Student Enrolment – potholes and pitstops Sue Morrison, Senior Assistant Registrar (Student Experience) Jean Mutton, Project Manager SROC April 2010

Background JISC call for bids - May 2009 Programme: Student Lifecycle Relationship Management (part of the Business and Community Engagement funding stream) Project running for 10 months: July to April Why did we do it?!

The project at Derby Right place, right time…… Student experience strategy in place 2006 –Feedback campaigns/enrolment survey/anecdotal evidence/complaints monitoring –Putting students at the heart of what we do Experienced team Governance Consultant – expert in service design

What is a 'Process'? 'If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.' W E Deming '… a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.‘ OED We wanted to go beyond the process…….

Services are intangible have benefits are perishable (time and place dependent) –cannot be stored or transported are inseparable from the service provider are often inconsistent or variable in quality –especially personal services eg hairdressing cannot be owned

Blueprinting Design of the services More sophisticated version of flowcharting: –Flowcharting – existing processes; –Blueprinting – greater detail of service design from the customer point of view: Main Stages in customer journey through the service process; Definition of standards for each front-stage activity; Physical and other evidence of front-stage activity; Principal front-stage participants; Line of visibility; Back-stage actions; Support processes involving other service personnel; Support services involving information technology.

Advantages of Blueprinting Blueprint differentiates between what customers experience “front stage and the activities of employees and support process “backstage”; Blueprint shows how customers and employees interact; Blueprint highlights possible fail points in the process; It highlights the areas of excessive wait; More in-depth analysis of service encounter – crucial stage of service process redesign.

Identifying Fail Points High risk areas in service delivery where things could go wrong; Errors include: –Treatment errors—human failures during contact with customer e.g. lack of courteous or professional behavior, failure to acknowledge, listen to, or react appropriately to the customer Areas of excessive wait – could annoy customers and lead to negative customer experience –Tangible errors—failures in physical elements of service e.g. noise pollution, improper standards for cleaning of facilities and uniforms, equipment breakdown Aim of fail-safe procedures is to prevent errors Areas of wait – reducing an opportunity for excessive wait F F W

Making the Blueprint at Derby Workshops on theory of service design Invited key stakeholders: –Student records and fees –Systems support –Finance –Admissions –Faculties Focus groups

Drafting Lots of post-it notes and blutac! Looking beyond and linking up the silos Drew up blueprint using Visio (now exploring alternative software tools) Tested it out with key stakeholders Iterative process Focussed on 1 st year UG Joint Honours

Service Enhancement – interventions for September 2010 Manage supply Smooth the service by managing demand Review Servicescape Establish minimum service standards Poka-yokes (mistake-proofing) Improve communication (remove jargon) Use SMS for password issue

Future plans Draw up blueprints for other types and of students and modes of study Using service design and improvement techniques, review other areas of the business, eg assessments, validations Drawing up minimum service entitlement Measurands and metrics – how will we know we have improved the student experience?

Questions? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Further information… Website: enrolment-project enrolment-project Twitter: ‘myderbi’