Developing Strategies for Customer Retention. A Case Study ...
Developing a Retention Plan
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Transcript of Developing a Retention Plan
Developing a Retention Plan
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
10:15 – 11:30 AM
Evaluation: copelandretention
Tim Copeland
DemandEngine
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Level set – retention vs. student persistence
• Student persistence is the attainment of educational goals.• Retention is an institutional indicator of the number of students who
graduate• Do you differentiate at your institution?
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The office of success prevention
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• We don’t value it … really.• We fail to intentionally manage a business process that is
remarkably predictable.• We haven’t applied “what works” to non-traditional populations.• “Sink or swim” is alive and well.• Most institution’s lack a “secret sauce” for the “classroom”
experience
Research on student retention is voluminous … despite all the research that has been conducted to date little work has
been devoted to develop a model of student persistence … to enhance student success.
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Vincent Tinto
Agenda
• Let’s talk retention and student success
• Guiding principles to establish or strengthen your retention efforts
• Effective strategies to implement on your campus
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Here is what the research says …
• Socio-economic status and level of high-school academic rigor are significant background factors
• There is a linear relationship between academic abiity and retention
• No delay between high school and college
• Successful completion of “gateway” courses
• Completion of at least 20 hours by end of 1st year
• 1st year GPA
• Few course withdrawals or repeats
• Continuous, full-time enrollment (vs. part-time or stopping out)
• Involvement in campus life (student organizations, leadership positions, study abroad, community service/service learning, living on-campus)
• Affiliations with peers and faculty
• Enrollment in first-year seminars and learning communities
• Use of campus resources (academic, advising, career, library)
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Post-traditional students are characterized by…
• A delay after high school• Non-continuous enrollment• 1st year GPA is impossible to calculate in a non-credit program• Not interested in the Thursday night mixer with Phi Mu• Little involvement on-campus … in fact, may not step foot on
campus• Go to school IN ADDITION to other day-to-day involvements and
obligations …
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Five categories of issues
• On the surface, time, money and personal issues, but …• Personal – Lost, stressed, undisciplined, unmotivated, insecure,
institutional mismatch• Social – Alienation and social isolation, uninvolved• Academic – Unprepared, unchallenged, poor study habits, lack of
academic or career goals• Life – Insecurity about financial circumstances, job and school time
conflicts, home and family issues, personal problems, health problems
• Institutional – Experience the “run-around”; experience operational problems; experience negative attitudes in the classroom, advising centers, administrative offices; experience poor or indifferent teaching.
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Source: Levitz and Hovland
“Over the years, colleges and universities have designed programs and services to help retain students … yet even with the
implementation and strengthening of these programs and services, the retention data reveal that students are not retained at a higher rate than they were twenty years
ago.”
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Alan Seidman
We don’t value it …
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11% 3%
Professional, Online, and Continuing Education Units
Respondents that indicated “practice was fully deployed.”n = 91 institutions
Source: Enrollment Management Practices Survey. July 2013.
33% 14%
Discussion
• What efforts are in place to help your post-traditional populations succeed?
• How is student success measured at your institution?• Is “retention” a priority? How would you prove this?
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• I feel like giving up.• I feel lost and confused.• I can’t juggle kids and school and home.• I wasn’t cut out to be a student tweny years ago, and I’m not student
material now, either• I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
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Agenda
• Let’s talk retention and student success
• Guiding principles to establish or strengthen your retention efforts
• Effective strategies to implement on your campus
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“But given that we have to improve persistence and degree attainment rates across the board, we need to
better understand why colleges and universities typically ignore the body of literature about ‘what works’
produced by higher education scholars and social scientists”.
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George Kuh
1. Retention programs must be intentional
• It’s intrusive.• It requires leadership.• It requires structure.• It requires integration.
We can’t simply hope that our students will succeed because we are nice people.
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A word about “early alerts”
• In recent years, there has been a lot of interest in software to produce early alerts.
• Identify behaviors that may predict “risk”– Academic ability coming in– Engagement online– Attitudinal or motivational
• The problem is … then what?
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• The learning environment is the one thing all of your students have in common … it’s the basis of community.
2. Quality academic experiences are a must
04/11/23 | 17
“Classroom instruction has to be superb not theoretical, but more
applied, with teamwork. Adult students are making particular
sacrifices of their time to be there … and are savvy buyers as
consumers.”
Carol Aslanian
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3. It must be empower students to develop relationships
• Internal and external to the learning environment.
• Onboarding processes.• Ways you accomplish this today?
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Agenda
• Let’s talk retention and student success
• Guiding principles to establish or strengthen your retention efforts
• Effective strategies to implement on your campus
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Five Steps to Retention Planning
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1. Baseline what you know
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"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot
express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.“
Lord Kelvin
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What do we need to measure?
• Persistence data (relevant for credit/non-credit)– Course-to-course– Enrollment term-to-term
• Additional questions to ask– What is the D, F, W, etc. rate for each course?– What is rate of students who begin one enrollment term and
return during the next available one?
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How do you measure it?
• Persistence data– Student information system
• Attitudinal and motivational– Incoming student surveys– Interaction surveys
• Enlist the help of your institutional research office
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2. Experience “you” as a student does
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Strategies
• External– Secret shop– Research all messages sent to students (proxy)– Focus groups– Surveys
• Internal– Map the journey
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Nothing will shine the light more on the “run-around”
• What are the student touch points?• Where are the pain points in your relationship with students?• What happens backstage?
– People– Processes– Policies– Technology
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3. Review the evidence
04/11/23 | 28
Write your consulting report
• Enlist a small team to review the findings• Prepare a summary of the assessment• Use research to supplement your report
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4. Build the “burning platform” for change
04/11/23 | 30
Share your findings
• Prepare a presentation• Share your findings• Build the case for change
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5. Write your plan
04/11/23 | 32
A systematic and comprehensive approach
Enrollment Planning HierachyEnrollment Planning Hierachy
Institutional Strategic PlanInstitutional Strategic Plan
Division Strategic PlanDivision Strategic Plan
Annual Enrollment Marketing Plan
Annual Enrollment Marketing Plan
Annual Retention Plan
Annual Retention Plan
Clear goals and objectives
Clear goals and objectives
Key enrollment initiatives
Key enrollment initiatives
Road mapRoad map
Source: DemandEngine
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The construct of a plan
1. Executive Summary
2. Narrative
3. Situational assessment
4. Planning assumptions
5. Retention/success goals and objectives
6. Key initiatives
7. Road map (e.g., action plans, accountability)
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Check your efforts with this 12-point checklist
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12-point planning inspection
Does your plan …
1)Identify factors that indicate a student's "retention" risk?
2)Set annual student retention or persistence headcount goals?
3)Designate an owner?
4)Identify the objectives (what you must do well) and the initiatives to achieve them?
5)Develop effective (and efficient) onboarding and service processes?
6)Develop an intrusive advising function for our students?
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12-point planning inspection
7) Coordinate communications across departments?
8) Dedicate academic support services specifically to serve the needs of our adult students?
9) Define key reports and use a retention "funnel" to monitor the persistence of our currently enrolled students?
10) Address student-facing enrollment processes and policies to minimize barriers?
11) Assess the efficiency and quality of staff interactions with prospective and current students?
12) Define clear competency standards and response expectations are in place to guide staff follow-up with students (e.g., Level 1, 2, & 3 questions, time to return calls)?
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Summary
1) Baseline what you know
2) Experience “U”
3) Review the evidence
4) Build the burning platform for change
5) Document a plan
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