International Agent Management Tools: 7 Key Perks for Universities

Overseas students are undeniably lucrative for UK universities.

In fact, one pound in every five received by British universities in 2022 came from international student fees. And overseas student tuition fees accounted for 30% or more of total income at a handful of UK universities. (Source)

Given that the overseas market is so profitable, universities naturally want to crystallise their efforts in attracting students from abroad.

Many international students apply to universities directly but around 50% use an educational recruitment agent for admission support; meaning international student recruitment agents play an essential role within the British higher education system.

However, universities face significant challenges in ensuring compliance and uniformity across all of the agents they contract with worldwide. Universities often have so many agents in play that it can be challenging to keep track of them all.

It’s also worth noting that, due to new, more stringent UK student visa rules, universities are competing for a reduced pool of prospective, international students. This makes the role of good international agents more critical than ever.

And though there are databases of reputable agents out there, there are still some bad actors around who act fraudulently; causing significant risk to would-be students and potentially to the university’s reputation.

Institutions are therefore responsible for properly vetting, reviewing, and quality checking the agents they work with. They also need to keep tabs on the resources and support they provide to those agents in order to help them bring in the best students from their geographic area.

And the best way to monitor anything like this is by implementing practical IT and data systems.

So, let’s explore 7 significant benefits of investing in for-purpose international student recruitment agent management software.

7 Essential Benefits of International Student Recruitment Agent Management Software

1. Enhanced Agent Visibility

International agent management software gives you a single source of business truth relating to all of your agents, worldwide. This puts you in a much better position to track all agents’ productivity and taskload; monitor the success of students they send your way; and generally ensure that each agent (and even each individual counsellor) is a positive asset to the university.

Maintaining this visibility into each agent enables you to:

• Maintain a comprehensive record of each agency you’re contracted with.
• Keep detailed records of each agent and their individual counsellors.
• Ensure that each agent working for you has all appropriate terms and agreements in place.
• Ensure all parties are genuine and are following the right processes.
• Flag for review any agencies who aren’t following correct procedures.
• Monitor each agent’s success at finding students who are a good fit.
• Gain more control and visibility over the actions each agent takes on the university’s behalf.

2. Enhanced Risk Management

When any organisation works with an external entity, there is the potential for risk. Working with overseas agents is no different. The vast majority of international education agents are genuine and honest. But a small minority present risk to the university and to potential students.

Firstly, let’s address the agencies who commit application fraud - that’s when agents falsely present an applicant in a more favourable light (by lying on their application, basically) in order to secure them a place at university. Any student admitted under these false pretences is likely to struggle and potentially drop out. But well before that happens, the rogue agent would have received their commission from the university for the admission.

Other times, bad actors can also incorrectly represent someone’s identity or financial situation in order to fool the university into accepting them.

Even poor-quality agents acting in good faith present a risk. If an inadequate agent brings 300 applications to your door, but none of those applicants or applications are up to scratch, that amounts to a lot of wasted time and effort in reviewing and rejecting all of those applications.

Agent management tools act as a much-needed microscope that each university can use to scrutinise every agency on their books; enabling them to capture performance, praise, and complaints about each. Universities can also manage their own lists of approved and blocked agencies. This further helps institutions provide essential duty of care to current students, prospective candidates, and to the university as a business.

3. Better Streamlined Agent Paperwork & Processes

Good agent management relies on well-defined processes - which can naturally be supported by well-suited, specialist software. For-purpose agent management tools can help your teams follow consistent procedures when onboarding new agents and reviewing existing ones. In fact, solutions like our favourite, Power Platform, are great at helping users streamline, digitise, and even automate complex processes like those involved in overseas agent management.

Think for a moment about all of the admin that is involved in managing your agents around the world. You’ve got to manage and assess agency applications; sign contracts with successful agents; onboard and train new agents; collect feedback about each agent; carry out regular reviews; renew contracts; monitor agents’ outreach campaigns; document and calculate commissions; manage the financial and marketing support you provide; and offboard agencies who aren’t a good fit anymore.

That’s a lot of plates to keep spinning - especially if you’re using manual or (shock, horror) paper systems. For-purpose agent management software, digitised and enhanced with Power Apps automation, makes the whole process of agent management feel a lot less of a juggle!

In fact, creating resources for your agents through Power Pages and Power Apps can help you disseminate information, issue contracts, provide essential training support, and more.

4. Enhanced Sales & Marketing Collaboration

Any educational agent is an extension of the university’s student attraction and marketing engine. They represent a university’s brand abroad, often exhibiting at jobs fairs and running events under the university’s banner. In order to succeed in these promotional efforts, universities need to support agents with funding and marketing materials.

Maintaining a central database of active, approved agents helps you to provide appropriate resources, support and marketing training, and share clear performance expectations. Systems like Power Platform enable universities to create bespoke tools that allow your marketing team to share the latest resources, templates, and relevant information directly with agents abroad.

Understandably, managing the funding you give to agents for promotional endeavours is essential. You need to monitor the success of campaigns you’ve funded, and having a central agent management system can help you measure crucial metrics like return on investment and cost per acquisition.

Monitoring agents’ promotional performance can also benefit other agents. Say you have an agent in Guangzhou who is great at bringing in students through jobs fairs using digital marketing. By monitoring that agent’s success, you gain better insight into what works for your university’s worldwide brand. You may then be able to share these tactics with other agents to encourage great performance worldwide!

5. Predictive Analytics & Financial Optimisation

Each day, vast amounts of data are collected, created, and moved around any given university. Agent management systems help admissions teams centralise their focus on essential metrics like agent performance and student outcomes.

But there is a more in-depth data piece to discuss here. One that might be slightly beyond the scope of most agent management software - but one that agent software puts firmly within your grasp.

It’s this: where universities engage in technical and data transformation projects that help join up their vast data streams, there is real value to be found.

The right data, presented correctly, can help universities understand the entire student lifecycle. Agents are an essential part of the application process - even though they only get students to the front door. Overlaying student data with agent data can help universities understand which agents were responsible for finding which candidates; each candidate’s enrolment status; how much those students engaged with university life; how successful those students were in their studies; and whether they got the kind of job they were looking for.

When institutions are able to collect and analyse data to this kind of depth, universities become able to create an “ideal student profile” of sorts. By identifying which trends, demographics, academic interests, and suchlike are most likely to result in a successful graduate, you can share this data with agents who can then focus their efforts on individuals who fit the bill.

But data lets us dive even deeper, into the world of predictive business intelligence. Let’s say you have 1,000 places for overseas students, but you know that only two-thirds of the students your agents bring in successfully enrol. You can therefore send your agents on the hunt for 1,500 students, safe in the knowledge that you will get your 1,000 with minimal vacant places.

Similarly, if you know that a set percentage of applications you receive are fraudulent, you can do similar maths to minimise losses.

6. Good Systems Make You Desirable to Work With

This one’s pretty simple. When you have great agent management software which makes your university hugely supportive and easy to work with, more agents will want to work with you. And more successful, keen agents make more successful, keen students!

And let's not forget that more holistic agent and student management systems, working in tandem, can be hugely beneficial. When these systems work together, universities are better able to track student outcomes, in turn enabling institutions to deliver better training, provide a better experience for students, and boost the university's reputation worldwide.

7. Better Student Outcomes

We're talked a lot here about how agent management software assists universities in their business outcomes. But let's not forget that positive student outcomes are the most important outcomes for any higher learning institution.

Streamlining your agent processes with the help of tech doesn't just help your university or your agents. It helps you provide a better service to the students you serve, supports more individuals reach their goals of studying abroad, and results in happy, successful graduates.

Of course, better student outcomes lead to more happy graduates; and happy graduates create a great reputation for the university - both domestically and internationally.

But let's veer into more widespread technical change territory for a moment. When your agent management systems coordinate seamlessly with your overall student management systems, you can tie each individual student's outcomes to each individual agent. This gives you a clear picture of which agents bring you the most successful students and which agents' respective students are less successful over time. This could be an important insight when different agents' contracts are due for review or renewal!

Could Agent Management Software Help You Boost Profits from Overseas Students?

Due to recent student visa changes, the number of international students coming to the UK is shrinking. And all British universities are constantly vying for a slice of that ever-shrinking pie!

Your agents are an essential part of this equation. If you’re exploring ways that technology can help you and your agents, then book a free discovery call with our transformation team today.

With our unparalleled experience within the UK higher education sector, our technical transformation team are here to help you be the best you can be. Whether it’s providing agent management software, engaging in broader technical transformation, or simply helping you assess the value of technical change, Crimson’s experts are here for you.

Get the ball rolling today - book your free discovery call here!