Universities are losing enrolments because they neglect the “fundamentals” of customer service, research suggests.

A “mystery shopper” study has found that staff in Australian and UK universities generally perform worse than ChatGPT in making would-be students feel valued.

The Enquiry Experience Tracker study, conducted by education consultancy Edified and student recruitment specialists UniQuest, found that almost two in three prospective students were “left unconvinced” after their approaches to universities drew largely generic responses.

The study, the sixth of its kind and the first to focus on domestic rather than international student admissions, saw about 700 enquiries lodged to 30 institutions in Australia and 33 in the UK by six fictitious “personas” – including a high school student, a career changer and a parent – through media including phone, chatbots, web forms, Instagram and prescheduled phone or video consultations.

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Only 37 per cent of enquiries drew responses that made the student impersonators keen to persist, the exercise found.

Universities are squandering “prospects” through indifferent rather than bad service, the study found. While only 15 per cent of the enquiries elicited no response at all, many left the simulated shoppers feeling alienated by piecemeal and impersonal answers.

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“Students aren’t walking away because they got bad information,” said study director Elissa Newall. “They’re on the fence because universities don’t give them enough confidence to take the next step. Warmth and a properly tailored answer show that you value the student, and in both Australia and the UK, too few institutions are consistently getting that right.”

The study found that one-third of universities’ initial responses failed to fully answer the enquiries, and only half conveyed an impression of warmth and approachability. Fewer than half of enquiries elicited follow-up communications.

Yet personalised contact has a rich payoff, the study found. Shoppers proved seven times as willing to continue engaging when they received tailored instead of pro-forma replies, while follow-up almost guaranteed continued interest from the prospective students.  

“Institutions lose momentum the moment a prospect needs nurturing rather than answering,” said Jennifer Parsons, UniQuest’s chief market and partnerships officer. “Sustained engagement doesn’t happen by chance. It takes the right systems and journeys working behind every channel, so no qualified student is left to drift away.”

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The mystery shoppers also lodged almost 200 enquiries about universities with ChatGPT instead of universities, and mostly found the experience preferable. Artificial intelligence presented as quick, comprehensive, direct, structured, “confident” and more likely to provide a “genuine reason to choose the institution”.

“AI is often making a more compelling case for universities than their own responses do,” the says.

Newall said students were already using AI to choose universities. “The opportunity for enquiry teams isn’t to compete on speed or information,” she said. “It’s to make sure that the student who takes the step to reach out feels like a person, not a ticket.”

The study found that traditional enquiry channels were viewed more favourably than newer ones, with email and phone eliciting satisfaction rates of 87 per cent and 78 per cent respectively, compared with 72 per cent for webchat and 64 per cent for Instagram. One-fifth of Instagram enquiries went unanswered.

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Prearranged one-to-one consultations proved most satisfying of all, but only 12 per cent of UK institutions offered this service, the study found.

Deakin University was deemed Australia’s highest-performing institution while the University of the Arts London topped the UK results.

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com