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00:00:00
00:00:01
Not Lead Quality
1 Plays3 seconds ago
In this episode, Rustam Irani explores a growing challenge facing higher-ed enrollment teams: declining contact rates despite steady inquiry volume. Drawing from conversations with multiple institutions across different program types and regions, he unpacks why traditional explanations like lead quality and staffing may no longer tell the full story. Rustam examines how changing communication preferences, AI-driven outreach, caller screening technology, and increasing digital noise are reshaping student engagement—and what marketers can do to adapt.
Timestamps
- 00:00 - 01:20 | The Contact Rate Problem Rustam introduces the growing trend of declining contact rates across multiple institutions and program types.
- 01:21 - 05:12 | Investigating the Root Causes Analysis of historical data, common assumptions about lead quality and staffing, and emerging external factors affecting outreach success.
- 05:13 - 06:52 | Why Context Matters More Than Ever The importance of multi-channel communication, setting expectations, and giving prospects context before outreach occurs.
- 06:53 - 08:50 | Speed-to-Lead and Operational Fundamentals Why rapid response times, proper caller ID setup, and communication sequencing can improve engagement.
- 08:51 - 10:51 | Personalized Follow-Up and Alternative Engagement Channels Tailoring messaging to student goals and exploring live chat experiences as an alternative to phone-based engagement.
- 10:52 - 13:29 | Understanding the Modern Student Reality Examining the noise, distractions, responsibilities, and emotional circumstances prospects face when they inquire.
- 13:30 - 15:58 | From Contact Rates to Meaningful Engagement Reframing the KPI conversation from answered phone calls to meaningful engagement and student intent, followed by practical action items for marketers.
Key Takeaways
- Declining contact rates are increasingly influenced by external factors, not just lead quality or enrollment operations.
- Students are screening more calls and have more communication choices than ever before.
- Multi-channel communication (text, email, phone, chat) is becoming essential for creating context and trust.
- Speed-to-lead remains important, but relevance and consistency across touchpoints matter just as much.
- Higher-ed marketers should shift their focus from improving contact rates alone to creating meaningful engagement experiences that align with how students want to interact.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Contact Rate Decline
00:00:00
Rustam Irani
Over the last few months, we've been hearing and having a lot of conversations with clients, with potential clients, and with just people in the industry that contact rates are down. They're just not able to connect with the folks that are coming in that are expressing interest, that are raising their hand, they're filling out the RFI.
00:00:23
Rustam Irani
And this isn't just happening at one school. Although number of months ago, there was one that came to us and said, Hey, help us kind of figure this out what's happening. It's also one team, not one source.
00:00:38
Rustam Irani
There's a lot of other factors there that we looked at. But there are schools that are seeing 10% or more of a degrade in contact rate.
Exploring Causes of Decline
00:00:50
Rustam Irani
Usually when that happens, you're looking at those factors. Is it lead quality? Do we need more advisors? Is our lead per reps numbers wrong?
00:01:02
Rustam Irani
Did something change in marketing? Usually marketing is the first thing that you look at. Is it the quality of leads? But a lot of times, as we all know, that's usually not always or even not ever the answer.
00:01:20
Rustam Irani
Today, I want to talk a little bit about what we're seeing, what you can do about it, and just some things to keep in mind.
Podcast Introduction by Roussou Murani
00:01:26
Rustam Irani
Welcome back to ROI University, podcast for higher ed marketers and leaders who want to change the game and themselves.
00:01:35
Rustam Irani
I'm Roussou Murani, your host, a recovering engineer, former CMO in the higher ed space, and now we work with other higher ed professionals, enrollment leaders, and marketers.
00:01:52
Rustam Irani
Three schools that I want to talk about or specific examples. One's a regional player, another one is in the Northeast, and one's a pretty large national player.
Case Studies and Data Analysis
00:02:06
Rustam Irani
All three of these have come to us and we've had conversations about contact rate challenges. Again, it is a wide swath all the way from associate programs up through master's programs, as well as programmatically, it's across the board. could be multiple different industries that we're talking about, healthcare, psychology, just across the board.
00:02:32
Rustam Irani
But there was one common factor there that there were challenges with the folks that were coming in They weren't able to contact them as effectively as they were historically.
00:02:45
Rustam Irani
And so we analyzed data. We look back a year, two years, and some instances, even three years to just look at patterns in contact rates to see what's happening, what's going on.
00:02:57
Rustam Irani
And there were some interesting things that kind of came out of that. Now, you know, in reality, you've got set KPIs that you're looking at.
00:03:08
Rustam Irani
So again, when it comes to contact rate, it's your inquiries that are coming in and of the inquiries that are coming in how many of those are you actually able to connect with?
Impact of Technology and Behavior on Contact Rates
00:03:20
Rustam Irani
So again, the questions we asked, is it the quality of the lead? Is the enrollment team staffing adequate or are there issues there? Is it campus-based or online-based? And then also, is it a seasonal dip? We all know there's some level of seasonality in higher ed.
00:03:40
Rustam Irani
But in actuality, something that we also uncovered that's happening and continuing to happen as we move forward with more and more AI agents getting involved in outbound dials. We're seeing that there's plenty of companies that are providing outbound AI agents to make outbound dials.
00:04:03
Rustam Irani
And the other side of it is these platforms, the phone companies like Apple, Android, and Google, if you all have done any of the level of updates, especially if you're using an iOS device, you've seen that now you can actually filter people before they come in. And if you don't recognize that number, if it doesn't come in with a name of an institution, if it doesn't come in with that advertiser's name and you don't recognize it, you're gonna ignore it.
00:04:35
Rustam Irani
You know, we saw a stat that nearly one in four adults age 18 to 34 say that they never answer unexpected phone calls.
00:04:46
Rustam Irani
So 25 right off the bat, if they're not recognizing it, are not going to answer. 25% are not going answer it. And so these are things that...
00:04:57
Rustam Irani
we absolutely need to consider outside of usually what we're looking at. So usually we see certain patterns that go back to lead quality, that go back to internal processes, that go back to these things. But now there are external factors that are in play because of a lot of these tools, because of the newer, younger generations that are experiencing different experiences and want different experiences, right?
Strategies for Improved Engagement
00:05:35
Rustam Irani
So here's a few things that we've started to kind of work with our partners on make suggestions. These are just just kind of like our playbook right now. But this is really the stuff that you should be looking at.
00:05:48
Rustam Irani
One, if you're doing any outbound Are you communicating with them and other methods, right? What is your marketing automation process or student communications look like?
00:06:03
Rustam Irani
Can you send them a text as well? So if they inquire, inquiry, basically send them a text message letting them know, hey, we'll be in touch with you. What is your thank you page experience look like?
00:06:16
Rustam Irani
What are your emails look like? Those are touch points that if you're not buttoned up on that, then that prospect is not is just getting a cold call and they don't have more context. And I believe that's what we're seeing is a lot of times now the context is so critical.
00:06:36
Rustam Irani
You've got to continue to help that person understand where this message is coming from and from who it's coming from. There's so many more ads and emails and outbound dials now, as I said earlier, that the context is key.
00:06:58
Rustam Irani
The second thing is you can try to respond quicker as well. So usually when that person is inquiring, they're in the moment. And when they're in the moment, that's usually the best time for them to still know who they engage with, the school they reached out to or the brand they engaged with and expect some level of interaction or an inbound call.
00:07:28
Rustam Irani
So timing is definitely important. We say the sooner the better typically, but if you can get to them within the first few minutes, along with that communication that I mentioned, the texting, the email, those sorts of things, you're going to get a better contact rate.
00:07:48
Rustam Irani
you're going to have more context for that person to actually engage and pick up the call. Not to mention the basics of, you know, having not an unknown caller ID on your call log. So make sure you're looking at your telephony system and platform and you've got appropriate phone numbers that you're using, that they have the right caller ID, that all of that, that's like the basics.
00:08:14
Rustam Irani
That's like the blocking and tackling, but it's interesting that we've seen even some of that not really be in place properly. then like you want to take a look at, you know, what's your follow-up experience that you're doing?
00:08:31
Rustam Irani
Are you again creating that consistent messaging? Somebody's inquired about, let's just say it's a medical assistant program and they've come Are you giving them standard messaging or are you catering it towards what career, what outcomes are looking for, like, potentially why they even engage not only that, but on your landing pages, is that consistent?
00:09:02
Rustam Irani
You know, are you consistently messaging effectively across those platforms? And again, that's branding, that's brand exposure, that's showing that you understand what they're inquiring about.
00:09:18
Rustam Irani
And then even in your email and text messaging communications that you are listening and that you're giving them the information that they want, they desire, they need, right?
00:09:31
Rustam Irani
The other thing we've seen as well, and we've tested this with some clients, there's some really great tools out there that do this as well as on your site. Do you have a live chat bot?
00:09:43
Rustam Irani
Do you have a live chat experience? Is it a live person that's communicating? Is it a bot? Can you engage with somebody outside of them just having two options?
00:09:55
Rustam Irani
Calling you or filling out a form. Those are also important things. I'm sure you've seen on any auto website you go to, or if you're looking to purchase a car or you go to any of these sites, I mean, the first thing that pops up on pretty much all of these sites now is the live chat.
00:10:16
Rustam Irani
And to be quite frank, I've actually even received quotes and offers on cars and negotiated completely through live chat.
00:10:28
Rustam Irani
which to me was a better experience than having somebody on the phone live. And so these are things that we need to consider as higher ed professionals and marketers and enrollment leaders. Like we have to consider that there is no one size fits all. And now more than ever, it's becoming harder and harder for us to break through engage in a way that somebody wants to be engaged with, which is absolute key.
00:11:01
Rustam Irani
So if you're seeing some of these issues in your contact rates and you're getting all these inquiries but you're just not able to get in touch with them, need to have this full kind of 360 communications and marketing plan. And as well as having all of those other touch points that are consistent across the board.
Rethinking Success: Engagement over Contact Rates
00:11:26
Rustam Irani
There are some external factors on the student side too that could be factoring in here, right? Again, as I mentioned, hearing constant notifications.
00:11:36
Rustam Irani
I mean, we all get it now on our SMS, whether it's for voting, whether it's for loans, whether it's now I get tons about local landscapers or tree trimmers that want to come trim my tree that are in my local area.
00:11:55
Rustam Irani
I literally get one a day now. I continue to block them because I haven't inquired at all about any of that. So there's a lot of noise out there. There's, you know, and our prospects and our students that are coming and engaging with us, they have a lot going on. So they are inquiring.
00:12:16
Rustam Irani
They want a better path or looking for a career, they're looking for opportunities or looking for whatever it is, upskilling, et cetera. But at the core of it is a human that has financial family responsibilities,
00:12:31
Rustam Irani
has financial pressures and obligations and considerations. There's endless digital distractions there. And who knows, they could be at a job where they're inquiring about because they just had a terrible day.
00:12:47
Rustam Irani
So those are all things to consider when you're looking at the core KPI of contact rate. Because what you think it might be may not always be what you think it is.
00:13:01
Rustam Irani
So again, things that we need to consider as marketers is more than just like, why aren't they answering?
00:13:10
Rustam Irani
We should be asking like, how do they want to engage? What are those methods of engagement that will create the best experience for our prospects?
00:13:22
Rustam Irani
And then maybe even instead of asking, how do we increase contact rates? Let's say it's 40% right now. We want to get it to 50%. That's where we were historically.
00:13:34
Rustam Irani
Maybe we should be asking, how do we increase a meaningful engagement? How do we provide more value and a better experience that'll naturally potentially improve contact rates or just get in front of the people or the people who are inquiring the right information.
00:13:57
Rustam Irani
Those are key things that we should be asking. Those are things that we've worked through which is working and we are seeing lifts a bit in contact rates when we do have those types of programs in place.
Evaluating and Improving Communication
00:14:14
Rustam Irani
So Couple suggestions for this week. If you're listening, review your contact rates. Basically it's lead inquiry to whatever that contact disposition you have, whether it's somebody actually getting on the phone or whatever it is that you have internally that you've been benchmarking, review that.
00:14:33
Rustam Irani
Take a look over the last year or so, has it gone down? and then start looking at your communications audit your caller reputation what's happening maybe make some uh outbound your styles yourself and just see what's happening or call yourself you know try texting as a part of that outbound i don't know where it is currently on your Roadmap, but see if you can add that in and see if that improves things.
00:15:03
Rustam Irani
Lastly, definitely measure engagement across all the campaigns and start to evaluate responses and dispositions on your back end, what your admissions teams are saying.
00:15:15
Rustam Irani
Those are the things that really will give you the insights that you need. So again, the real question is, are we measuring student intent?
00:15:26
Rustam Irani
Or are we just measuring answered phone calls? That's all for this class of ROI University where the biggest ROI is personal.