Your Students are Consumers

While young people have always set trends, it’s hard to think of students pushing century-old institutions to change. But it is happening in subtle ways. Today’s young students are more vocal than ever about what they expect in their lives, including from the companies, influencers and institutions they engage with. Our culture is hyper-connected, and no one is more plugged in than the people born this millennium.

What that means for higher education is that we have to think about students and prospective students differently. While we must of course think of students as learners, we need to think about them as consumers too. Consider the world young people have grown up in and the influence they now wield on the economy. Gen Z now accounts for 40% of the global consumer base and has spending power that reaches upwards of $150 billion, according to a report by McKinsey & Company. The sleek “give them what they need before they know they need it” world of Apple products and Google Search has existed for as long as they have. The notion of corporate responsibility and green initiatives aren’t new or novel to them — it’s expected.

These affinities coupled with growing questions about the value of higher education means it’s vital that institutions take the idea of student-consumers seriously. A college isn’t just competing with colleges anymore. More and more, higher ed institutions are being judged against all products and experiences. And given the everyday applications that play such a large role in young consumers’ lives, they’re increasingly judging the overall quality of institutions based on the digital experience provided.

Below, I’ve detailed some of the important expectations young consumers have around technology, followed by the kinds of actions higher ed institutions can take to ensure they’re meeting student (and prospective student) expectations.

Consumer Technology Expectations

A Clean, Modern UI

Using online applications has become such a major part of everyday life that just about anyone can instantly recognize a modern versus outdated user interface (UI). Think about some of the websites you’ve visited that look like they haven’t been redesigned since the early 2000s. Odds are you negatively judge those companies (either consciously or subconsciously) and may even take your business elsewhere because of it.

Younger generations are so plugged into the online world that a modern UI is even more important. They judge the value of an organization based on its digital persona. If your UI isn’t clean and modern, they may have already written you off.

Websites or applications that are cluttered or look like a link farm scream of being outdated and will likely chase consumers away. Strong UI is table stakes today and investment there is the easiest way for an organization to project a perception that it’s modern.

A Simple, Seamless UX

A site or application can’t just look good though, the act of using the app (the user experience or UX) needs to be seamless and simple. Think about how intuitively you scroll through Instagram and how natural double tapping to like something has become. (Even if it’s not intuitive to you, watch a teenager engage with an app and it suddenly becomes clear.) Think about how consumer apps like Spotify are specifically designed to make navigation and discovery easy.

Tablets, particularly Apple products, are one of the best examples of this. We’ve all seen videos of a toddler using an iPad. It’s not because they’re baby geniuses or even because they (or their parents) spend too much time on technology. It’s because they’ve seen adults do it and it’s literally just that intuitive. One finger to swipe, tap and you’re engaged — minimal fine motor skills required.

Importantly, achieving a great user experience is much harder than many organizations think. It’s more than superficial personalization that pretends to know the user. And it’s much more than a mobile app that gives users access “anywhere and everywhere”.

What I’m referring to is an obsession with understanding your user and how best to move them through your experience.

• How do your users onboard and understand the purpose of your experience?
• How do your users expect to find things on your platform?
• How easy is it for them to find things? Do they have a single place to go?
• What default settings are in place based on the user’s persona?
• How easy is it for them to update their preferences?
• What user information enables you to take the experience to the next level?

Building an ideal digital journey receives an enormous amount of time and energy in the everyday applications students engage with. When it comes to higher ed, their experience should be just as easy and engaging.

Start-to-Finish Convenience

Almost everything about user expectations these days comes down to one fundamental concept: convenience. Good UI and UX are convenient. But support when something goes wrong also needs to be convenient. Think about a time you’ve had a frustrating experience trying to solve a problem or connect to customer support. There are many modern companies that make it a core tenant to “do support better” because of this.

Allbirds, the shoe company, is a great example. They sent me shoes that were the wrong size, but had the simplest exchange experience. It almost made me happy to have gotten the wrong shoes! Even mega companies like Amazon are putting increased emphasis on convenience. To return an item you simply need to click “return” and drop the package off at a UPS store. No need to print a shipping label or even rebox the item.

As consumer experiences become more convenient, students are rolling those expectations over into other areas of their lives, including higher ed. Higher ed leaders must ask themselves how they can make all aspects of their institution more convenient for students, particularly as part of their digital experiences.

Intention & Care

Being socially aware and responsible has exploded into a major pillar of society. Especially for young people, there are no ifs, ands or buts when it comes to being socially conscious. You must be aware and take meaningful action or risk being called out.

Students see companies like Bombas (who donate a pair of socks for every pair sold) putting care about employees and the world front and center. For the first time in history, care for employees and the world at large is a driver of growth.

As consumers place greater importance on this, more and more organizations are becoming certified as B Corps. Any organization can become a Certified B corp, regardless of their product or service. B corps meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose, and have made it easy for consumers to find companies they want to do business with.

While consumer-facing companies are leading the way, students have now seen this approach work and are expecting more organizations they engage with to move in that direction.

Meeting Consumer Expectations in Higher Ed

Now that the latest consumer expectations are clearer, the question becomes how that translates into tangible actions higher ed institutions can take.

Fundamentally, it requires a shift in thinking and a dedication to providing modern, engaging and delightful experiences. But there are also concrete steps institutions can take.

Focus on your Shopfront

One of the most obvious places modern UI and UX come into play is with an institution’s website, mobile app, student portal and other student-facing technologies. At this point, we all know what a good, intuitive digital experience looks and feels like — you’ve experienced it in the consumer world. Take a look at your institution’s website, mobile app and student technologies and ask yourself honestly if they meet those standards. If you’re finding yourself frustrated when trying to use one of these solutions or thinking the experience looks old, just imagine what your digital natives are thinking. Like it or not, these digital experiences are a reflection on your institution as a whole. If something looks or feels sub-par, students will likely perceive the rest of their college experience the same way.

While you can’t usually control the UI and UX of purchased software and solutions, you can make design and customization a top priority when evaluating vendors.

Create a UX Department

The overall user and digital experience is becoming so important that institutions should strongly consider creating an institution-wide department to oversee the entire student journey. Constituents interact with so many different technologies from different departments that institutions are often unknowingly creating challenging, disconnected experiences.

A user experience department or leader can map out the entire student journey and work with all departments to ensure a smooth, seamless and integrated experience “from cradle to grave”. Importantly, this role is different from existing IT or Student Experience ones because it’s focused on all experiences — digital and in-person — and extends far beyond enrolled students.

• How are we creating a differentiating experience for prospects?
• How seamless is the transition from applicant, to admitted student, to onboarding and enrolling?
• What is displayed on the homepage of a user’s most important tools? Why?
• What should prospects be notified about, how often, through which channels? Why?
• How easy is it for students to customize their channels and settings across our tools to best fit their own personal journey and preferences?

This and countless other questions should all be in the purview of the UX department.

Support

While students won’t be returning the wrong size shoe, they still expect easy-to-access, on-demand support when they have an issue.

Since students live in an always-on digital world, key support services should ideally have a digital option that allows students to engage when they need to. Going to an office during certain hours is not really how they interact with the world. Instead, coupling in-person options with technology like higher ed chatbots and modern customer service platforms are just a couple good steps in the right direction.

While not always possible, making it easy for students to get answers to their questions at any time of day is key to providing a great support experience and meeting student expectations.

Be Intentional

This is perhaps the easiest and the hardest expectation to meet. It’s easy to say you’ll only work with socially responsible vendors and that the institution itself will be engaged with important issues, but it’s not so easy to follow through on. Still, it’s critically important to today’s students.

Corporate social responsibility may be an idea that lives mostly in the business world, but it’s a philosophy that higher education institutions can adopt as well. In fact, students are putting increased emphasis on schools to think more intentionally about regional and global issues. This goes for the institution itself and for vendors the school works with. Understanding a company’s practices and approach to corporate responsibility needs to become a hallmark of vendor evaluation. When it comes to doing business, many young students expect corporate responsibility to be an important consideration in everything the institution does and everyone the institution works with.

Students are more than Learners

Today’s students have been hyper consumers for most of their lives. As such, assessing goods, services and experiences has become second nature. Your higher ed institution is a service and experience they’re assessing. Their expectations for what your institution can offer and the experiences they’ll receive have been set against a broad benchmark of consumer products and applications.

While this way of thinking may require a shift from higher ed leaders, students don’t even realize they’re doing it. This is how they evaluate everything in their lives, why should higher ed be any different? Thinking of students as consumers and working hard to understand their expectations presents an exciting opportunity for higher ed. It’s a chance to create better experiences and introduce engaging new initiatives. What a time to be in higher ed!