Dallas College, originally Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD), opened in 1965 and evolved into seven independent colleges positioned to meet the rapidly growing needs of the now second most populous county in the U.S. In 2020, DCCCD consolidated its individual colleges into a one-college system, with each campus location embracing the opportunities and challenges that manifest in a thriving metropolitan area.

At most higher education institutions, technology enables students to interact with a system in real time, 24/7, throughout the year. However, Hanover Research (2024) registers a trend indicating that,

More students need academic, financial, and personal assistance to persist in their studies. Meeting this demand means campuses must provide a greater diversity of interventions and success initiatives, including resources to address mental health, food insecurity, housing, transportation, and career preparedness (such as mentoring, paid internships, learning communities, and leadership opportunities). (p. 9)

Dallas College leaders recognized the reality of students’ need for personal assistance but, in 2023, determined that its on-premise call center, in place for two decades, was unable to accommodate the call volume that accompanied the system consolidation. Accordingly, the college set a strategic objective to implement a transformational solution, while acknowledging that any disruption within its call center ecosystem could jeopardize the enrollment management work that links students to help associated with their degrees, certificates, or training.

Collaboration and Partnership

Dallas College IT identified a potential call center solution while the Student Success team issued a request for proposals to increase staffing to manage call center volume. This situation presented an opportunity for the teams to collaboratively identify a plan to satisfy both technical and staffing goals.

To address increased staffing needs, the IT and Student Success teams understood that Dallas College’s size could be challenging when considering ways to scale and sustain high-touch student interactions. A key consideration in identifying the appropriate solution was Student Success’ overhaul of its recruiting and advising areas to favor a proactive coaching model in which each student is assigned a college coach during the recruitment phase and transitioned to a success coach during the advising and post-enrollment stage. The appropriate changes would enhance, rather than dictate, the organization’s structure of student support.

For the technical elements, the initial scope of work centered on a one-for-one call center replacement with updated functionality and capability. An unrelated demonstration of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon Connect—an omnichannel cloud contact center—surfaced what IT believed was possible in a call center solution. Further exploration of Amazon Connect highlighted its ease of use and facilitation of simplified contact center operations. The artificial intelligence (AI) powered capabilities enable contact center agents to provide contextual customer information and suggest responses and actions for faster resolution, all within a unified workspace. Furthermore, the cloud-based component eliminated the need to install routers or maintain the previous server-based system, which would often experience downtime to fix technical issues at inopportune moments. With Amazon Connect, issues could be addressed and fixed in a matter of minutes, not hours or days.

For IT and Student Success, Amazon Connect could deliver a seamless experience across voice and chat for students, agents, and other college stakeholders. Dallas College worked with AWS and a third-party vendor, CloudHesive, to manage system implementation. To date, there is not another college in Texas that has completed an AWS data center migration at this scale. Dallas College’s new cloud contact center, powered by Amazon Connect, launched within three months, and on schedule. Additional training was conducted for the Student Success contact center agents.

Benefits for Students

The contact center solution fit perfectly with the goals of IT and Student Success, providing students with a single phone number to reach Dallas College. A chatbot feature immediately answers frequently asked questions, while a texting option is available for users who prefer that mode of communication. With the AWS service, the contact center agent can immediately route the student to the correct point of contact throughout the college, including critical high-volume areas such as financial aid. Early benefits of Amazon Connect are positive and align with Dallas College’s goals of improving the student experience.  

Student Success Takeaways

• Call volume. When peak volume on the system is reached, IT can quickly scale to meet the incoming demand resulting in virtually no downtime in call service.
• Service times. Improved service times and reduced average hold times increase student connections with Dallas College compared to the legacy call center system.
• People resources. Live agents are utilized in a more effective way that supports resource efficiency and scalability.

Diagram illustrating how contacts can reach Amazon Connect for inbound self-service or to speak with a
live agent in a variety of ways, including voice and chat. (Source: Amazon Web Services; used with permission)

Technology Takeaways

• Conversational AI implementation. Integrating AI and machine learning has been revolutionary in automating and personalizing student interactions, thus streamlining communication.
• Omnichannel capability. The integration of multiple communication platforms, including voice, chat, email, and SMS, has significantly enhanced Dallas College’s ability to interact with students in their preferred modes.
• ServiceNow voice integration. This integration, currently in progress, will further enhance agent functionality, providing a more comprehensive set of tools for assisting students.
• Two-way SMS feature enhancement. Upgrading this feature aligns with the college’s commitment to accessible and versatile communication, offering another layer of convenience for students.

Strategic Goals and Integration

• Broad departmental onboarding. Initially, key areas such as Admissions, Advising, and Financial Aid were onboarded. Subsequent integrations have included Student Basic Needs, Cashiers, and Workforce Solutions.
• Future onboarding plans. Additional key areas such as ServiceDesk and Human Resources are slated for integration, further expanding the institution’s interdependent communication network.
• Accomplished strategic goals. We have achieved early key objectives, including the reduction of staff burden through enhanced self-service capabilities and establishing centralized contact points for voice and web inquiries.

Considerations

For those seeking to replace a legacy call center or implement a cloud contact center, Dallas College offers the following considerations:

• Perform due diligence and research. Dallas College found a partner that was able to implement the desired solution in an expedited timeframe, but it is important to do the research up front to develop a proof of concept. Key considerations include cost, sustainable resources, and organizational support.
• Collaborate and encourage open communication. Once a decision was made to move forward with this project, Dallas College held cross-functional and cross-divisional team meetings to share the tool’s capabilities and seek feedback from those who would benefit from use. This collaboration helped determine the project’s implementation phases.
• Ensure buy-in from institutional leadership. The project’s success was aided by key leaders championing the initiative as executive sponsors. Leadership buy-in helped drive key aspects of this project, including the expedited process for approving the vendor for this solution.
• Test, test, and test more. The selected solution provides suitable test environments for members of the college’s project team and other employees. The mantra for test users was to push the system to its limits with the student end-user in mind. “Break it if you can” was a common refrain, and successful testing helped instill confidence that the right solution was selected.
• Always ensure data integrity. Although data migration was not a requirement of this project, it is always a good practice to ensure data integrity. For this project, data was archived from the previous system for reference purposes and to measure the increased effectiveness of the new system.

Amazon Connect has not just been a technological upgrade for Dallas College; it represents a paradigm shift toward a more efficient, responsive, and student-focused service model.

Reference

Hanover Research. (2024). 2024 trends in higher education.
https://www.hanoverresearch.com/reports-and-briefs/2024-trends-in-higher-education

Dr. Brad Williams is Interim President, El Centro Campus, and Vice Chancellor, Operations, at Dallas College in Dallas, Texas.

Opinions expressed in Innovation Showcase are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the League for Innovation in the Community College.