A student in another country has an offer for a January intake. Her father is paying and wants to speak to somebody. An education agent in a third country has been handling everything so far and has already sent half a file.
Three people are now in touch with the same firm about the same matter, none of them has said who is actually the client, and the term starts in nine weeks.
The checklist
Get these settled and the matter runs smoothly.
1. Establish who the client is
The student, almost always. Parents fund, agents assist and institutions have their own interests, and none of that makes them the person being advised. Saying so early is not pedantry, it is what stops the matter tangling.
2. Establish who may give instructions
And who may be told what. Where a parent or agent is involved, the student's authority for that should be recorded rather than assumed from who happens to be writing.
3. Work backwards from the enrolment date
Not the course start. Registration deadlines, induction weeks and late arrival cut offs set by the institution are usually earlier and are the dates that actually bind.
4. Find out what the institution has issued
An offer, a conditional offer or a sponsorship reference. The stage determines entirely what can happen next and whether the firm is even able to act yet.
5. Find out what conditions remain outstanding
Grades, language results, fee deposits or documents. An unmet condition is usually the real blockage rather than anything else in the file.
6. Ask what the agent has already done
Documents submitted, accounts created, forms partly completed and anything sent to the institution. Work already in progress elsewhere is the most common source of duplication and error.
7. Ask about previous study
Earlier courses, whether they were completed, any change of institution and any period where a course was abandoned. It shapes the matter and is often volunteered late.
8. Ask about anything previously refused
In any country. Students frequently do not mention an earlier refusal because they believe it was unrelated, and the adviser needs it before anything else happens.
9. Publish your fees in a form families can act on
Fixed stages with what each includes, and how payment works from abroad. Families arranging an international transfer need to know the figure weeks before anybody signs anything.
10. Publish how you work with institutions and agents
Whether you accept agent referrals, what you require from them and how communication is handled. Agents send volume to firms that make the relationship clear.
11. Direct everybody to the official requirements
Rules change between intakes, and restating them in an article is how a firm ends up relied on for something out of date. Point to the source and keep advice in the consultation.
12. Never assess eligibility in an enquiry
Whether somebody qualifies, whether funds are sufficient or whether a history is a problem are all matters for the adviser after seeing the documents.
13. Handle the institutional side separately
Colleges and universities have compliance obligations of their own, which is adjacent territory to sponsor licence enquiries from employers.
14. Cover accompanying family members
Where a student may be joined by family, capture that it applies and leave the analysis alone, as in family visa enquiries with documents and deadlines.
15. Be reachable when the other side of the world is awake
Students, parents and agents work in their own hours, which is the whole problem in international student enquiries across time zones, and consistent capture is the point of receptionist screening questions.
Getting started
Publish your fees, your agent and institution arrangements and who you act for, then capture the intake date, the offer stage and any history at any hour without assessing anything. SpideyChat for law firms answers from your published pages. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about capture on the features page.