Excellent awareness, Elizabeth! It's so important to know your comfort level and not feel as though your being someone beside yourself. Asking for the call back is something a lot of admissions reps miss. It sounds like you have been asking for it but in a way that could be enhanced. How might you "tweak" it to make if more direct for your students?
Nanette,
Excellent approaches. Humor offers such a great opportunity to inject a bit of your personality into the message. It also sounds like you make sure that your messages have a specific purpose that establishes urgency on the student's part. How do you find your students respond to your voicemails?
I will add humor when appropriate and a more specific call to action with a sense of urgency.
Humor one aspect I don't use. However, that is on purpose. It is not my strength and comes off wrong when I attempt it.
To improve my results I need to be more consistent with overtly and directly asking for the call back. While going through this unit, I realized that what I see as a direct "ask" is still too subtle.
I think I give my students too much of an excuse to NOT call me back- by saying things like "call me...if you have any questions" or "call me...when it's convenient for you". I know that I almost never return voicemails myself that have such statements. I am going to start giving them a time to call me back, and a more substantial purpose for calling me back. I will also include my email address as I know many students prefer that method of communication.
I often miss the WIIFM part.
I think I struggle with providing infomation with out thinkning about the student's WIIFM. I think I need to start finding creative reasons the student needs to get back to me.
As I said before I am the President of a College and I am taking the course so I can help my admissions representatives with their appointment to interview. We are tracking below the company average and we need to improve. I think there are several areas that can be improved. I don't think we are doing a good job of explaining in voice messages WIIFM. We have to be so careful about what we say that I feel we have gotten away from creating this aspect of the message. I think my representatives are beginning to sound monotone. They need enthusiasm in their voices. I plan to buy each of them a mirror this weekend to present to them on Monday morning. I also have a representative with a nice headset that she purchased. I am going to ask her to stand up next week and see if that possibly will make a difference. I don't think that we have ever presented phone calls as an opportunity for use as an advertising vehicle. I really like that concept and will implement Monday morning. I would welcome any other ideas to increase our Appointment to Interview rates.
Great ideas, Carolyn. It sounds like you'll be implementing some of the suggestions in this course with your team. Best of luck!
Using a different approach with every call, being different than the competition and having the "pitch" ready everytime we represent the school are currently missing in our voicemail messages. I really liked the idea of "practicing" voicemail messaging with the reps.
I'm glad that you found that suggestion helpful, Jenny. You're not the only admissions professional that admitted to missing this in their voicemail messages. Knowing this can help you with future voicemails. Let me know how it's going.
It sounded so simple, yet i never thought to TELL the prospective student what to do in my VM message...i had always said..."if you have questions, you can reach me at....." I LOVE the "I know you have many questions so call me before 4pm today or if you get this message later...." Will start using that TODAY!
This is another great observation, Jim. I get the sense that you'd like to slow your voicemail messages down a bit and inject a bit more sensitivity or genuine interest into the message. How might you adapt your message to demonstrate your genuine curiousity in getting to know the student and their interests?
This is great awareness to have, Jim. Taking a step back to evaluate your effectiveness in working with students can be difficult. The awareness you gain by doing so can offer ideas on specific areas that you'd like to improve, like voicemail messages. What might you say in one of your new voicemails to reach your student in a different way?
I tend to rush through delivering the message and not sound as sensitive and caring as I should.
My message has been basically, " I see that you called us so you must be interested in filmmaking, call me at xxxxxxxx for more information"
I've worked in Admissions for over 25 years and I can clearly see I need to re-evaluate my phone messaging techniques. I need to focus more on clarity, content and use some humor.
I'm feeling like my messages have been robotic and stale.....they need more excitement and a better call to action.
Excellent awareness, Linda. What are some ideas you have for creating urgency for your student on the phone?
Glad you found that information helpful, Linda. Let us know how it's going as you incorporate some of the suggestions into your voicemails moving forward.
I also need to work on creating the sense of urgency. Sometimes I feel I am too soft & need to step it up a bit. I would probably get better results.
I like the slide that stated in the vm about I am available through out the day to answer your questions about your program of interest. I will try this one to see if the call me abck.
