OATdb Archive - Sam Houston State University

OATdb Archive

2014 - 2015

Visitor Center

Goal

Improve Effectiveness

The Visitor Center will implement assessments to allow for improvements in areas that are not as effective.

Objective

Student Tracking

The Visitor Center will convert visiting prospective students to applicants/enrolled students at SHSU.

KPI

Conversion

Through the use of data tracking, we will run reports through Hobsons to determine the percentage of students (of applicable age) who apply and subsequently enroll after they attend a visitor center presentation and tour. The end goal is to have a conversion rate of greater than or equal to 50%.

Result

Tours

Regular Tours
* Individual Students
   - Visited to Applied = 69%
   - Applied to Enrolled = 55.5% (or 38% of visited)
* School Group Students
   - Visited to Applied = 13.2%
   - Applied to Enrolled = 21% (or 38% of visited)

Definitions:
* Individual Students are students that visit on their own, not with a xchool group or organization.
* School Group Students are students that visit as part of a sanctioned school or organization trip.

Result

Saturday@SAM (Campus Preview Day)

* Individual Students
- Visited to Applied = 59%
- Applied to Enrolled = 56.8% (or 33.5% of visited)

Action

Conversion Rates

Group Conversation rates, while still below our goal of 50%, have increased from 2014. We have hired a new coordinator and tasked her with developing new and exciting programming to increase conversion of group students.

Saturday@SAM conversion grew significantly from 2014. The reorganization has added the desired goal of increasing conversion from the program. We will continue to grow and make small adjustments to tthe program, but, as a whole, we will keep the new structure through another assessment cycle (2015-2016).l

Goal

Increase Communication

Add new communication tools for the purpose of better connecting with prospective students.

Objective

Social Media

The Visitor Center will implement a Twitter, Instagram, & Live/Instant Chat feature to our website.

KPI

Implementation

The social media tool, Twitter, Instagram, & Live/Instant Chat will be in place and operating by Summer 2015.

Result

Successful Implementation

A Twitter widget (located at www.shsu.edu/visitor, www.shsu.edu/visitors/contact.html & http://www.shsu.edu/dept/visitors/ambassadors.html) an Instagram widget (located at www.shsu.edu/visitors/contact.html) and a live chat feature (located at www.shsu.edu/visitor & http://www.shsu.edu/dept/visitors/ambassadors.html) were added to our webpages in July 2015.

Action

Social Media And Communication

We have a fully functional social media and chat tool on our websites. We will continue to research new and exciting ways to communicate with students visiting our websites, but we will retire this objective.

Update to previous cycle's plan for continuous improvement We continue to be successful in increasing our conversion rates, very successful where Saturday@SAM is concerned, but we have stalled where group students are concerned. With a new coordinator on board, hopefully, we will be able to grow the conversion. Group size continues to limit visit programming as well as the fact that schools are bringing student classes and not specific students that are interested in SHSU/Higher Education.

Plan for continuous improvement We continue to strive for a higher conversion rate for all students but again want to make a focus on increasing the rate for "Group Students" through new initiatives and tasking a new coordinator to think outside the box. We will continue to make campus visits the best possible, maximizing the conversion from visited to applied to enrolled.

While we are retiring the Social Media/Chat Implementation objective, we will still continue to improve communication to students, program offerings, and staff training/development.

We will determine at least one additional rea to improve upon.