Episode 06: University Clearing Process

Podcast Guest Introductions

Charlotte
Hi, and welcome to the latest podcast episode. I am here today with representatives from ITGL and a team from the University of Portsmouth.

And today, we’re gonna talk about university clearing. So we’re gonna really talk about how technology can make that whole process a little less stressful for everybody and a little easier for everybody, including, the team at the university, but also the students. So, why don’t you introduce yourself first, and we’ll go around the table.

Elena Pudge
So I’m Elena Pudge, and I am a collaboration practice lead.

Jeanette Connelly
Excellent. Yes. I’m Jeanette Connelly, and, I work in networks and security and support the collaboration side for CNC. Perfect.

Jeanette Eriksson
I’m Jeanette Erickson. I’m the head of admissions at the University of Portsmouth.

Charlotte
So you feel that pain of the clearing period?

Jeanette Eriksson
I do indeed. Lately. And I did that for many years, and then I stopped. Yeah.

And then I’m back. And now you haven’t drawn me back. You could not be enough. I just love it.

Indeed. Excellent. And we sense that are in here.

No joking.

Charlotte
That’s quite interesting, the fact that you left the clearing process and then came back because obviously student communication preferences change over time. What have you seen in that shift, and how has that impacted the university?

Jeanette Eriksson
I think there’s been a big shift just in the last few years, and now applicants want more options. They want- they’re not as confident on the phones, but that’s still a high demand in those phone calls. We need to make sure that we support that, as well as having all the other channels, which is an online form, there’s web chat, there’s quick everything has to be quick as well. So it’s just delegating and supporting the customers to make sure that we pick everything up, that they have their decisions quickly.

Charlotte
So over a very short, intense period of time.

Elena Pudge
It is. I think it’s the flexibility. So you I don’t think you can say one channel or the other. I think it’s the flexibility of the options.

And, voice isn’t going away, I think, because it’s such an important time of year for them. It’s such an important topic. Sometimes actually being able to speak to someone and have the immediate response is what they’re looking for. But at the same time, if it’s very busy and you’re waiting in that queue, having the option to go, well, actually, I’m gonna try WhatsApp. I’m gonna try an online form.

Jeanette Eriksson
Mhmm.

Elena Pudge
Yeah. And it’s the flexibility.

And then if all of it is coming back at

Jeanette Connelly
the end of the day in a single they actually get some reassurance by actually talking to a human Yeah.

As well as, all of those various options that you’ve mentioned that you can actually go down a channel and then even opt out and speak to a human.

Elena Pudge
Absolutely.

It’s

Jeanette Eriksson
And I think as much as you try and publish all the information necessary whether it’s to do with accommodation, to do a course.

It’s a big life decision. So a lot of them do wanna talk through their options. And the parents, they wanna also be there, and they can’t do that just by an online form. So, yeah, we need to cater for all types of customers in this high pressured environment.

Charlotte
So so that must unlock some common technical bottlenecks during that process.

Have you got some examples of things that you’ve

Elena Pudge
Capacity.

I mean, at the end of the day, it’s gonna come back to capacity. But you’ve got a balance.

So if you think about the fact that it’s two days or Saturday, sort of two and a half days potentially, but it’s Thursday morning, which is gonna be when you hit your max sort of the volume of calls or digital channel communication. All of that is hitting at once, and you’ve gotta balance it with covering and that capacity at that, but also being sort of flexible enough through the next two days because you don’t wanna throw everything into it. Yeah. But then have people that are sitting there sort of doing nothing effectively for the next two days. Mhmm. But from the technical perspective, if you’re talking voice calls, well, how many concurrent calls can you cater for? But you’ve got to balance it with how many people you’ve got to sit and answer in those calls because you don’t want to put, you know, five people and it’s hundreds of calls coming in at once because then it’s queues are very long.

Jeanette Eriksson
Yeah.

Elena Pudge
So it’s finding the right balance across now multiple channels rather than just voice.

Jeanette Connelly
And we don’t like to queue either. We don’t, you know, we like the thought of if it’s a student’s going to call through, that they’re going to be answered as quick as possible and to the best of our abilities. And having those people available in Yeah. Whatever function.

But

Jeanette Eriksson
And I was gonna say you but you it’s almost like you do want to queue because you wanna be inundated.

You wanna be popular. Yeah.

And therefore, we’ve obviously carefully considered all the scripts and making sure that while someone is waiting, they get all the information they need

Elena Pudge
so they

Jeanette Eriksson
stay on the line.

And also just to add what Eleanor was just saying, that you base your capacity needed on perhaps the previous year. But every year is different. So you never know what’s gonna happen.

And I’d say last year, we had a prime example of that, where we planned

Charlotte
for

Jeanette Eriksson
our phones’ capacity based on the previous year in the morning.

And, of course, that was a year where we just inundated first thing. And we You know? Feel like And you couldn’t have planned for it because you couldn’t have had enough people on the phone. So it’s just making sure that then you have the messaging whilst they’re waiting is really supportive and welcoming and keeping them on the line, or they can go off and do the online forms.

Charlotte
So we contingency.

Jeanette Eriksson
Contingency Yeah. Other options. But, yeah.

Charlotte
So so that’s an interesting question about benchmarking, isn’t it, and tracking, like, what to measure. So what should you measure during so, obviously, you build in that capacity and contingency. Mhmm. But what should universities be measuring and looking at to prepare effectively?

Jeanette Eriksson
For clearing in general?

Elena Pudge
Yeah.

Well, technology plays almost a small part of that because actually, yes, you’ve got the clearing process, but actually it’s much bigger than that. You don’t just stop and start at the clearing. It’s a much longer journey that you, that you look at as a university from start to finish.

So I think, yeah, from technology perspective is reporting on your core volumes, how quickly they’ve answered it, you know, but also that’s just the tiny part that your team will then

Jeanette Eriksson
look at.

It’s a sick clearing is everything. It sounds all dramatic, but it’s everything from the pre period where people start looking at coming to you and how you publish yourself and measuring that through marketing campaigns Mhmm.

To

Charlotte
And my courses to the website and

Jeanette Connelly
things like

Jeanette Eriksson
that.

Absolutely.

To to calls, how quickly they were answered, see where you can improve perhaps your Message. Delegating Mhmm. Messaging, the form and looking at the data as well that you captured. Because if you don’t capture the right data, you’re gonna have issues later down the line.

Elena Pudge
But it’s looking at the student’s journey past that. Yeah. You know, it’s been offered as one thing.

But then also have they registered? Have they been admitted? Have they then gone through what is their journey through the university? Yeah. Past the clearing process? Because actually it’s that full And cycle.

Jeanette Eriksson
That out. And that’s such an important point because I think when you get to clearing, there’s a lot of focus on bumps on seats. I’ve worked many universities, and I’ve been a consultant. I’ve seen it.

You’re just planning on the numbers. We need to look beyond when they’re registered and how they’re going to achieve. So it’s the retention, progression, achievement. So that’s something that’s super important, I think, for universities, but doesn’t always get the full focus.

Charlotte
Yeah. That’s Think about that later. Yeah.

Because I suppose it’s balancing that longer term with the with the sort of very short term tactical things that technology needs

Jeanette Connelly
to support.

Charlotte
But then how can it then support that whole journey? Yeah.

And and for you, for you particularly, you know, in terms of, the University of Portsmouth, what how have you really seen that technology benefit clearing but also that journey beyond?

Jeanette Connelly
I think in some ways, it’s, having the flexibility. Yeah. You know, sort of, since moving on to, platform that we’re on now, I mean, being able to move people about. You don’t actually have to move physically Mhmm. Your location. Mhmm. You know, being able to log in and log out of different teams and processing calls in multiple different ways Yeah.

It it just makes things so much easier.

Jeanette Eriksson
And that’s something I remember when I joined. That was something we talked about Absolutely. Really early where, we I don’t think the university had done that. They hadn’t set everything up to have to allow the flexibility.

Jeanette Connelly
I think it was actually there.

It wasn’t something that

Jeanette Eriksson
we were able to do.

But but and it proved that we had a we had a after the first year, we did a lot of work on setting up functionality so that we could quickly move with perhaps if there was a queue in a certain area or you have staff that have been trained on certain Mhmm. Tasks to switch them to allow for the flexibility you just mentioned in order to support the business process. So that was that’s something that was a huge change, actually, for us.

Charlotte
Yeah. It was really good.

Jeanette Eriksson
Made us incredibly efficient.

Charlotte
Yeah. So if you so sort of use case of that is my youngest is in her first year of university. So, yeah, I’ve been through the process on one side.

So I guess that comes in handy if you’re doing tools around the campus or, you know, in one area gets a bit busier than another area, you can move people around more easily.

Is that an example of

Jeanette Eriksson
I was probably more referring to the technical or phone tasks is often making this the UCAS processing.

Because clearing is obviously Yep. At that point is a is a recommended offer, if you wish. But it’s only when the formal processes happen, there’s a formal offer. So Mhmm. There’s a lot of things going on at the same time. There’s a nonstandard offer making, the academics liaised with, etcetera. So I think it’s just having the option of moving people across the tasks required for the clearing offer making process.

Charlotte
Oh, I see. Because there is obviously the call Yeah. Responsible for different parts like that process.

Jeanette Connelly
So over the three day period, obviously, the key element of the morning, the morning

Charlotte
is that cancels is.

Jeanette Eriksson
Oh, yeah.

The

Jeanette Connelly
morning.

Is is the whole focus in a particular area. Yeah.

So then once sort of the afternoon comes, the

Elena Pudge
the call is

Jeanette Connelly
shut down in a certain area, but they increase in others.

Right. Being able to flex people about, to join different teams so they could actually Yeah. Progress that applicant in a different way.

Charlotte
Yeah. Which which is great for applicants, isn’t it? Because then it doesn’t matter who you end up speaking to. They can take you down the path that you that you won’t need to go down to get your questions answered or to get things progressed.

Jeanette Eriksson
That request, obviously, training. Yes. There’s a lot of there’s a lot of I don’t think you will realize how much work that goes into preparing the temps that you use in clearing all of the internal staff because there’s more and more pressure in using internal staff, but to support the clearing event. And but in order for someone to just rock up, if you wish, and start taking those calls, and they need to have all the guidance, all the information, all the systems need to be updated. So it’s making sure that, yes, you can create flexibility in a phone system and shift roles around, but people need to be able to do those jobs.

And so there’s a lot of prep, and we’ve created a lot of online training, that people have modules they can be which we can reuse every year, but it’s,

Charlotte
And resource planning must be huge.

Resource planning is physically put people to help them support that process. Yeah. And what do you see from a technology side? Obviously, you’re more involved in that side around supporting all of these things Where are some of the challenges?

Elena Pudge
With providing the tools, I suppose. So so on the day itself is the real time information that the staff have access to so that they can see if there are bottlenecks. They can see the volumes of calls and that then they can have whatever process need to change it to react to it. And then, again, with the discussions that we have earlier on so we tend to get involved quite early on in this process. We don’t just come and support on the clearing day.

We start conversations all

Jeanette Eriksson
year round.

Pretty much.

Are you

Charlotte
very good friends?

Jeanette Eriksson
We’ll see each other a lot, surprisingly enough.

Elena Pudge
But you then sort of having to understand, well, if the university needs to react to some of these challenges, how are they going to want to react? Therefore, what flexibility do we need to build into the platform that will allow them to do that? So whether it’s people moving from one q two and the other, one team to another, or actually being able to just increase the number of people answering calls, obviously, some of it has to be set up physically, but it’s the flexibility in the background and be able to anticipate what might come up or what might need to be done. Yeah. I think.

Jeanette Eriksson
Yeah. And with that, I think also translating what the business, say, admissions, what we need. So we might express it in a sense. We we need the flexibility for this and this to happen, and then someone like you have come then come in or you, Jeanette, come in and said, well, we can do this. This is how we can set up the groups. This is how we can create the scripts. This is what we can.

So it’s working with us to make sure that we

Jeanette Connelly
And it’s an always a long run process.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, so you because new things come along and, you know, and how and sort of having the imagination to think, okay how can that improve Yeah. What Jeanette needs to achieve and what’s good for the university.

Charlotte
Well, and looking at it holistically as well because there’s obviously lots of different teams involved with the process. Yeah. So making sure that you don’t put something in place over here that might impact someone over there negatively and looking at the student experience because I think sometimes, you know, it’s like in retail, you can get very caught up in what you’re doing for the good of the business, but then some of the consumer gets left behind.

And I think

Jeanette Connelly
that’s the key thing.

I think is, I mean, the student is the key.

Jeanette Eriksson
Yeah. Yeah. They should be the main focus.

But there’s you know, we have clearing planning groups running from February every year. That’s this is a I mean, jokingly, it’s a we see Eleanor all year, but it is six months prep.

Charlotte
Yeah.

Jeanette Eriksson
And after every clearing period, we do big we have wash up meetings with every area of the university to sort of work out what was good and what can we improve. And then there’s a bunch of enhancements planned for the following year. We had a fourteen page report this year just on the feedback to make sure that we continuously evolve and become better.

Charlotte
Yeah. And contingency points, I’m guessing, you know, big risk mitigation.

I can imagine

Jeanette Eriksson
there’s always a report.

Yeah. Yeah. So we’re prepared. Luckily, we didn’t need to use it. But it’s yeah, very important. Yeah. Yeah.

Elena Pudge
That’s the planning stage.

Jeanette Eriksson
Yeah.

Elena Pudge
The backup plans, the recovery plans, the testing, the capacity. And then all of that happens up upfront. Absolutely.

Charlotte
So how do you manage that balance between because obviously security is an issue as well. You know, there’s that ever present element to all of this as well. So how do you how do you balance all those different things from a practical point of view? So the needs of the technology versus the needs of the team and the needs of the students, where are some of the challenges there?

Jeanette Eriksson
That’s a very good question.

Charlotte
That’s a very good question.

Elena Pudge
I suppose the way to look at it perhaps is you don’t implement technology for technology’s sake. Yeah. So you look at the business case, you look at the use case, and you also have to look at it from two perspectives. So student as a customer Yeah. But also the internal stuff.

You you gotta remember that sort of, as you know, mentioned is it’s gonna be a combination of temp and internal university stuff that might not be dealing with this very often.

Jeanette Eriksson
Yeah.

So you’ve gotta

Elena Pudge
look at if they’re coming in for the day, it has to be easy.

They have to have everything to hand. But, of course, I mean, security is gonna be key. So, yes, we’re moving to cloud based solutions, but you have to think about where that data is. Is it encrypted?

Is it secure in transit? Is it secure in the cloud? Where is it stored? Mhmm.

But that comes into almost that sort of the front end when you’re looking at the solution and you decided on where you’re gonna go forward as you progress from everything being on prem and everything being there. Yeah. And, obviously, University of Portsmouth has worked with us, and we have progressed to the cloud.

Mhmm. But those decisions are made early. Yeah. I think with new technology coming on board, you have to look at, and I’m gonna mention the word AI because everyone talks about AI at the moment. Of course. But you have to think about practicalities.

What is it going to give you that’s beneficial rather than going, yeah, let’s turn on AI. Let’s use it. But why do we need it? It’s why do you need it? Because then you look at specific use cases and you look at them sort of externally and you look at them internally.

I think that’s where we’re going. That’s where we’re going. That’s where we’re going with conversations. And it’s looking at them individually. Yeah. Because you have to look at it practically for specific reasons.

Charlotte
Yeah. Because yeah. And that and that’s a good point. It ties us into sort of the final area that we were gonna focus on, which is about emerging technology and how that can transform the clearing process, particularly in coming years. I mean, what how do you sort of see that shaping up?

Jeanette Eriksson
I mean, AI definitely will be utilising. I mean, it’s appearing in admissions more and more now.

Charlotte
Yeah. And how is that used? I can be used.

Jeanette Eriksson
I think we can use it in lots of ways and I think can be a total win that you can use AI perhaps in for the for the clearing staff that you can have systems that are perhaps assisting with answering questions. So instead of having databases with information, you can use AI. Exactly. You can also have a have a chat, a chat function that could perhaps provide more assistance on more generic questions that would then free up time for the Yeah. For the experienced staff to answer the more complicated things. So you get better service as a customer, you get the answers you need, and then you have freed up, you know, staff at the university who can answer.

Charlotte
Yeah.

So

Jeanette Eriksson
I think definitely that, you can obviously incorporate more things, more AI linked information into the application form perhaps that would just capture data or answer questions as someone goes along, I think.

Jeanette Connelly
And also with the reporting side of things, you know, sort of from the AI, aspect.

Being able to look at the content of the conversation. Yeah. And actually react to that content contextually. And and improve, always improve the, you know, the resourcing of that content.

Yeah.

So next quarter, getting insights of common questions

Charlotte
that perhaps you’ve not uncovered before because they’re asked in different ways.

Yeah. Yeah. There’s so many nuances on there.

Jeanette Connelly
Yeah. So many.

Charlotte
Yeah. I think it absolutely will be beneficial. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that’s the key

Elena Pudge
to it.

You’re not looking to replace the people

Jeanette Eriksson
at the

Elena Pudge
end of the day.

Jeanette Connelly
The the

Elena Pudge
the eye is there to assist or improve or sort of create efficiency or free up staff to answer those more important, more advanced, more complex questions where actually the person needs to be part of the conversation rather than just a knowledge base that sits in a back.

Charlotte
Yeah. Exactly. So it’s applying that technology where it can offer the most value to you and the students, I’m guessing.

Jeanette Eriksson
Yeah. As long as it obviously ticks all the boxes for the customers that they don’t feel they’re being, you know, for a for a for a an AI tool, but that there’s always the option to then speak to somebody.

Jeanette Connelly
The real that’s how you actually deliver that to the staff members too, how you sell it to them. Mhmm. That they’re not being replaced. Yeah. You know, they are the key.

You know?

Charlotte
Yeah. Like, people. And getting them to focus on the high value stuff that they can offer, which is, you know, making students feel comfortable about coming to university, knowing it’s the right place, and feeding into that long term element that we were talking about at the beginning.

Jeanette Connelly
I think in some ways you can look at it that, you know, the student will actually see us as evolving too. Yeah. We’re moving along with, you know, technology. We’re not stuck in the past Yeah. Sort of looking at old things.

Charlotte
Well, especially because they’re all used to that always on technology. They’re used to being able to, like you said, interact through different channels. You know, we was call it the Amazon experience. You know, just get what I want on my phone when I want it.

Elena Pudge
Absolutely.

And it can be

Charlotte
quite a blocker when you when you can’t.

Yeah. Yeah. That. Yeah. I was because when I went with my daughter, we went up to an unnamed university that has multiple campuses in one city, and we had no idea where to go.

And and it was so frustrating to say it could be quite a big blocker, can’t it? Yeah. It doesn’t work.

Jeanette Eriksson
Yeah. And I was gonna say it the same way you could argue that the person you speak to at the university, that is the university. That is the voice. That’s the tone. So that’s why customer, you know, service is so important. But what Jeanette just said just realised we say Jeanette all the time.

Mhmm. That the system that they use is also a reflection on the university. That is university. How forward thinking are we?

How efficient are with the form? So Exactly. It’s a reflection on the university. You need to show you’re moving with the times because everything else will be moving with the times in the customer head.

Yeah.

Charlotte
Well, exactly. And it would it would also, impact the person that works at the university in terms of their temperament throughout the process. So if they’re happy and relaxed because the technology is helping them, then, you know, that comes across too, doesn’t it? It’s quite multifaceted.

Jeanette Eriksson
Is it

Elena Pudge
because they’re not answering the same questions, the same simple questions that they know could be answered somewhere else.

They are reserved for this. Actually, this is a discussion that I am sort of providing a proper answer to somebody who needs that help. It it you know, it’s the value as well of you as the person answering those.

Charlotte
Yeah.

Elena Pudge
Rather than this is the address. This is the phone number.

Jeanette Eriksson
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah,

Charlotte
exactly.

Well, thank you for all being here today. I think this has been really interesting. Are there any final thoughts that you’d want to leave with the audience for us to close on?

Elena Pudge
Well, from technology planning from partner perspective, getting involved early, not last minute. I mean, I’d like to think that we’re very much involved in this process with the university from very early on.

But it also kind of enables us to set up the system and a system with technology in such a way that will fit

Jeanette Eriksson
Yeah.

Elena Pudge
Their use cases, and we can understand that better as well as then be with them following the process for the next year. So I think it’s that ongoing cycle.

Charlotte
Yeah.

That iterative sort of constant improvement that you

Jeanette Connelly
and it works well.

Charlotte
It does.

It

Jeanette Connelly
it does work well in getting that conversation going early.

Yeah.

Jeanette Eriksson
And I think from a from the business side, from the admission side, organising it for months and months, sometimes it can feel quite exhausting. But I was always reminded every year that it’s really exciting project, actually. And when you get to it and that results day and everything working and everything you worked for, when that all happens and that energy, you feel the energy, you look forward to it actually in the end. Like, it’s just, I’m actually just reminding myself, it’s a really exciting day.

It’s almost like just a day or two days or three days,

Charlotte
like a wedding,

Jeanette Eriksson
but it’s like, it’s like something big you’re fan for.

And when it works well, which it has done really lucky university of Portsmouth, we’ve had really successful, clearing, periods. And, yeah, you’re boosted for four weeks after that.

Actually, you’re

Charlotte
tired.

Yeah.

Jeanette Eriksson
You’re really boosted.

So it

Jeanette Connelly
certainly makes all the testing worth.

Jeanette Eriksson
Yes, it does.

Charlotte
Yeah, exactly. Just got to keep the faith.

Jeanette Eriksson
Yeah. And do a really good working relationship. Yes. Wonderful people.

Charlotte
Yeah. Makes a big difference.

Jeanette Eriksson
Does it does? Yeah.

Charlotte
And it’s that true partnership, isn’t it?

It’s that sense of partnership, which is

Jeanette Eriksson
in that

Charlotte
you’re in

Jeanette Eriksson
the war.

This war.

Jeanette Connelly
Yeah.

I’m

Jeanette Eriksson
not going to cut that out.

You’re in the trenches. You’re in the trenches. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s you’re working together for this common.

Elena Pudge
Yeah. Common goal.

Jeanette Eriksson
Big goal.

Charlotte
Love it. Well, thank you all very much. That’s been really interesting. And Thank you. You. Thank you.