Five questions about AU Central for Jonnel Clothier, director of AU Central.
1. What was the impetus behind the creation of AU Central, as opposed to keeping the Registrar, Student Accounts, and Financial Aid separate?
The primary goal of AU Central is provide assistance to students and their parents in one central location by a cross-trained team of customer service experts, therefore reducing the need for students to be sent from one office to another. This one-stop student services center provides the “front desk” functions offered by the Offices of the Registrar, Financial Aid, and Student Accounts. In recent years, many colleges and universities (i.e. George Washington University, DePaul University, Tufts University, University of Minnesota, Pepperdine University) moved to this integrated student services model as way to serve a student population interested in a “one stop shopping” concept. After reviewing the models at these institutions, and considering the needs of AU students in particular, AU created a model that focuses on three service areas — financial aid, student accounts and the register.
2. What has been the biggest complaint thus far about AU Central? And how do you propose to fix it?
Very early on, wait time for telephone calls to be answered was a concern we heard about. To resolve the issue, the AU central staff implemented a plan to address calls during peak times and pulled in resources from the Office of Financial Aid, Student Accounts and the Office of the Registrar to meet the demand. Earlier this month, we hired three additional staff members. We have reduced the average wait time and the instances in which callers hang up before staff can take the call. We will continue to make improvements in the services we provide.
3. What successes has AU Central seen since it opened?
While it was challenging to keep up with the heavy demand during the first weeks of school, operations are running smoothly, and feedback from students and parents has been positive. In early survey response data 70% of survey respondents indicate that AU Central staff demonstrated a professional attitude and were courteous. This is a good base line indicator in which we will continue to improve on. I wish I had the room to share with you some of the personal notes and calls I have received from parents and students expressing their appreciation for the service they have received from AU Central. During the month of August, AU Central served 3,172 walk-ins, responded to 4,644 e-mail inquiries, and answered 7,900 telephone calls. The sheer number of inquiries we have handled has been impressive and once we are producing high quality responses in these areas we are looking to enhance services in other technologies. We ask that students be mindful that this is a new operation and the first couple of months are a learning period for both the staff and students who are adjusting to new methods and procedures. We are committed to making our service to students high quality and efficient, even at peak times.
4. What future developments would you like to see for AU Central?
Now that the office is open for business, AU Central is working to streamline processes via the new student portal and will make enhancements to improve the services students will need when registering for class, applying for financial aid, paying a bill or additional services related to these areas. We have several project teams working together to implement IT enhancements to the AU student portal, redesign business processes, revamp and reorganize communications to students, and cross-train staff.
If we make our virtual services intuitive and easy to use, students shouldn’t have to send as many e-mails, make as many phone calls or make as many visits to various offices. As with other colleges and universities that have added a virtual one-stop center, our goal at AU Central is to become a no stop center, meaning students can take care of their affairs on line with ease and will not need take the time to stop by in person to our offices in the Asbury building.
5. What can students do to help improve their AU Central experience?
Students are encouraged first to review the FAQ section the AU Central website at http://www.american.edu/aucentral/index.cfm. The FAQs answer common questions and directs students to specific area of the portal or AU Central’s website for further information and instructions. If a question cannot be answered via the FAQ section of the website, we prefer e-mails from students. An e-mail automatically opens a ticket and then based on a student’s last name, counselors will start to work on inquiries for their area of the alphabet, but at any time any counselor should be able to assist with general questions. Students can also stop by AU Central, if they prefer to conduct their business in person. Again, our long-term goal is to enhance our virtual presence so that students can manage their transactions on their own time at their convenience.
“Five questions with Jonnel Clothier” is part of our “Five questions with...” series, where The Eagle will be asking various members of the AU community five questions about hot issues.
