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Steve:
There are over 5,300 colleges and universities in the United States alone, and CX is just as important in the educational sector.

Karla:
The O-data that we use in higher ed tends to be primarily about student success. Hopefully, as we mature within the XM category, being able to do some predictive analysis to really help us understand how to make the student experience the best it can be to support students into the workforce after graduation.

Steve:
A look at how customer experience works in higher education on this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.

Announcer:
The CX Leader Podcast with Steve Walker is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their XM success. You can find out more at Walkerinfo.com.

Steve:
Hello, everyone. I'm Steve Walker, host of The CX Leader Podcast and thank you for listening. On The CX Leader Podcast we explore topics and themes to help leaders like you leverage all the benefits of your customer experience and help your customers and prospects want to do more business with you. According to the U.S. Department of Education, more than 19 million people were enrolled in some level of college education for the fall semester of 2018. And just like any other business, it's important for academic institutions to pay attention to their customer or perhaps student experience. But as you can imagine, CX in the higher ed space is a bit different. So we thought it would be beneficial to take a look at the unique circumstances that CX pros work under at colleges and universities. And I'm delighted to welcome is our guest on this episode, Karla Fisher. Karla is the chief industry adviser for education at Qualtrics, the experience management software company for whom we're proud to call our partners here at Walker. And I couldn't be more delighted to have Karla on as our guest to talk about this important topic. So, Karla, welcome to The CX Leader Podcast.

Karla:
Well, thank you, Steve. I'm delighted to be with you today. And you're right. Well, we're thinking about higher education, we think about our our customers as students. So we often say student experience. But throughout the podcast, if I say student experience, you know what we mean. We mean CX.

Steve:
Yeah. Actually, even in education, it's even a little more complex because you actually have sometimes multiple stakeholders. Right. You know, if the if the parents are paying for it, they might consider themselves to be customers, too.

Karla:
That's absolutely right. We have a wide variety of stakeholders. And I think that's one of the things that makes CX in higher ed in particular, just such a different animal than it is in the corporate world, because we have students and they have a really different relationship with us than just typical consumer with a product. We have their parents and families. We have community members, our alumni are other donors. We've got tax payers and legislators. And all of those stakeholders have a variety of opinions about our institution and they're having different experiences with us every day.

Steve:
Well, yeah, it's great. And it really is a target rich environment for experiences here. But before we get into that, why not just for the context – you know, I know you and I know a lot about Qualtrics and we've collaborated on several hundred clients with you, so I know a little bit about this business. But maybe just share with our listeners a little bit about your background and how you got to this point in your career and CX as an expert for higher ed.

Karla:
Sure. So I actually come to Qualtrics from about twenty years in higher education administration. Most recently, I served as provost the Maricopa Community Colleges District. Before that, I was in Arkansas as a college chancellor. I was in Kansas as a vice president. I was at the University of Texas at Austin, working at the Center for Community College Student Engagement while I got my doctorate. So I've been steeped in this work for about twenty years. I've known Qualtrics for more than a decade. Absolutely committed to the product, committed to the things that the organization is committed to in terms of understanding our constituents and using data to make really good decisions. And so I've taken Qualtrics with me to a couple of different institutions. So, you know, as as they've become the XM company moving off of just research core, which of course is still offered, but moving into this XM space and really defining it, I've been fascinated by how that can change the way that we deal with our students and student success within higher education in particular, but also within the K-12 realm. So I decided to make the leap from higher ed over to the corporate world. And I haven't looked back. I've been there only since February this year. But it's been it's been a delightful run so far.

Steve:
You do have a great background in higher ed. And just for, again, our listeners benefits, you know, Provost is a term that is very common in the academics, but I'm not sure the average layperson understands what the provost does. But could you just define what a provost is? Because I know it's a very important position at the college.

Karla:
Sure. Yes. Provost is one of those those job titles that don't make much sense outside its own industry. But the provost is actually over the academic and student affairs functions within a college, obviously, that the university or in my case, a district of ten individually accredited colleges that each had their own vice presidents of academics and student affairs reporting up to president. So really, the role of the provost that I served was to bring together a very large constituent groups within the institution to get on board with doing big initiatives like guided pathways, like redesigning developmental education from the ground up, including the way that we tested and used multiple measures to get students into the right classes at the right time. So that's that's what a provost does. A provost really works on those core businesses of student academic affairs.

Steve:
Yeah. So let's go back to the differences between for profit in higher ed as it relates to in addition to the different stakeholder groups, you actually kind of have a different bottom line or a different, as we would say, "O" metric in higher ed. Correct? And and that's why I wanted you to explain the provost, because the provost really is in charge of the bottom line for the academic experience right there. They're making sure that the students are graduating and that they're credentialed and that they're actually producing the product that that was promised.

Karla:
Yes, that's absolutely correct. The O-data that we use in higher ed tends to be primarily about student success. It's about understanding our entering cohorts. And hopefully as we as we mature within the XM category, being able to do some predictive analysis to really help us understand how to make the student experience the best it can be to support students into the workforce after graduation. And so the O-data is is there. We've tracked it for decades. We have it in our systems. But understanding how to connect that from why a student is in a place that they are in terms of operations to why they are there, because of their experience is a whole new ballgame for higher education. We just haven't done that in the past and in the systemic and systemic way in the field.

Steve:
Well, I know you guys were doing some really great work in Maricopa County. And for those, again, who don't are familiar, it's a huge vocational technical college. Right? In Phoenix area, right?

Karla:
That's correct. So the Maricopa Community Colleges District is 10 individually accredited colleges across the Maricopa County, which is the fastest growing county in the US at this particular time that work together to serve nearly one hundred and fifteen thousand students every single year. So it's not the largest district every single year, but it certainly vies for that position regularly.

Steve:
Yeah. And community colleges play such an important role in our kind of our talent development pipeline today with so many fewer jobs that are, you know, good careers without some sort of education past high school, you know. A generation ago, people could go to work in factories in that, you know, those jobs just again, even the factory jobs are typically highly technical and use lots of technology. So the community colleges play really great role. And, you know, I'm I'm just trying to set the stage here because, you know, people need to think about how X- and O-data works in higher ed in actually to really understand the student experience, you have to actually get some data back from the students, don't you?

Karla:
You do. You do. Just as you would in the corporate world. It's important for us to understand how a student is experiencing what we we have set up for them. And of course, those of us that work in higher ed came through higher ed. So we have a very particular perspective on how higher ed works for the student from when we were students. But that's changed dramatically over time. As a matter of fact, it changes from semester to semester as we get new students flowing into the system. We used to think about the new new student cohort as being whoever came to us in the fall, and we would keep them through in the community college, two years in a university, four years and perhaps on to a master's or even doctorate program. But today we have to think of our cohorts in a much more granular ways. We have to understand that we've got students coming in not just in that entry fall semester, but for short term classes, for the spring semester, for four summer classes, for all of the different offerings that we have in each and every one of them belong both to the cohort that they came in with, but also a number of other kinds of cohorts. And I think as we focus more and more on diversity and equity and inclusion, those cohorts become even more important for us to understand the actual experience that actual students are having and how this different how those differ among our demographics.

Steve:
My guest on the podcast this week is Karla Fisher. She is the chief industry adviser for education at Qualtrics. We're having a fascinating discussion about all the changes that are going on in higher ed and what those implications are for XM pros. What are the other some of the other special circumstances that apply to higher ed? You know, we've talked about stakeholder's, we've talked about O-data. We've talked about equity and diversity and inclusion. Are there are there some other things that we ought to consider?

Karla:
Yeah, I think there are several things. Probably the most fundamental is the relationship of the student to the institution. You know, I think I mentioned earlier that students are thought of as consumers. On the one hand, certainly they consume products in the sense that they pay for a service. However, the relationship that a student has with the institution is also that of a member, a member of a community and a learner. And that's not something you buy. You… The the value proposition of higher education, of purchasing your way into the workforce, I think is not the way to think about students, particularly about their experiences. We need to think about them in terms of the member of our community, of our our learning community, of the academy. And so that just makes the the assessment of their experience very different than you would say for a consumer product. Other other things that we see in higher ed. Know, I think there are some… I think there are some very specific trends that are hitting higher education right now that we haven't seen in the past simply because we've been through 2020, which is, you know, the year that redefined everything for everyone.

Steve:
Yeah.

Karla:
And so, you know, as we head into we're in the spring semester right now as we head into summer and particularly returning in the fall, student well-being and faculty and staff well-being have to be a top of mind, and particularly for experienced management professionals within higher education. That's something that we need to keep an eye on and understand. So we make sure that everyone's getting the support they need, not only to stay engaged in their educational process, but simply to stay engaged in life. We need to be that support line. We've also seen such a huge growth of online and remote learning, and that brings its own challenges. It's not only in staying connected, keeping students connected, not just to the institution in their faculty, but to one another. It's a challenge for really, again, the value prop of higher education. So much of what we traditionally thought of as the value happened in campus, on campus, in classrooms with us, interactions with faculty and other students and staff, and the more that we provide education remotely, the more difficult that is. And we have to be very, very intentional about making those connections. And I think that's where CX can really help us. Help us understand the experience students are having, but also help us shape and manage the student, the student experience, whether we want them to have even in a different environment.

Steve:
Yeah, it's interesting. You talk about the you know, the impact that corvids had and then this rapid adoption of digital learning, which was actually already happening. You know, there were alternatives to the four year degree to, you know, get yourself to the next level. But it seems to me like, you know, we're between technology and I think some societal norms. We're heading towards a place where the four year institution, you know, maybe doesn't have to be a six figure expenditure for a family. So I wonder what kind of impact that has on the the value prop and and how important it will be to consider the the data in there under those circumstances. What's kind of what's what's your take on that?

Karla:
Well, you're correct. I think it's it's hard to say please come and spend the amount of money that we've been charging, though your experience has been completely different. So we as educators, we have to make sure that the experience we provide in an alternative environment has value, has the the same level of value, if at all possible. But I think the other impact of that is that we are increasingly seeing comparisons to students as consumers really comparing and contrasting, you know, Khan Academy with their entering a developmental education math class is perhaps. Why should I pay for this when I can get that for free when it's all online? Now, of course, educators would argue that those are not equal. They. They are not the same experience, but for consumers, it's hard to understand that difference and and experience management professionals need to make sure that we're communicating that and that we're intentionally creating environments that help students see the value. You know, I think we're also seeing education go towards more competency based. You mentioned that so many of the jobs today require some technical experience and some college. 8 in 10 jobs will require at least a two year degree within the next two years. And so when we're thinking about helping students get there, we have to think about competency-based education. And that really requires us to be able to assess that X-data, because we have to understand not only sort of where they are cognitively with their knowledge acquisition, we have to understand the experience they're having. And are they gaining the kinds of, and I hate this term, "soft skills," because they're not soft. They're really hard to learn the skills that all of our employers want. And that's that's where systems like Qualtrics really come into play to help help educators understand where their students are.

Steve:
If I'm a CX pro, say, in a corporate setting, but obviously a lot of our employees are going to be the product of the educational system, what are the implications, I guess, for the for the corporate CX pro to be knowledgeable about what's going on in higher ed?

Karla:
You know, I think oftentimes when we talk about CX, we're really talking about customers right now. But a Qualtrics, we talk about XM because we also want to talk about employees.

Steve:
Yep.

Karla:
And so within within institutions, implementing experience programs for employees is important. Understanding how the experience of the employees drives the experience of the students is incredibly important. And then as the students transition to the workforce, picking up with the corporate CX understanding who they are as they're coming in the door, just as we don't have a single cohort coming into our colleges anymore. The incredible product, if you will, that we put out in our students is incredibly diverse. And for corporate CX person thinking about their employees experience, understanding that diversity from day one I think is critical to really being able to achieve the kind of KPIs that we want to with our employees.

Steve:
Yeah, and if you're in a corporate CX world, your customer bases is pretty well defined. But it goes to this enrollment question in a way. But again, and really just focusing in on the student aspect of it. But, you know, who do educators need to consider when they're thinking about their student experience? Obviously, the students. But then there's also the prospective students, right. Particularly in the community college, maybe students who who attrit for a while, maybe take a semester off or so. I know it's really fascinating to see.

Karla:
So when we're thinking about the variety of students that we we handle in higher ed, certainly we have traditional students. Eighteen to twenty four. They've come out of the kind of households that have a lot of social capital around going to college, but that is increasingly becoming the minority of the students that we have coming in the doors. And so understanding that diversity, understanding where students come from and the experiences they've had even in their high schools before they get to higher ed is is part of how we can make sure that we shape and experience within college that creates the kind of educated workforce and, frankly, democracy that we need.

Steve:
Karla, there's a lot of talk now about, quote unquote, free college. And, you know, some states are moving more aggressively. There's obviously initiatives at the federal level and, you know, K through 12 education has been, quote unquote, free for for a long time. But what are some of the implications for higher ed if we if we do move in the direction of of, you know, quote unquote, free college?

Karla:
Well, I love the way you use the quotes because there is no free in this world. Free is never free, as I was one of my great mentors says, free like a free puppy. Right. Free, free puppy is never free and education isn't free. Not in K-12, though we believe in universal education, certainly our taxpayers are are footing the bill for that education. And so as we begin to talk about free college, I think it's important that parents and students understand that the money does come from somewhere. And I think it's important that we scope very clearly what it means to get free college. You know, is that the Stanford Harvard experience of free college, is that a technical school which is incredibly valuable in our economy today, but what is it that we're talking about? And one way that our CX professionals can think about this, particularly those in higher education, is to understand how their stakeholders are feeling about that and understand what that means for their own funding. You know, I think a thing that I worry about is just as free, isn't free for K-12, we talk about better and worse funded institutions of higher education. And the fact of the matter is, if you're a public institution, take out some of the outliers. Nobody is well funded. You know, over the decade plus since the Great Recession, we really call that the lost decade. We're down something like eight billion dollars over that time in public higher ed. And so I worry that free education is going to mean that we go up against our K-12 systems. And the last thing we would ever want to do is get the student experience in the K-12 thinking that we're somehow going to improve their experience at the college or university level.

Steve:
Very complex issues. And I'm glad that smart people like you are thinking about it and working on it. And, you know, like I think like like you, I think XM can really play a pivotal role in that because it really does get to the heart of, you know, what the objectives are and what we're really trying to create here. So, Karla, we have reached that point in the podcast where I ask each guest for their take home value. That's your best tip, or maybe the the best idea that you want to leave our listeners with on this episode. So, Karla Fisher, what is your take home value for The CX Leader Podcast audience?

Karla:
There are so many things that people could take home on any on any of your speakers. I'm sure my take home today is make every ending count, make every ending count, because we know that people's experiences are based so much on what they remember and what they remember is what happens at the end. I'm sure all your listeners are familiar with Daniel Kahneman's work on peak-end rule. So how does that become very practical, though? I think it becomes very practical when we're talking about creating new forms, application forms. How does the process of applying end? Is it a positive takeaway for that student? You know, how are our service reps in our contact centers? How are they ending our calls with our students? So just really focus on the end and keep that end in mind as we move forward. And then, of course, I'd be terribly remiss if I didn't say if you haven't already, please join the XM Professionals Network. That's a professional organization that's put together and managed by the Qualtrics XM Institute and has many of your colleagues and great ideas flowing all the time.

Steve:
Yes. Thank you for mentioning the XM Institute and the XM pros. That is definitely something that we encourage here at The CX Leader Podcast. So thank you. Karla Fisher is the chief industry advisor for education at Qualtrics. And I want to thank you, Karla, for being a guest on The CX Leader Podcast this week. Thank you very much for your insights.

Karla:
Thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute delight.

Steve:
And if any of our listeners would want to continue the conversation, you want to give them maybe a LinkedIn, are you on LinkedIn or you.

Karla:
I am on LinkedIn under yes. Just LinkedIn slash kfisher and also just my my Qualtrics email is always open. I'm happy to have conversations with everyone in the field and that is karlaf@Qualtrics.com.

Steve:
Thanks. Hey, and if you want to talk about anything else you heard on this podcast or about how Walker can help your business's customer experience, feel free to email me at podcast@walkerinfo.com. Be sure to check out our website, cxleaderpodcast.com, to subscribe to the show and find all our previous episodes, podcast series, contact information. You can even drop us a note, give us an idea for a future podcast or let us know how we're doing. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker we're an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success. You can read more about us at Walkerinfo.com. Thank you for listening and we'll see you again next time.

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