooking at all of those communications that are sent.

And how many of them are all caps? You must underlined and read and like, how can we make this a little bit friendlier, um, and systems 

Renee Seltzer: better experience. Exactly. I think too, we could create systems where there's a cadence that we, you know, if. Somebody says I'm gonna turn this in, in two days, the system sends out.

So we don't have to worry about human error to a following up. Um, yeah. That's why they send these one big, long emails. And then they, they put all the onus back on the student. Well, if the system says let's, let's digest this in, in every day, I'm gonna send you one thing to do, and then you get that one thing done.

And then next day I'm gonna send you. And, and there's like a little checklist too, where it's online and you could check off. Yeah. Um, what you have to. And there's a possibly a video there or a next step. And then you give that to 'em. Um, HubSpot for example, has a great onboarding checklist that they give and you check them off as you do them.

And they have links specifically to go to that [00:36:00] section where you have to do that activity and it spells it out for you. We should be doing that in higher ed. Absolutely. 

Jaime Hunt: Absolutely. Here's your checklist? I. I'm in the middle of, um, purchasing a home and it's been so helpful for them to have, I'm assuming it's a CRM where I log in and I see what I still need to do.

Mm-hmm so it's not this sort of. Mystery hanging over me. What else are they gonna need? I can see everything that they're gonna need and what I'm gonna need to do. 

Renee Seltzer: And if it has dates, that's even better in order to hit this deadline, you know, in order to enroll for fall, you have to get this in by this date.

And those all could be plugged in. Um, and then there's little reminders to say, Hey, you have four days out from the, the big, big deadline. And so, you know, how can we. And, and then also, um, support. So if you know, a student is getting stuck, give, reach out to them and say, Hey Betty, I see that you're stuck at this step.

How can I help you and have proactive, um, engagement? And that student won't feel like a number, you know, they'll feel connected [00:37:00] with the university. We were texting 

Jaime Hunt: students who hadn't, um, taken steps and asked them basically, have you run into any challenges? Is there anything I can help you with to help you get through to the next step?

And it, like I said, you know, yield went up 8% and I think a big part of it was the students. Didn't know what they didn't know, and didn't feel comfortable asking and having somebody say, Hey, can I help you? Yes, actually you can. Um, and, and 8% increase in yield is a huge, huge 

Renee Seltzer: number. And, um, and you know, that also might be outside of the 8% improvement in yield.

It also might lead to a higher percentage of retention because if that student's already getting kind of annoyed and annoyed and annoyed, Then when that professor doesn't answer their email within two days, that might be the straw that, that breaks that camel's back and then they don't retain and they don't re-enroll.

So we don't know if we're frustrating them. And then when they get to their first or second course that they've had enough, like none of this is going well, everyone [00:38:00] doesn't care about me you know, so yeah, we don't that. that's what I want everyone to think about too. It's not just this process, but we're also making it that if you make a mistake later in the program, they, the, that might be your first mistake instead of your 18th mistake, not mistake, but you know, the 18th time, I didn't feel special.

Um, and, and, and they'll be more, more of like, okay, that's okay. You know, it happens. Yeah. As opposed to. I've had enough 

Jaime Hunt: yeah. Well, well you said earlier, you know, our cups are full and I often joke I'm fine, but if the loop of my pants get stocked on a door, that's it. I'm losing it. I'm 

Renee Seltzer: just done. I'm just done.

I'm going back in debt. I quit today. I, yeah, I see my kids. Like they fall and they get hurt. And I just think if I had that happen to me, I think I would just crawl I'm back in bed and I'm done for the day. Because again, we're the same, we're the same way we're we're just done already. And any one next, extra thing, that's it I put today yeah.

Yes. 

Jaime Hunt: Yeah. So does it make sense for the CMO to be the person that leads this [00:39:00] conversation, um, for this, this customer journey map 

Renee Seltzer: effort? I think so, because. When I've seen it, marketing should be touching everything because as marketers we think about how do we delight and how, and we also understand sometimes in integrations and technology better than other departments may.

Um, so for example, you know, I understand how to get a unique. System, how to connect the, um, awareness side and a lead coming in, or an inquiry coming in all the way through the start and matriculation. So I'm thinking of that journey anyway, because it doesn't matter if I had this great campaign, but if you can't enroll that student, or if you can't retain that student, was that campaign really effective.

So we think of it holistically also, but, um, I also like to be involved in, okay. What's. Orientation look like, you know, what, what are you doing? And are we sending the right emails? Maybe this could look better or this could read better, or, Hey, you're not thinking you could put links inside your email to make it easier.

So we're always [00:40:00] thinking about how do we make it look nice and how do we. Make it a good experience. And I think that's why marketing is so important to touch all those areas. Cuz we can improve that letter about tuition. Maybe we could design it with our designer you know, right. Maybe we could work through on how to get that tuition calculator to be more user friendly.

um, so I like to see, instead of marketing saying, well, I did the campaigns and I'm out. I would like more for someone to own the journey of that student, as opposed to, again, the silo, I only do marketing and then I'm done. I don't know what happens over here. And I hear that so often, nobody knows what happens in that next handoff, you know, of that Baton mm-hmm and I'm like, You should

Jaime Hunt: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's part of the brand experience, right? Mm-hmm so if we're responsible for the brand. I think that we have to take some ownership of the brand experience as well. We can't all the areas that interact with students don't report to us [00:41:00] necessarily. But I do think we have a responsibility to kind of step in and say, where are there areas where we can improve the brand experience for our students and their families?

Renee Seltzer: Yeah. I mean, I get more fanfare when I order a lip. Stick than I did when enrolling in a college, you know, I just got a generic letter and it says, congrats, you're enrolled. And I got a beautiful box with tissue paper that was branded. I mean, that's why I'm always an advocate for admissions boxes. Um, but cuz you, you wanna make it tactile.

You wanna make it, you know? Yeah. Um, but. If you're thinking about it, this university, this, this degree might cost 40, 80, a hundred thousand dollars. And my lipstick had more fanfare than my $80,000 degree. And so we're always thinking, well, I may, I mail a lot of letters. I'm like, so financial aid will just send out a letter or they'll say we don't even wanna send out a letter.

We sent out an email. And I like, but that's, from that student's perspective, what are they getting and what are their brand experiences and ex um, impressions. So I think, yeah, to your point, every touchpoint is, is a part of that experience. [00:42:00] What do 

Jaime Hunt: you think CMOs need to do to get buy in from the areas that they are gonna help them develop this customer 

Renee Seltzer: journey map?

Um, I definitely think it needs to go through their board of directors and their president at times, and then each different. Um, unit owner, depending, uh, provost or however, every organiza, every university is so structured so differently. Um, but it's really important that we do that, um, show and tell at first, explain, and then also start to have that conversation about being change agents and modernizing your process and, and Hey, we, we need to commit, it's not gonna be pretty and it's not gonna be easy, but you have to get your folks in line to change and, and.

Accepting of recommendations and ideas, as opposed to being that each department drags their feet and just gets frustrated. 

Jaime Hunt: Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. If somebody wanted to start small, maybe they wanted to kind of dip their feet in this, on a smaller level before they try to involve, um, [00:43:00] more of the university in the process, what would you recommend that they could start with?

I 

Renee Seltzer: think the best way to start is the low hanging fruit. What area of your student journey do you feel even just on an anecdotal basis is having the most trouble and then dig deep into that segment. Is it getting people to fill out an application? Is it application to. Financial aid financial aid to matriculation.

So just break down a little piece and dig deep into that piece and start to improve that process. And then you could look at it holistically. I mean, some students, schools are like, I wanna map it all the way through alumni in five years out of being an alum. And I'm like, whoa, right. Let's, let's slow this down and say, let's do a marketing audit and let's do a little bit of a journey from generally, can your marketing be improved?

And, and are you tracking it as effectively as you can and all of that. And then let's look at it from. Um, that inquiry to application or application to financial aid and, and look at those segments, cuz those are generally where people fall off the most. And if you feel like you're getting a lot of applicants, [00:44:00] one it's because you don't have a good request for information form like a good process.

So they're using the application to learn more about your university and that's not what it's made for. Um, but some schools don't even have a request to learn more about the school. They just have go to the application and then if a student is picking, not applying it's cuz you haven't. A shared enough value.

you know, you haven't clearly communicated why your, um, institution and what are your value props and what are you bringing them? And that's one of the reasons that your yield isn't going in the direction that you want. It's because your competitors are doing that. So they're picking your competitors, even if they're academically not as strong as you, um, they're doing a better job, communicating their value props.

Yeah. 

Jaime Hunt: For me, this was a, a somewhat daunting task, but also super, super rewarding. And a lot of times when people ask me, what am I most proud of in my career? It was this, this process because I felt like it actually made a pretty significant difference. We had metrics that we could evaluate and, and [00:45:00] show, but it's definitely not for the, the faint of art.

Yes. Um, cuz it's a big task. uh, have you seen these sort of fail halfway through or is it once you get going you're you're gonna make it 

Renee Seltzer: through this process? No, they fail so I suspect it. Yes, because a lot of times one, the, the organization, the leadership hasn't really bought into it. And then they'll hear gripes going.

This is too hard. I don't wanna do this. And then those gripes are what overshadows everything else. And I will say. What every institution needs to start looking at is, is dollar amounts a 8% yield earned our university 1.2 million. I don't know I'm making that up, but I'm just saying it's really important to say, okay.

So we could make $1.2 million more in tuition revenue and. Would that help our institution and the answer is usually yes . Um, but start to tie those into dollars of tuition. And I think people will [00:46:00] start to kind of have their ear up a little bit more. And then also we have 50% turnover expected in higher ed, but then we also have to know if.

um, are there people in the institution that are just inhibiting in innovation and do they need to be there? Can you coach them up or do you need to coach them out? And, and that's really important too, because it we're, we're at a point where we have to innovate or we languish. Yeah. And is, is that person worth languishing?

You know? 

Jaime Hunt: Yeah, I think for, for, um, the institution I was at, it calculated out to 92 additional. We're enrolled. And you know, when you think about the lifetime value of a student that is hundreds of thousands slash millions of dollars, um, and additional revenue from undertaking, something that took, you know, it, we met over the course of several months doing this, I think every other week to Paul of this together.

But, um, You know, millions of dollars in long term [00:47:00] revenue for the institution makes a huge difference. Exactly. 

Renee Seltzer: And I feel like once we start to say, Hey, VP of financial aid right now, you're getting. Let's say a hundred people coming in and only 20 people are coming out of financial aid. That means that 80 could have, you know, paid off the institution at this much at this rate.

So, but we, we have to start looking at it from that perspectives. Every time we lose somebody that's dollars lost, just like any other business, um, looks at it. We're. If we don't have the tuition revenue, then we either have to cut roles. We cut budgets and we just keep hurting the institution through attrition.

Um, you know, one of the things I hear too is schools are like, well, we're not gonna rehire that role. So they didn't let anybody go, but they're not rehiring. And I'm like one you're you're potentially the people who stay are not always the greatest people. Not always sometimes the, so you'll have the, the people who get frustrated that you're not changing fast enough.

They'll go. And the people who are really happy with just doing the same job every day, um, without any, any [00:48:00] form of change will stay. And then eventually that's all you have left the other you've scared away and pushed away all the people who are willing and wanted to. . 

Jaime Hunt: Yeah, that's a really good point.

That's a really good point. I think there's that, like, we've always done it this way. Um, and people who are innovators, don't like working in environments where they hear, but we've always 

Renee Seltzer: done it, even if it, cuz it makes no sense. Sometimes you're like, well, why does this happen? And you know, you'll like step around here.

Be like, why don't we just go this way? And you know, let's take the shortest route. Well, no, we've always done it this way. Um, we, we have to get intellectual curiosity of why, why are we doing it this way? Mm-hmm is it a people? Is it a process? Is it a system? Um, one of the things I noticed in most universities is how under, um, invested in it.

The university is so the entire institution can't innovate because it is backlogged and they set the priorities. I can't get a new form on my website because it won't do that. And I. Oh, and then they don't know that they could find a different system possibly to work with. They, they [00:49:00] just end up quitting that initiative and I'm like, yeah.

Oh, your form is broken. Well, they're not gonna fix it. I'm like your form is broken, you know? Right. 

Jaime Hunt: No, no, they won't. Yeah, that, that work just needs to be a priority. The work that helps drive enrollment and retention has to be a priority, but you're right. I have yet to work at an institution where, um, it hasn't.

An 18 month backlog of project requests. For so many reasons, which we could probably have a whole episode about 

 

Renee Seltzer: exactly , but that really is, you know, if you kind of thought about that, if this initiative went forward, maybe, you know, they could make an extra million dollars in tuition revenue if they just hired two $50,000 people.

And is that really the reason that you're not hitting that extra million dollars in tuition revenue, because. You won't fund those two hires over here that could get, you know, these things done. Um, so that's where in. And I see so many times that institutions will spend a tremendous amount of money on Google ads or Facebook ads, billboards, [00:50:00] and on the front end of the ship, but in the middle of the, you know, the middle where they're actually trying to enroll that student they're completely underfunded and I'm like enough with the Facebook ads.

you know, right. Why don't you try to convert more of those inquiries coming? 

Jaime Hunt: That's a really good point. Like those people have already taken a step. They've already raised their hand and said, I have an interest. Like let's invest in that population. I have a friend who left his role and they're not replacing it.

He's the only person responsible for marketing, um, the school's graduate programs and they wanna wait until the programs have grown before they hire a market. 

Renee Seltzer: To mix a market. It, yeah. So that's, that's good. 

Jaime Hunt: That's good. Yeah. that's I, I dunno how their programs are gonna grow if there's nobody marketing them.

But, 

Renee Seltzer: and one of the challenges too is, you know, you have these online schools that, um, are aggressively marketing to prospective students, and then you have these state schools or different liberal arts schools that don't have the sophistication. Um, mm-hmm and, and they don't view it as a level of [00:51:00] sophistication.

I'm like, no, There's all these aspects of marketing that you have to do. Um, otherwise you're going to keep languish. . 

Jaime Hunt: Yeah, for sure. So is there any meeting you can recommend for people who are interested in pursuing this a little bit? 

Renee Seltzer: I would say, you know, there, yeah. There's, there are journey, map, um, books on Amazon and, and they'll walk you through.

But one of the best things to do is just start having those meetings and saying. And being inquisitive and saying, oh, so when this happens, what happens? Show me this system. Maybe I, what I have done too is I become a prospective inquiry. I've actually gone through financial aid. I have written my survey, my essays.

So I have entered many of the universities out there. so I have been rejected by some, and that was very upset. So, 

Jaime Hunt: sorry, sorry. Um, 

Renee Seltzer: I mean, there were topnotch schools, but still I was like, that was a little hurtful. Yeah. I wasn't gonna enroll. But, you know, right. And a part of that process is to help understand.

So I have audited the classes. So take that initiative and [00:52:00] walk, designate one person or two people in the organization and go from being a prospective student, but find your institution as a prospective student. What like a Google search or on Facebook or somewhere, and then go through, go on the website.

Just say, how do I find this in your head? And, and start looking for that. um, and walk through that process. I'm gonna go into financial aid. What, what does that look like? Fill out the online application. And I think that's a really good first start is designate one person to take ownership of this, and then just walk the path from, start to, um, start to end and then start getting on the phone with those departments and asking them, what was your process?

What happened here? What happened? And, and that's great. And give, yeah, I was gonna say and ask 'em for specificity. That's really important cuz they'll they'll because it's muscle memory for them. They'll skip a lot of steps. So I'm like, well, did you call somebody else? Do you email someone? Do you hand type them into another system?

So you have to kind [00:53:00] of keep prodding them. Um, because they'll, they won't know that they do that. They, they don't know. They, they do a lot of work arounds and they don't even aware. They don't know by awareness. They do the work arounds. 

Jaime Hunt: It's like driving to work. You sort of get there magically and you don't remember all the steps you took and you get there.

And you're like, where did I don't even remember 

Renee Seltzer: driving? Right. There was times I had to go somewhere else and I still went home because I just wasn't paying attention. And, um, but yeah, I think that the prodding is really important cuz people will, you won't realize how many times they have bandages to a problem.

Um, and that's what you wanna document is all their bandages through that problem. That's awesome. 

Jaime Hunt: This is such great advice. If people wanna chat with you a little bit, um, where can they find you sure. On social media or LinkedIn, or 

Renee Seltzer: what's the best we're on everything and we're Ellison, lre.com. So definitely check us our web out.

We have a, uh, a little chat also on our website, but I'm happy to schedule a call with anybody and just walk through solutioning and just brainstorming some of [00:54:00] what you can do to improve your process. 

Jaime Hunt: This is such a great conversation and I, I probably am gonna wanna bring you back at some point, cuz I think your depth, depth of expertise is absolutely beneficial for listeners.

For those of you listening, I would love to continue this conversation on social media. Um, use the hashtag higher ed CMO and we can chat about this a little bit on, um, Twitter or LinkedIn. You can also find me at Jamie hunt. I M C on Twitter. That's J a I M. H U N T I M C or Jamie hunt on LinkedIn. Happy to have a conversation, um, happy to share, you know, what we did at Winston-Salem state when we were looking to create this journey map, um, until then, uh, thanks for listening and let's go bust some silos.

Renee Seltzer: Hey, y'all Zach here from enrollify. I hope you enjoyed this episode of confessions of a higher ed CMO with Jaime Hunt. If you like this [00:55:00] episode, do us a huge favor and hit that follow and subscribe button below. Furthermore, if you've got just two minutes spare, we would greatly appreciate you a rating and a review of this show on apple podcasts.

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We look forward to meeting you soon and welcoming you into the community. Again, you can subscribe for free at, enrollify.org.[00:56:00]