Agents typically account for over 80% of a university’s international student enrolments, playing a pivotal role in driving applications and offer acceptances to the university.
Most universities quite reasonably expect their network of international recruitment agents to recommend their university to all the prospective students they meet. However a new research service has revealed that there is a significant gap between the recommendation levels universities expect and those that agents actually deliver.
Significant gap between the recommendation levels universities expect and those that agents actually deliver
Redeveloping a best practice customer experience research tool from service categories, MacMORGAN has developed a new research service to mystery shop off-shore agents to understand for the first time what is really said in an agent’s counselling session to prospective students.
The results are confronting for a sector that is becoming increasingly reliant on international student revenue and the agents they partner with to drive applications and offer conversion, with only 30% of agents strongly recommending students to apply to the university ahead of competitor institutions;
If a university’s agents aren’t recommending the university, it’s highly unlikely other agents aligned with other institutions are recommending the university, as most agents represent up to 30 different institutions.
As well reducing the potential number of applications and offer acceptances a university might receive, the lack of agent recommendation is impacting the university’s global brand reputation, as agents’ negative recommendations an observations are shared by word of mouth from student to student in the overseas market.
Understanding which of your agents are recommending your university and which aren't is critically important to achieving your international student recruitment goals and improving your global brand reputation.
To learn more about our agent mystery shopper research and how we can help you close your agent recommendation gap, please contact me.
John Chatterton
0432 906 790
john@macmorgan.co