UWA delivers personalized service to its students with Oracle Cloud

Established as Western Australia’s first university in 1911, The University of Western Australia (UWA) opened its doors in 1913 to 184 students. Today, more than 25,000 students from over 100 countries are enrolled in the university’s 24 schools. The global impact of UWA’s research and education places it among the World’s Top 100 Universities according to QS World University Rankings 2022.

Managing thousands of student records and effectively disseminating critical enrollment and matriculation information to students is a complex process. To improve the student services experience and the operations of multiple university administrative departments—such as the admissions office, student services, and the undergraduate schools—UWA sought out an industry-leading customer service solution from a vendor familiar with the nuances of higher education administration.

Further, when lockdowns hit Western Australia in March 2020, all administrative staff had to work remotely, some on their own personal devices. UWA’s administration became keenly aware of the critical importance of adopting a modern and flexible service solution to best facilitate remote student and employee operations.

Familiar with other CRM solutions such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, the university prefers Oracle Service as its CRM backbone because of the agility and flexibility the solution provides. Oracle Service and UWA deliver predictive service to students, keeping them on top of important graduation requirements and other vital information.

To improve student records management and to effectively deliver digital-first service experiences to its student body, UWA adopted Oracle Service, including Oracle Intelligent Advisor and the Browser User Interface (BUI) agent desktop.

The student workspaces built with Oracle Service Cloud provide students with a concise view of all information about their application, courses, or pending service requests. UWA offers a knowledgebase and a live chat where students can engage directly with the university, offering options for both convenient and self-assisted service.

During an initial pilot of the BUI agent desktop, beta testing revealed a substantial improvement in service fulfilment levels more closely aligned with UWA’s service agreements. With Oracle Service, university staff increased fulfilment ratios by 62% in 2020 and by 67% in 2021.

Given its initial success and its industry-leading scalability for remote operations, the university rapidly accelerated its rollout of the BUI agent desktop when lockdowns hit the region in March 2020.

Additionally, as part of its initiative to meet the digital-experience expectations of its young student body, UWA transformed the student experience by directly integrating Oracle Service into the student’s workspaces.

UWA uses Oracle Intelligent Advisor to streamline the decision-making process for special requests, such as for a 14-day quarantine accommodation after testing positive for COVID-19. Students simply fill out a form on the university’s website and submit the request within the system to an assessor who approves or rejects using preconfigured rules, ensuring prompt responses with efficient, personalized service. UWA already saved 209 hours handling nearly 3,000 student requests in the first 20 days alone.

Meanwhile, with Oracle Eloqua Marketing Automation, staff has all necessary data available through Oracle Eloqua when chatting with a student, including communication not originated in Oracle Service Cloud. Oracle Eloqua Marketing Automation enables UWA to streamline and optimize lead nurturing, capturing 2,250 leads for prospective students in 2022 alone. The university is planning to integrate these leads into Oracle Service Cloud. This will allow UWA to trigger opportunities and place them on lead journeys, creating a new level of service that improves the student journey and encourages applications, acceptance, and enrollment.