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Case Study

Middlesex University London transform Clearing with Gecko

Middlesex University diversified their platforms used to communicate with students during Clearing to meet their students where they are...

Middlesex University London transform Clearing with Gecko

Here’s how they transformed their Clearing process this year to increase student engagement.

We know that Clearing is getting more competitive year after year so ensuring that institutions have a streamlined Clearing process that allows you to make Clearing easier, faster, and more successful is critical for higher education institutions.

This is something Middlesex University was acutely aware of. They started working with Gecko to enhance their Clearing process back in 2019, specifically because they wanted to improve the student experience.

Gecko
By using Gecko, we now have a dedicated team to monitor volume and type of queries during Clearing. It means we can now have a big focus on our engagement with the students.
Gecko
Malathi Kanapathy
Acting Head of Prospect experience

There were 3 key challenges for Middlesex

1)Disjointed systems and processes:

Although some Clearing activity has remained the same over the years, for example, outbound calls, the engagement activity disjointed. Not only were they unable to log calls, but they also couldn’t track and manage all the engagements with students during Clearing. For example, seeing the call scripts alongside chat transcripts and emails that they would send. This meant they were not able to monitor the whole student journey.

2) Meeting students expectations in the 21st century:

Meeting the demands of digital natives across multiple platforms was also a challenge for Middlesex. Historically, communication during Clearing was predominantly through phone calls but with new trends and technology, Middlesex needed to adapt their approach to meet the demand of the students.

3) Unprecedented times:

Additionally, while last year Clearing was turbulent as a result of the government doing a u-turn late in the day on A-level results and grades because Middlesex had these sound digital processes in place, there was much less disruption. They pivoted to meet Clearing demands.

The University needed to centralize and standardize the Clearing process to give teams time back to focus on student engagement and experience.

Request more information about Middlesex' story:

Gecko
This is the third year that we’ve done clearing in Gecko and Radius, and it’s really simple! The flexibility in the Gecko platform was key last year. We wouldn’t have been able to adapt the process so quickly over the weekend without Gecko.
Gecko
Ant Babajee
CRM Manager

Solution:

By implementing Gecko as Middlesex’s front-facing inquiry channel for Clearing, in addition to using multiple modules in the Gecko platform to diversify new ways to connect to students through chat, Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp, Middlesex was able to lead the trend of meeting students where they are on the digital platform of their choice.

The biggest advantage for Middlesex was the Gecko and Radius integration. They were able to manage interactions through case management within Radius, which is connected to Gecko, and are now able to get closer to that single student view. Ant Bajabee, explains:

“We used Gecko because it had this great integration with both Connect and with Radius. Moving the data between our old Connect instance and our new Radius instance (the same provider) was a manual process and a hassle. We used Gecko’s expertise and functionality to push it to both systems at capture.”

The impact on student experience was significant. Saving the team a huge amount of time allowed them to focus on the student engagement elements of Clearing.

Ant Bajabee, CRM Manager said:
“Our chat experience and the fact that we're able to offer WhatsApp is very compelling for us. And it has a big impact on how our prospective students are able to contact us.”

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