Results come out at eight in the morning. By half past eight a student with grades slightly below her offer is calling four institutions. Two lines are engaged, one plays a message, one answers in eleven minutes and makes her an offer.
She accepts before eleven. The other three were not worse, they were slower, and the entire decision took less time than a lunch break.
The structural problem
Almost every applicant in the country receives their results within the same hour. The enquiry volume that follows is not a peak, it is a wall, and it lasts about two days.
Why phone capacity cannot solve it
Even a heavily staffed operation cannot answer a year of calls in forty eight hours. Every extra person helps and none of them close the gap.
Why the callers will not wait
An applicant with a decision to make and four numbers to try does not hold. They redial somewhere else, and an engaged tone is a lost applicant rather than a delayed one.
What most of the calls actually are
Straightforward questions. Do I qualify, is there a place, what about accommodation, how quickly can you tell me. Four questions, thousands of times.
What only a person can do
The genuine judgement calls. Unusual qualifications, mitigating circumstances, a borderline case that deserves a conversation. These are the calls the phone lines should be protecting.
Fix one: publish the entry criteria for clearing
Before results day, per course, specifically. Applicants who can self assess stop calling to ask a question they could have answered.
Fix two: answer the simple questions instantly
Grade checks, place availability, accommodation status and next steps, at any hour, without a queue. This is what protects the lines for the calls that need people.
Fix three: capture the details before the call
Name, grades, subjects, course interest and contact details, collected in writing while somebody is waiting. The call then starts from a record.
Fix four: respond overnight and at weekends
Applicants make decisions at eleven at night after a difficult day. An institution that engages then is in the running in the morning.
Fix five: be honest when the answer is no
An immediate honest no is better for an applicant with hours to decide than a callback that never comes, and it protects your reputation.
Fix six: keep accommodation answers joined up
It is the second question every clearing applicant asks, and an institution that can say a room is available in the same breath as a place converts considerably better than one that promises to check.
Fix seven: route the distressed callers to people
Results day involves disappointment, family pressure and occasional distress. Those calls need a person, which is the routing in student support and wellbeing enquiries routed safely.
Fix eight: plan the whole operation for the peak
The volume is entirely predictable and the planning is the same discipline described in clearing and late places enquiries at peak volume.
Fix nine: clear the backlog rather than carrying it
Enquiries answered on day three are enquiries somebody else already converted, which is the problem in clearing the Monday backlog.
Fix ten: keep answering after the surge
Late applications continue for weeks, which is the tail described in prospective student questions that arrive after open days.
What answering instantly produces
The applicant who called four institutions and accepted the first offer. Start at try, see features, and the sector view sits under education.