Building productive agent relationships
One size does not fit all when considering potential agent partners. Universities must choose carefully based on their selection criteria and intuition and to work with a select group of agents in each country who share their values and goals.
Signing an agreement is only the first step to working fruitfully with an agent partner. Institutions that fail to invest time and resources in a collaborative approach to recruiting with agents will not realize results.
The institution-agent partnership should truly be seen as a team effort. One party does not work for the other, and to achieve the ultimate goal of international student enrollment, agents and institutions have to work together.
The agent needs to place students to schools that are a right fit academically and financially, and the institution should have the similar expectation.
That work requires the school to coach and guide the agent to have a firm understanding of their institution and to help them stay on top of frequently changing pandemic-related policy changes.
The University’s job is to support the agent, to train the agent, and to give them everything they need as your retail first responder because the agent is the one that the students are coming to. When the information presented to students is incorrect or outdated, it leaves room for agents to jump to conclusions, resulting in unnecessary confusion or poor advising.
The key words now are transparency and accurate and updated information. This means the more we inform the families about their options, the immigration issues, the opening or closing of the embassies, the health measures of each country, the more they will trust us and rely on us
