Putting student well-being first

Unique culture

Spanning four counties through multiple locations, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) serves more than 29,000 students, many of whom are low-income, first-generation attendees.

While many other higher education institutions struggled with low and declining enrollment rates, UTRGV successfully increased its student enrollment and retention during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. That success is built on an empathetic culture, which is epitomized by several specialized contact and service centers that handle inquiries about financial aid, admissions and registrars.

UTRGV contact centers are mostly staffed by part-time students. They maintain a lifeline for vulnerable learners through their personal and academic challenges. Student agents aim to keep them enrolled and achieve the best possible outcomes, whether that’s helping with financial, educational or emotional support.

Preparing for life after graduation

There’s nothing unusual about having students who work as part-time agents within an education setting. What’s different is that UTRGV doesn’t suffer from high turnover. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

“Working as an agent is probably one of the hardest jobs on campus,” said Dr. Vanessa Maldonado, Director of Student Service Centers at UTRGV. “It’s a very challenging position dealing with highly confidential information and difficult personal situations. In return, that hands-on experience, learning to use tools like Genesys, prepares them for life after school. It’s also why our agent retention rate is consistently over 90%.”

Breaking free from technology ties

Prior to moving to Genesys Cloud, UTRGV wrestled with traditional technology challenges. Its previous on-premises system would suffer outages and was hard to integrate with other systems. It also lacked key features like automated call recording, central reporting and customizable wrap-up codes.

“Our agents had to make multiple logins and keep several screens open, which wasn’t the most efficient way to work,” said Randy Peña, Assistant Director of Student Service Centers at UTRGV. “Apart from seeing if they were on or off queue, we had no real insight into their performance. So, it was virtually impossible to identify coaching and development needs.”

Personalized, efficient and easier to manage

With Genesys, agents have a single login and desktop for managing inbound, outbound and chat conversations — all centrally recorded and easy to retrieve.

“Before, it took a long time to get data since a request had to be made to our IT department,” said Maldonado. “Now, we can very easily pull metrics ourselves — whether that’s a phone call we need to reference or the volume of a certain day or month. If a student says they were given misinformation, we can easily look up the recording by using their phone number. That has definitely helped resolve a lot of student issues that have come up.”

Genesys Cloud also makes it simple to oversee and run the day-to-day operations of the contact center.

“As an admin, the Genesys system is very user-friendly,” added Peña. “Trainings can be assigned to employees, so it especially helps with new hires. We can also spot coaching opportunities and review calls with employees.”

Other new features have reduced effort and transfers, along with an integration with the university’s Banner ERP system to steer smart routing decisions. This is all helpful in caring for students more quickly and efficiently. With the integration, agents save time in identifying students and can better personalize each interaction.

“When a student or parent phones in, they’re prompted to enter a student ID number and are informed of current wait times and offered a callback,” said Maldonado. “The system then attempts to connect them with the person they last spoke with, so they’re not starting from scratch. Or it determines whether it would be better to put the caller through to a Spanish-speaking agent. These are all things we couldn’t do before.”

Scoring top grades

Introducing callbacks helped reduce call volumes significantly within the first 12 months of going live with Genesys Cloud. Other results include a 14% increase – from 74% to 88%, an all-time high – in student satisfaction; a 36% decrease in call waiting time; and an 8% decrease in average handle time. In addition, UTRGV saved 1.5 days in IVR programming and 15 hours a week using recordings as coaching opportunities.

Those positive trends continued in 2022 with student satisfaction rated 3.8 out of 5 for chat interactions. And because integrations with Microsoft Teams and the Blackboard learning management system are possible, UTRGV will also focus on migrating from CampusNexus to a new CRM system and examining the use of chatbots.

“Our focus is not only simply on getting students through the door,” concluded Maldonado. “We want to support and guide them through their entire journey, right up to and after graduation. Genesys helps us do that.”