Want your university to be scooping up the best talent on clearing day? Then one thing’s for sure, you need to make sure students can get through to you on the phone. It goes without saying that a cloud-based telephony solution is a good start, but have you ever thought about expanding the size and scope of your student clearing office with an advanced mobile solution? Now’s the time.
In August 2017, a record number of students went through clearing on A-Level results day. As clearing offices get ever more inventive, the window saw social media being used as a method of communication, with some universities turning to Snapchat and WhatsApp to make offers to students.
With an increasing number of students taking up university places through clearing (the latest number is double what it was five years ago), competition to snap up the best talent is fierce. Having a robust communications solution in place is essential to keeping up with the rest and being able to field the huge peak in inbound calls expected during clearing.
The problem with traditional telephony
While the clearing process officially runs all the way from July to September, the reality is that most clearing offices will get the biggest influx of calls on those handful of days in August, starting on results day.
Clearing offices need a communications platform that can deal with a huge spike in inbound calls that come in over a few days. Using traditional telephony to cope with that demand, requires investing in and physically installing extra lines, which is a costly, permanent solution. It also means a bit of guesswork, as IT teams take a punt on how much extra capacity they might need to meet demand.
Yes, capacity can be effectively increased with traditional telephony but it’s a cumbersome approach that results in paying for lines you won’t need for most of the year. It’s simply not fit for purpose anymore.
Scalable solutions that meet demand
Ideally, clearing offices need a communications solution that can scale up in direct response to the temporary demand they experience during the clearing window. This is why you should be looking to the cloud.
Cloud-based telephony solutions provide just the kind of scalable infrastructure a clearing office needs, without the need for any on-site hardware. This kind of solution means that voice capacity can be scaled up and down as necessary with a simple bit of software configuration. Clearing offices will only pay for what they use, making it a more viable long-term solution.
Enhanced mobile solutions
While cloud-based telephony solutions offer clearing offices the scalability they need, enhanced mobile solutions can make them even more flexible, offering even more scope. In a competitive landscape, that’s exactly what they need.
One of the main functions of a solution like the Horizon hosted phone system is scaling up to meet demand, even if only temporarily. It’s also ideal for clearing offices because it provides both fixed and mobile capability. This massively increases the scope of the solution and ensures all staff members can be as productive as possible on the days that really count.
Looking to advanced mobile solutions is the only way for today’s clearing offices to keep up with an increasingly competitive clearing process, ensuring they can secure the best talent for their university. It also delivers a seamless experience to students in the clearing window.
Learn more about the benefits of the Horizon hosted phone system here.
