The new Student Service Centres have handled a large volume of enquiries since opening.  Staff have been working incredibly hard to respond in an accurate and timely manner, but we acknowledge we still have some way to go whilst staff adjust to their new roles and are learning a multitude of new processes. In the first three months since opening, Student Service Centres (excluding Derby and City) dealt with 21,574 email enquiries, 7,047 telephone enquiries and have responded to over 4,000 enquiries via the online enquiry form.

Our response time to all enquiry types is continuing to improve as improvements to our internal processes are made and training is rolled out to staff. The answer rate for telephone calls has increased from an average of 76% to a more consistent answer rate of 85% and we hope to see this improve further throughout the coming academic year.

Student Service Centres have been collecting feedback from students through a variety of channels including social media, the Student Services website and feedback postcards deployed at service centres. Feedback has been balanced with the main themes being:

• Customer Service: there has been extensive praise from students about the helpful, positive and professional conduct of our Front of House staff, and their friendly, supportive and sympathetic manner.
• Location of service centres: students have commented positively on the distribution of the service centres, in particular the presence of Student Service Centre in QMC.
• Communication: one of the main issues highlighted was the length of time taken to get back to students and occasionally the lack of specific information for individual departments. We are continuing to review our internal processes and roll out training to staff to ensure we are better equipped to respond accurately and promptly.

We will continue to collect and respond to both staff and student feedback as we progress through the year.