Prospect Experience Assistant - Dubai Campus

Job Posting Title:  Student Prospect Experience Assistant

Grade and Salary: Grade 3

FTE and working pattern:  Full-time

Reports to: Regional CRM and Performance Reporting Manager - Dubai Campus

About Heriot-Watt University:

Heriot-Watt University has a rich heritage and an established reputation as a leading research-led university and provider of education around the world with five global campuses in the UK, Dubai and Malaysia and scaled-up on-line learning around the world.  The University is truly distinctive in its global structure, offering students access to education and research across the group and unparalleled opportunities for mobility during their study and research.  With some 28,000 students in total, the University works at the frontiers of global educational delivery.  In recognition of our truly global presence and impact, Heriot-Watt University was named International University of the Year by the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2018. In research, Heriot-Watt University is world renowned for research in areas as varied as photonics, additive manufacturing, quantum technology, signal processing, robotics, AI, petroleum engineering, actuarial and financial mathematics, translating and interpreting, logistics and business education. The school structure at Heriot-Watt University, with each school covering multiple disciplines, facilitates research cutting across traditional discipline barriers. Research institutes and multi-disciplinary research centres supplement this to provide focus on our key strengths. Our REF results firmly place us alongside the UK’s best in our core disciplines of science and engineering, business and management, languages and design with Heriot-Watt University ranked 1st in Scotland (9th in the UK) for research impact.

About our School/Directorate/Team: 

The Marketing, Recruitment, Admissions and Communications group is at the heart of attracting, engaging and delivering exceptional student and stakeholder experiences.  The prospect team handles over 10,000 applications to undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at our Dubai campus each year as well as offering support and advice to admissions colleagues at our Scottish and Malaysian campuses.  Our aim is to ensure that all applicants receive a high-quality service that is timely and fair, and we strive to put the applicant at the heart of everything we do.

Purpose of Role:

Heriot-Watt is entering an exciting phase in terms of development of its professional services. We have centralised and re-aligned our recruitment and Admissions Teams in Edinburgh and are embarking on a journey to develop a new structure for our Dubai Campus and recruitment hub. 

Reporting to the Regional CRM and Performance Reporting Manager, the successful candidate will take the responsibility for coordinating and delivering a range of activities that enable Heriot Watt Dubai to achieve its ambitious student recruitment and admissions targets for both UG, PG and research degrees. Prospect Experience Assistants are responsible for answering incoming calls and directing them to the respective departments, uploading data on the CRM database and ensuring data hygiene, delivering internal customer facing events on campus while delivering customer service activities for all prospective students. The prospect experience intern will be the face and voice of the university. This role requires focus on proactive willingness to learn and a penchant for customer service and a desire to enhance the customer experience. 

Based in the prospect experience Team of our Dubai campus you will work as part of the team that provides an exceptional level of customer service to all prospective students and applicants to the University guiding them from first point of contact through to enrolment. You will be the first point of contact for incoming phone calls and emails that come for the MRAC team and respond to these within agreed response times ensuring the needs of the enquirer are met and making full use of enquiry management and CRM systems in place. As part of the Prospect Experience function, the role also requires you will work as part of the team which provides administrative support for the direct application processes. 

Bringing together your passion for education and customer care, you will have exceptional interpersonal skills, attention to detail and be a self-starter who can support prospective students while they embark on their journey with Heriot Watt. 

Summary of Key Duties and Responsibilities

You will be part of the team providing a high-quality front-line service to all enquirers to the University. Your main duties will be to respond to enquirers by phone or email, dealing with day-to-day queries at events and providing support for prospective students throughout their journey to Heriot Watt and assist with application processing. You will be working under the guidance of the Senior CRM Manager.

Key duties and responsibilities:

• Act as an ambassador for the University to a wide range of stakeholders, notably prospective students, parents and working professionals
• Always provide an exceptional applicant experience and the delivery of a customer-focused service and experience to reduce response time  and utilising the CRM system to track and analyse all engagements with HW prospective students  
• Upload high school data to the CRM while maintaining cleanliness of data and meeting deadlines
• Ensure that the general inquiries mailbox is always up to date within an agreed time frame. This includes answering general inquiries and forwarding specific inquiries to the relevant team
• Monitor the live chat transcripts to ensure the information is accurate and forward to the relevant team where necessary
• Divert incoming calls to the relevant team and ensure the inquiry has been resolved
• Maintain a log of activities to track patterns against running campaigns
• Support optimisation of lead capture as part of the enquiries process and in line with feedback from prospective students, 
• Operating across various communication channels: phone, e-mail, face-to-face at on-campus and occasionally external events, but equally providing customer service via in-bound social media channels, incl. participating in Live Chats with prospects and applicants and other virtual events as when organised by the University,
• Ensure that responses meet the enquirers needs and are responded to in a timely fashion and to provide information, relevant and advice to each prospective student,
• Provide support to the line managers when undertaking PX related projects and reports

Education, Qualifications & Experience: 

Essential

1. Excellent literacy and numeracy skills or similar or equivalent experience,
2. Experience of working within a similar environment as outlined above, specifically with a focus on multi-channel customer experience, 
3. Competent in the use of relevant IT packages including Microsoft Excel, Word and Outlook
4. Well-developed interpersonal skills,
5. Experience in face-to-face customer service role, including participating in and organising in-house and external recruitment / sales events, 
6. Demonstrable professional and proactive approach,
7. Evidence of excellent attention to detail,
8. Appreciation of working with confidential information,
9. Ability to work flexibly, quickly and accurately by taking account of new information or changes in circumstances and modifying the understanding of a problem or situation accordingly
10. Experience of using initiative and creativity to resolve problems, that may be predictable but not routine, identifying practical and suitable solutions,
11. Demonstrable provision of excellent customer service.

Desirable

1. Educated to a degree level
2. Experience of administration in a higher or secondary education environment
3. Understanding and knowledge of UAE and international education markets and current issues
4. Experience of working with databases i.e. Student Record or CRM systems
5. Experience of enquiry management systems

Please note that this job description is not exhaustive, and the role holder may be required to undertake other relevant duties commensurate with the grading of the post.  Activities may be subject to amendment over time as the role develops and/or priorities and requirements evolve. 

Heriot-Watt University Values

With a history dating back to 1821, Heriot-Watt University has established a reputation for world-class teaching and professionally relevant, leading-edge research, which has made it one of the top UK universities for business and industry.

We are a vibrant, forward-looking university, well known for the quality of our degrees with employers actively seeking out our graduates.  Heriot-Watt is also Scotland’s international university with an unsurpassed international in-country presence. We deliver degree programmes to circa 30,000 students in 143 countries around the world, have a further overseas campus in Dubai and boast the largest international student cohort in Scotland.

At Heriot-Watt we’ve created an environment that nurtures innovation and leadership - where our researchers, staff and students can realise their potential and develop their ambitions.

We are proud of our collegiate atmosphere and integrated teaching and research approach which has helped to build a community of committed academics and highly motivated students.  Our focus on careers delivers results and we’ve an excellent reputation for graduate employability.

In addition to the Edinburgh campus, we currently have campuses in  the Scottish Borders, Orkney, Dubai and Malaysia.  For all of our campuses we aim to provide stimulating, supportive environments conducive to effective learning and research, where staff and students can excel. At Heriot-Watt, we have an established set of values that help us to nurture innovation and leadership, and show our commitment to continuous improvement and development in all our activities.

Our values describe our deeply held beliefs and our community spirit. They characterise not only how we are as a higher education institution but also frame how we want to be.

Our values are:

• Belong
• Collaborate
• Inspire
• Celebrate

As learning, living and working institution, we use our values as the building blocks of how we go about doing our work and how we each conduct ourselves as members of Heriot-Watt University. They represent what binds us together as a University community and help us to become the best at what we do.

For full details on our University, please view our website https://www.hw.ac.uk/about.htm

‘How to Apply’

Please submit your CV and a cover letter setting out how you meet the criteria for the role. 

At Heriot-Watt University, we understand that being diverse makes us better which is why we support a culture of respect and equal opportunity, and value diversity at the heart of what we do. We want to increase the diversity of our workplace to underpin a dynamic and creative environment.

At Heriot Watt we are passionate about our values and look to them to connect our people globally and to help us collaborate and celebrate our success through working together. Our research programmes can deliver real world impact which is achieved through the diversity of our international community and the recognition of creative talent that connects our global team. 

Our flourishing community will give you the freedom to challenge and to bring your enterprising mind and to help our partners with solutions that can be applied now and in the future. Join us and Heriot Watt will provide you with a platform to thrive and work in a way that also helps you live your life in balance with well-being and inclusiveness at the heart of our global community.

The appointment is conditional upon successful completion of all Labour and Immigration formalities, and the start date will need to be delayed if the employment visa is not in place.