Tracking the student experience on campus allows schools to better understand the needs and challenges faced by students. Monitoring this experience, schools can easily identify where improvements can be made to support students in housing, on campus, and enhance the overall experience to improve student satisfaction.
In this blog post we explore the places that you should be tracking the student experience and the positive impact that it can have on everyone on campus.
Interested in learning more about how Loop can work within education? Check out our Education Solution page!
Where to Track the Student Experience?
Classrooms
It’s important to track the student experience in classrooms because that is where students spend the majority of their time. Notice we said to track classrooms, not teachers. Tracking their experience in classrooms goes far and above the teacher, and focuses more on the facilities aspect of classrooms. Ensuring students have a strong internet connection, the classroom is kept at a regulated temperature and supplies are available to students all make a major impact on student satisfaction. Having the basic needs of the students are met in the classroom, it impacts their experience throughout the rest of the campus.
Dining
A major ancillary service for schools is their student dining experience. This could be in a food court, casual dining spots or grab-and-go cafeteria style dining experience. By providing students a variety of options on campus you prevent them from venturing off to find their crav-ourites. Collecting feedback about the food and dining experience will give an indication of how well your dining is performing. It will also indicate if there are gap areas that need addressing (ie a coffee shop). Feedback can give you new ideas for student-driven expansion opportunities, helping drive up revenue in on-campus dining experiences.
Loop works with dining solutions across multiple sectors including education, for more information about how Loop can help you collect feedback in food services
Parking
Campus parking lots can be an issue for students. Often parking passes are expensive, parking lots aren’t maintained properly and can quickly fill-up. This drives students to find parking options off campus or take public transportation to school, cutting into parking fees. By collecting feedback from students, you can determine their satisfaction with your school’s parking. Maybe your parking lot always fills up causing students to park off campus and walk in? Feedback will tell you that by building another parking lot you can increase student satisfaction and parking revenue.
Common Areas
These are areas that students hang out in when they aren’t in classrooms or your dining facilities. Ensuring these areas are clean, organized and have efficient wifi signals for students to use is essential. Giving students comfortable places to hang out, helps to keep them on campus and increases revenue to ancillary services. Having a place to provide feedback can help to indicate to the maintenance team, when something needs to be addressed.
Bookstore
It is important that your campus bookstore caters to the students’ needs. Having key items like chargers, pens and notebooks stocked, helps meet the needs of students – preventing them from ordering online. Providing students with a way to give feedback in the campus bookstore, you can determine if there are key items that you are missing, or frequently run out of stock on. By giving them a convenient spot on campus you are helping drive revenue and improve the student experience.
Printshop
When your students come to visit your printshop they are expecting quality printing at student friendly prices. By ensuring that you are collecting feedback from students, it allows you to know that students are happy with the options provided and that their requests get printed in a timely manner.
Housing
Student housing is one of the largest revenue generators for schools. With most schools having rooms for 2,000 – 5,000 students. Student housing encompasses everything from sleeping areas, washrooms, kitchens and common areas for students living on campus. Ensuring students are happy with their experience the moment they step foot into student housing means they are more likely to stay for years. Having high student satisfaction in housing is just as crucial as in the classrooms. Tracking student satisfaction and the quality of life that’s provided ensures students want to come back year after year.
Ensuring students have a place to provide feedback and reach out with questions, comments or concerns help mitigate issues. There are many moving pieces when it comes to student housing. By having kiosks on each floor, it allows students to provide in the moment feedback. Giving you a chance to respond before they make it back to their dorm, helping to improve the student experience!
Laundry
Giving students a place on campus to do their laundry means they don’t need to venture off campus and find a laundry-mat – it can also be a great way to generate extra revenue in student housing. Knowing if you have enough machines, and are they working properly is essential to students being happy with your facilities – if you don’t have enough machines and students have to wait hours then they may as well find somewhere else. Giving students a place to provide feedback in the laundry room(s), gives you a chance to ask pointed questions about their experience and provides them a place to note if a machine isn’t working properly. This allows you to quickly dispatch a maintenance worker and get the machine fixed in a timely manner.
Students having mail delivered on campus can be a tricky operation to manage. Ensuring students have a place to pick up their mail or have deliver it to their dorm in a timely manner, and managing hundreds of packages can cause mixups to happen. By providing students a place to provide feedback or ask questions about the status of their mail, can help to improve the student experience in housing.
It’s the cumulation of small moments in a students day that can have a big impact on the overall student experience. By giving students places across campus to provide feedback, it helps you know what matters to the students. Address issues before they become larger problems, and show students you care about them and their experience on campus.
