World Class Student Service

Provide easy ways to interact without coming to the office space, by widely communicating your virtual presence.

• Set up a zoom account with department email – here's how
• Personalize your zoom link to be easy to remember, and set up the waiting room
• Learn how to manage break-out rooms for virtual walk-in appointments. If students stop in hoping to speak with someone in the department, return them to the waiting room while you locate the person; once available let the student and employee in to a break-out room for their meeting. They can leave the meeting from the breakout room or return to your zoom office for further interaction with you. Consistently encouraging scheduling meetings will reduce this "walk-in", but keeping a zoom meeting open for available office hours will add virtual care points.  
• Add office hours with link to all departmental communications, explaining this replaces walking in to the office until further notice.
• Post office hours and this virtual office link on the office suite door.  Include a QR code for easy scanning with cell phones - here's how to set up a QR code
• Include office hours and this virtual office link in faculty and staff email signatures – see position of zoom link in AU brand signature
• For examples of how this is working at AU, contact Stephen Yeagley, Sam Villamizar, Glynis Bradfield or John Beal. 

Follow these steps to set up an online calendar with available ways to meet:

• Decide on office hours you can be available for appointments
• Set up a free appointment scheduling calendar such as Calendly – here's how (one per AU email taking appointments)
• Sync Calendly with your Outlook calendar; you can update availability at any time - here's how
• Add zoom to Calendly to set up virtual meetings - here's how
• Other communication options can be selected too, such as phone, other video tool, or the option to meet in person
• Email the appointment scheduling link to colleagues and students
• Post link on office suite door, including a QR code - here's how to set up a QR code
• Hyperlink the words Schedule an Appointment in place of the zoom link in your AU signature 
• Place a link to your Calendly URL in the Schedule an Appointment field for AU department and personal contacts - see an example

• Inventory the status of all phones listed for your department - personnel and main lines:
  • If the phone is being forwarded, is it forwarding to the right person? 
  • Is the voice message welcoming and concise with clear next steps?
  • When you leave a message requesting a reply, do you get a reply within a day?
  • With employee changes, should this number be discontinued?
• Does the external greeting include all elements of this AU template?
  • "You have reached (Name, Department). Thanks for your call. Emailing (spell out then say your AU email) is the best way to reach me, but I will also be listening to messages regularly. Please visit andrews.edu for the latest updates about all our world changing services.”
  • Of 74 AU phones called in May 2020, none had messages including all elements of this template, and only 3 responded to voicemails left requesting a reply.  Follow up call research is scheduled for September.
• Update your departmental contact webpage, and the AU Information Directory.
• Check messages at least daily, and reply within one business day.
  • Dial-in from anywhere - here's how to manage AU voicemail.
  • Delete messages once heard to keep the voice mailbox accessible.
  • Request your Computer Service support person to set up forwarding to email if helpful.
• Consult Telecom for service updates or training: telecom@andrews.edu or extension 2520.

• Inventory emails for your department and personnel.
  • Are there email addresses listed on webpages or in template emails that are no longer in use? 
  • Do employees have access to the emails they now need to manage? Work with your Computer Services support person to update access as needed.
• Respond to emails within 2 business days.
• Answer emails completely, copying in employees to help with details rather than waiting to reply. Keep a list to follow up or put in your appointment calendar to remind yourself.
• When away, set professional auto-reply with alternate contact(s).
• Develop templates for common replies, saved as outlook signatures. Share these templates with colleagues and student workers updating all as change is needed. Templates, like forms, remind all of processes to consistently serve.
• Check your signature meets AU branding standards. A Schedule an Appointment link would be better placed in your signature than a zoom link, if setting up an online calendar.

• As a team, review all department webpages:
  • For most departments, communication for current students should be front and center on your webpages. What do students most need to know while studying with you? Reorganize to make your homepage a dashboard that serves students first, and then links to information for special groups (researchers, faculty, parents, alumni, etc.).
  • Reword concisely. Make sure the message is clear and sequenced logically. Use headings consistently. Consolidate information so you can remove pages with little or no content.
  • Link to the source of information on AU webpages; never copy as you always want to be pointing to current information. Save work and better serve by reducing the number of pages and updating links regularly.
  • Click on every link, to check they work, and are pointing to the right pages. Schedule updating bulletin links, forms, and any financial information each summer.
  • Academic departments, check the admissions program page for interests in your programs. Simplify program info to one landing page you can link to from marketing campaigns. Link to the admission program pages, the current bulletin curriculum information, and the program handbook (if applicable). 
  • Include all faculty and staff on one departmental employee contact page. Update phone and email for those in your new Fall 2020 team, removing any persons no longer employed, and any contact options that don't work for that team member. Add online scheduling links for employees who set that up. Reorder to feature the team member answering most questions at the top of the contact list (order by entering numbers to force the order listed to change from default alphabetical).
• Help is available from University Communications in learning the basics of content management, and in restructuring or using new templates. Email web@andrews.edu for help and to report when an employee (including student workers) who previously edited your webpages has left.

Students remember care over curriculum. Values are caught more than taught. How we reflect Christ in our actions speaks louder than our words. Relationships with work supervisors and advisors are as significant as faculty interactions in class. Thus every employee has the privilege of preparing to advise, mentor, and coach, as God leads. 

While each employee's sphere of influence is unique, we can all:

• attend departmental and university-wide events, in person and online
• invite students, by class or department or other group, to engage with us outside of class or work hours
• keep informed about policies, procedures and student service resources, as we continually improve the Andrews experience for all
• pray for and with students, individually and collectively, in planned and Spirit-led moments
• attend training for advisors, for quality customer service, and for technology skills to better advise, mentor, and coach

With the university's move to Microsoft Office 365 comes access to Teams and Sharepoint.  This adds an exciting new toolset with great potential for efficient and meaningful teamwork with colleagues and student groups.

• What is MS Teams and why should I use it?
• Why would a university use MS Teams?
• How to use MS Teams (just a start... youtube has much more for education)
• Students have access to this, but may need instructions on how to install.
• Already using MS Teams? Consider Sharepoint with MS Teams

Today's students read and respond to texts better than emails. Any department with the ability to respond to texts within an hour could send texts, increasing a sense of being present, decreasing isolation through COVID19 separation.  There are 2 options:

1. Set up a free google voice account, allowing you to forward a department phone to a google voice number that sends voicemails to an email of choice. These voice messages can then be replied to for free by any team member from email, or by text logged into the google voice account.  Watch this video tutorial to get started.
2. Set up an AU Mongoose/Cadence texting account, with more sophisticated tracking tools and bulk texting options, and support from our experienced Admissions users. For more information on how to set up your account within the enterprise license, and for training, contact Shanna Leak.

Online chat could improve service at key student interaction points on campus, where staff is available to respond in a minute during 6+ hours a day. Students prefer not to call or email, so messaging through a chat tool embedded on frequently accessed webpages can reduce the distance for those studying on campus, remotely, and online. To see how this is working for Andrews already, tour the Undergraduate Admissions webpages or contact Wendy Keough or Darren Heslop.

A chatbot can ideally serve students across all campus services where a high volume of frequently asked questions (FAQs) have short answers or webpages with specific information.  Best practice is to embedd answers to FAQs in your webpage, so that an FAQ webpage is not needed. Improving your webpage(s) may be enough. With nearly 100 FAQ pages through the AU website, like 100 sides to the proverbial camel, students struggle with the silo effect. A chatbot can save time (and thus money) if programmed well as a virtual front desk with accurate contact choices (phone, email, text) for timely personal attention on more complex matters.

• Tour ivy.ai transition stories: Temple, Creighton, or Oklahoma University
• Learn more about Botstar, the application AU has purchased, pending resources to implement.

The benefit is having FAQs available in student-preferred text format, around the globe, 24/7.  Even a simple installation can reduce emails and frustrations when student service teams are inundated with communication and appointments, providing a fast first stop funnelling queries to the right personnel with communication options right on screen.   

Technical support is being provided through our help desks using ticketing software to support requests; other aspects of student support may be better provided by coordinated email systems for better tracking and shared responsibility.  Consider learning more from those who lead us here:

• OSTicket is used by DLIT for email management with a shared knowledge base
• ITS Helpdesk is using another ticketing option

Together we can find positive opportunities to build world class service. We can share tips and  tools to creatively improve our educational services, using MS Teams or informal communication, as well as through faculty and staff training, such as:

• Facebook: AU Goes Resilient - a private group created for AU faculty to share resources and ask for help from colleagues upskilling due to COVID
• Faculty & Staff Training Registration - internal training opportunities for faculty and/or staff, announced through emails from ctale@andrews.edu are listed here for employees to sign up and join (all free).
• Check with your supervisor on what training is required when you begin, and be ready to continue training every year to be most productive and innovative as technology, policy and best practices keep improving.

With limited access to computer labs and more remote and online learning, all students will need their own computers with the following minimum requirements. Please include this information in orientation before they come to campus, and recheck in their first days in class.

• Computer: PC (Win 7 or newer) or MAC (10.6 or better)
• Audio-visual capability: a webcam with microphone, and speakers (or plug-in headset)
• Internet quality: 2.4 Mbps or faster DSL, cable or wifi connection
• Browser: current version of Chrome or Firefox (Safari is not compatible with Learninghub)
• Software: MS Office 2019 or 365 best, MS 2013 OK (free downloads here)
• Learn more about these minimum requirements here
• Check with your program for any additional hardware and/or software requirements