Success Program Launch: A Call Center for a Culture of Care

While his official title is chief executive officer, Dan Walden considers himself chief experience officer of Victor Valley College, looking to foster a five-star experience from the top down.

The California community college is dedicated to serving its local community and fostering a work environment that promotes flourishing across the university, and that starts with customer service at the forefront.

One intervention that’s helped promote student achievement and build trust with community stakeholders is a central call center that answers any and all kinds of questions from students, parents and employees, connecting individuals to the relevant offices. The center both helps streamline communication and promote a culture of care, Walden says.

The background: Navigating higher education can be a confusing process for students, working through layers of bureaucracy and separation between offices and departments. A customer-service focus can help break structural barriers and improve students’ feelings of belonging on campus.

A 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed, conducted by Generation Lab, found two in five students consider themselves as a “customer” of their institution, rather than just a student—both in class and when interacting with staff and administrators across campus. An additional 11 percent consider themselves a customer only outside of the classroom, and 13 percent consider themselves a customer only in classes.

The college, which enrolls mostly traditional-aged students and dual-enrollment from the local high schools, implemented the Institute for Evidence-Based Change’s Caring Campus program starting in January 2019 (predating Walden’s time at the university) but began to make strides with institutional change in the years following.

Support on the line: One of the college’s success interventions was the Connect2Success call center, which launched in 2021.

“I realized that students at community colleges in California, for the most part, were being connected to automated AI [artificial intelligence] or else nobody answers the phone, you can’t get a hold of people,” Walden says.

While many institutions are looking to implement AI or automate processes to reduce the number of calls or emails staff are answering, Walden sees value in creating human-to-human connections at all levels of the institution. First-generation students, in particular, who may lack a support system, are more likely to run into challenges navigating higher education and need additional help, not from a robot, but from a person.

“Even though I’m the president of the college … I answer every email every day, because I want every person to know that I care, and that’s where it starts,” Walden says. “It starts with caring.”

At a previous campus, Walden helped launch a mini call center, so when he arrived at Victor Valley, he had a group of staff make calls around campus to understand what the phone experience was for people calling in to the college.

“They came back and they said, ‘Well, mostly people don’t answer the phone. If the operator answers the phone, they’ll get transferred to someone that doesn’t answer the phone, or if someone does happen to pick up on the rare occasion, they’re quickly dismissed and referred to the website,’” Walden says.

From there, Victor Valley leaders designed a “one email, one number” strategy to create a single line of communication for anyone who wants information from the college.

The number connects callers to the Connect2Success center, staffed by a team of Student Service Specialists who are trained to answer basic questions about the college or make a ticket to be addressed by the appropriate staff member. The team’s two supervisors provide training and a manual.

Ensuring the call center was an attractive space and the job a competitive role was important to Walden. The office has windows, a break room and decorations that “make it a happy place to work,” he says. The president was even involved in the hiring of staff members to ensure the people answering calls were highly responsive, engaging and professional individuals who were earning livable wages.

The call center is also open beyond 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with staff on the line from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The impact: During the 2022–23 academic year, student service specialists handled more than 60,000 phone calls. This past year, that number grew to 100,000 calls. Around 90 percent were resolved on the first call and 10 percent resolved through follow-up conversations.

“If we don’t have the resolution on the first call, they are put on a ticket that is assigned to a manager and then my chief of staff follows up to make sure that every one of those tickets is closed within a few days,” Walden says.

In business, sometimes people will say, “I’m here to make money, not friends,” but Walden sees higher education as the opposite. “We are in the business to make friends with our students,” because care supports student belonging and, in turn, retention.

After the first two years, Victor Valley leaders added part-time staff to the center to be able to respond to busy times and seasons. In the future, administrators hope to add more specialized staff, such as academic advisers or financial aid staff, to be able to answer questions in a timely manner.

Get more content like this directly to your inbox every weekday morning. Subscribe here.