In higher education, measuring the impact of student support is crucial, but it can be surprisingly difficult to do outside of surveys. While surveys provide valuable feedback, they only offer a snapshot of student sentiment, often at the end of a semester or program.

This limited perspective may not capture the full picture of student engagement or provide actionable insights for improving services. So, how can institutions assess satisfaction in a more dynamic, consistent way? The answer lies in focusing on customer service—a sometimes overlooked cornerstone of student experience.

By evaluating how students interact with your institution, you can uncover key insights that drive not only satisfaction but also institutional growth. Let’s explore how customer service can serve as a key thread in measuring ROI and satisfaction across your institution.

1. Measuring Retention: The Connection Between Customer Service and Student Loyalty

One of the strongest indicators of student satisfaction is retention. When students feel heard, supported, and valued, they are more likely to stay enrolled and continue their education. A strong customer service experience, especially in financial aid and student services, directly impacts student loyalty.

How to Measure: Track retention rates year over year and correlate them with the quality of interactions in your student services departments. If students are experiencing timely, helpful, and empathetic support, it can make the difference between them staying or transferring.

2. Evaluating New Tuition Revenue: Customer Service as a Revenue Driver

When prospective students interact with your admissions or financial aid offices, their experience can directly influence their decision to enroll. Positive interactions with your frontline teams can increase the likelihood of prospective students choosing your institution, thus boosting new tuition revenue.

How to Measure: Track the number of students who enroll after initial inquiries, admissions meetings, or financial aid consultations. If the customer service provided during these touchpoints is high-quality, it may contribute to the decision to attend, impacting overall tuition revenue.

3. Tracking Referrals: How Satisfied Students Become Advocates

Satisfied students don’t just stay—they recommend your institution to others. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful tools for building your institution's reputation and attracting new students.

How to Measure: Track referrals from current students or alumni, particularly in the context of customer service. Were students more likely to refer others after a positive interaction with your financial aid office or student services? Identifying these trends can show how customer service directly impacts your institution’s growth.

4. Merchandise Purchases and Student Engagement: The Ripple Effect of Good Service

An often-overlooked aspect of student satisfaction is engagement beyond tuition payments. Merchandise sales, event participation, and overall student involvement reflect how connected students feel to their institution.

How to Measure: Evaluate how positive experiences with customer service (such as smooth interactions with billing, financial aid, and student support) correlate with increased purchases of school merchandise, event attendance, or participation in school activities. A satisfied student is more likely to support the institution’s broader initiatives.

5. Cost per Call (CPC): Assessing the Efficiency of Your Customer Service

Another valuable metric to consider is Cost per Call (CPC), which evaluates the cost efficiency of managing student inquiries. While this metric alone doesn’t directly measure satisfaction, it provides valuable insight into the resource investment required to manage student interactions.

How to Measure: Calculate the total cost associated with handling student inquiries (staff time, technology, etc.) divided by the number of calls or interactions. If your institution can lower the CPC while maintaining high satisfaction, it’s a strong indicator that your customer service is both efficient and effective.

7. Lifetime Value (LTV): Understanding the Long-Term Impact of Student Relationships

The Lifetime Value (LTV) metric helps measure the total revenue a student brings to the institution over the course of their enrollment. Great customer service can significantly boost LTV, as students who feel valued are more likely to stay enrolled, contribute to institutional fundraising, and become long-term alumni supporters.

How to Measure: Track the long-term revenue from a student, including tuition, donations, and any other contributions. Look at how customer service interactions impact their overall experience and relationship with the institution.

8. Dispositioning: Analyzing Student Interactions for Actionable Insights

At the heart of ECSI’s CXSelect is the concept of dispositioning—analyzing the specific reasons for student interactions with your financial aid or student services offices. This feature enables institutions to gain deep insights into common issues and pain points students are facing. Each call or interaction with a student provides an opportunity to learn, improve processes, and address recurring concerns.

How to Measure: Use dispositioning data from your office, or by using a service like CXSelect to track the types of questions or problems students are regularly calling about. Are there recurring issues with tuition billing, financial aid forms, or account holds? By analyzing these patterns, institutions can pinpoint areas for improvement and ensure that customer service staff are empowered with the right solutions to address these concerns.

ECSI’s CXSelect offers a powerful software and service combination for automating and optimizing customer service on campus. By leveraging live agent calls, custom interactive voice recordings, dispositioning, scalable support, and more, CXSelect provides actionable insights into student interactions, allowing institutions to improve satisfaction and streamline service processes.

Measuring the ROI of customer service in higher education goes beyond just tracking survey responses. By leveraging a range of metrics, such as the eight included here, institutions can get a clearer picture of how their customer service impacts the student experience and institutional growth.