Q: How did you capture student enquiry data prior to Gecko and what challenges did you face?
By various ways and means at our overseas events, ranging from Excel spreadsheets on laptops to paper enquiry forms. That meant that data made its way into our central contacts database in different ways and timescales, and also meant that responses to those enquiries were inconsistent in their nature and timing.
The demands of working in a competitive marketplace meant that we were aware that we couldn’t continue being so inconsistent in our data-gathering and response times. Also, the big challenge has always been the capacity of staff to handle the amount of incoming queries and provide good responses in good time, especially with some international markets being particularly sensitive to response times. So we wanted to address the problem.
Q: Why did you choose Gecko?
We tried several different data-gathering tools for use at the events in order to improve the consistency of enquiry data. Most of those we used previously involved complex set-up and were not particularly user-friendly for either staff or potential students. Gecko has been noticeably more approachable and easier to use than any we previously tried.
Ease of use is key to gathering good data, combined with an aesthetic appeal which makes the interface more appealing to potential students using it. This had been lacking in the other tools we tried but Gecko was clearly the better-designed product. For our own purposes, though, automated responses were an ideal feature we were looking for, and which we found in Gecko.
Q: What are your current key uses for Gecko?
Overseas recruitment event enquiry-gathering, primarily, though we currently have several different Gecko forms in use for different purposes, including specific event types, specific markets, interviews and a web-based form for enquiry-gathering via our website.
Q: What specific results have you seen in your student recruitment process as a result of using Gecko?
The first obvious result was from the instant responses being generated automatically by the system, via our email templates. This is a big labour-saver for the team, meaning we don’t have to manually respond to individual enquiries during or after an event. Instant responses (when online) mean that enquirers don’t have to wait for us to have the time to reply, but through managing our email templates we can be sure that they are still getting the responses they need from us.
Gecko brings many benefits but above all is the confidence that we can be consistent in our enquiry handling and responses and be able to adapt our data-gathering to different scenarios quickly and easily.
Q: What advice would you give someone looking to use Gecko?
Do it! In its design, usability, versatility and functionality, it is head and shoulders above the other mobile data-gathering tools I have experienced, and the support from the Gecko Labs team is superb.
The University of East Anglia, Northumbria University, Middlesex University, Robert Gordon University… Yes, all these top universities also shared their Gecko experience in our Case Studies!
