At the AACRAO Annual Meeting, presenters Julie Selander from the University of Minnesota and Mike Szakaly from Indiana University shared some of their newest technology tools being used at their institutions’ integrated student services offices that are helping to reduce barriers to academic success, create service efficiencies, and increase overall student satisfaction.
Selander highlighted the University of Minnesota’s queuing management system, which helps create a seamless delivery of service for those students coming to the One Stop Student Services office for in-person counseling. She also showed the power of the Customer Relationships Management (CRM) tool used to track all contacts, escalate cases internally and across other offices, contributes to streamlined communications, and assists with trend analysis and forecasting.
Szakaly highlighted their Virtual Agent technology which allows students to use predictive, natural language text to connect with frequently asked questions and answers. This tool also shares other helpful links that may relate to the students’ need. The institution’s phone queuing management tool assists management in utilizing its resources effectively by leveraging real time data and dynamic dashboards that display interaction statistics that assist with operational excellence.
A demonstration of the University of Minnesota’s MyU portal was shared to show how the portal surfaces personalized information, provides access to self-service tools, and integrates seamlessly with their PeopleSoft system. The University of Minnesota is also data mining into the CRM statistics and merging that with their student record information to visually show the value of the work performed in the One Stop Student Services office.