How to Improve Student Support Services in Higher Ed

Student support services directly impact your institution’s success metrics: retention rates, graduation outcomes, and student satisfaction scores. When students can quickly access the help they need, they stay enrolled and engaged. Here’s where effective support makes the biggest difference:

• Academic Support: Tutoring, writing centers, and study workshops that keep students on track academically.
• Mental Health Services: 78% of students report moderate to high stress levels according to the ACHA. Counseling and mental health services help address this.
• Career Services: Resume help, internships, guidance counseling, and job placement that improve post-graduation employment rates.
• Disability Services: Accommodations and adaptive technology ensuring equal access for all students.
• Cultural Integration: Programs helping international and underrepresented students connect with campus community.
• Financial aid: Services related to financial assistance, including scholarships, bursaries, grants, and other financial support.

The fact is that comprehensive support services create measurable improvements in retention, satisfaction, and graduation rates. Schools that invest in robust support systems see students who are more likely to complete their programs and recommend the institution to others.

When it comes to support expectations, students hold a high bar. With technology at their fingertips, they have become accustomed to seamless digital experiences and so expect this same experience in customer service and support. Here are the 4 key expectations Gen Z have when it comes to support:

1. Speed – 71% believe that CX can be drastically improved by quick responses
2. Convenience – 74% of Gen Z say convenience is more important than brand
3. Personalization: 61% of Gen Z expect their needs to be anticipated
4. Helpfulness: 77% of Gen Z expect their unique needs and expectations to be understood.

1. Students Expect: Fast & Convenient Support

The solution: Live Chat

71% of 16-24 year-olds believe that CX can be drastically improved by quick responses.

Live chat has become the gold standard for student support because it delivers what students expect most: immediate answers. When a student can’t log into their course portal at 11 PM or needs clarification about financial aid deadlines, they want help now, not tomorrow.

This expectation isn’t unreasonable. Today’s students grew up with instant messaging, real-time notifications, and on-demand everything. They’ve never known a world where getting information meant waiting days for an email response or being put on hold for 20 minutes.

Live chat meets students where they already are. With students spending almost 74% of their free time in messaging apps and online platforms, chat feels natural and familiar. It’s the same interface they use to communicate with friends, making it the lowest-friction way to get help from your institution.

“Our students are mostly 17, 18 or 19 years old, and they naturally find live chat very easy to use. It’s also very quick for them – they can hop on a chat, ask us a question, and have their answer in a minute – all from their mobile device. It’s the perfect channel to help us engage with them and give them the support they need.”

Derek Gaucher, Coordinator of IT Solutions, Dawson College

Read the full story: Dawson College Holds Virtual Open House with Live Chat & Video Engagement

Smart institutions take live chat efficiency even further with an integrated Knowledge Base and AI Agents. Instead of agents juggling multiple windows to find answers, everything they need appears directly in the chat console.

Agents can leverage an AI Copilot to monitor conversations in real-time and instantly surface the right information, suggesting viable answers, and even drafting complete responses for agents to review and send.

The result? Response times drop from minutes to seconds. Students get accurate answers faster, and your support team can handle more conversations without feeling overwhelmed.

2. Students Expect: Immediate, 24/7 Response

The solution: AI Chatbots

99% of students think it’s at least somewhat important for schools to offer 24/7 support.

Your students don’t keep business hours. They’re researching financial aid at midnight, trying to register for classes on Sunday, and panicking about assignment deadlines during spring break. If your support team isn’t available, those students are stuck.

AI chatbots or AI agents solve this problem without doubling your payroll. These  aren’t the clunky chatbots of five years ago that could barely handle “What are your hours?” You can now create different types of AI agents that understand complex questions, remember conversation context, and can actually complete tasks for students.

The numbers back this up. In our higher education survey, 95% of students said they’re open to getting help from AI agents. They don’t care if it’s human or AI as long as they get the right answer quickly. Some of the ways AI agents can help students include:

• Course registration troubleshooting: Walk students through error messages, waitlist processes, and prerequisite requirements
• Financial aid calculations: Help students understand their aid packages, payment due dates, and available loan options
• Transcript and grade access: Securely provide academic records and explain GPA calculations
• Appointment booking: Schedule meetings with advisors, counselors, and department staff across multiple calendars
• Application status updates: Check admission, housing, or scholarship application progress in real-time
• Campus logistics: Provide building locations, office hours, parking information, and event details
• Emergency communications: Instantly notify thousands of students about closures, alerts, or urgent policy changes
• Basic IT support: Help with password resets, WiFi connections, and learning management system access
• Payment processing: Assist with tuition payments, payment plan setup, and billing questions

The biggest benefit is that AI agents are available to assist students 24/7. This can be particularly important when you want to engage students international students, as AI chatbots can also send messages at key moments of a student’s journey to assist and nudge them along in the process.

3. Students Expect: Support on the Channels They Use Most

The solution: Live Chat on Social Media

97% of students use social media, with those at university the most active of all students.

It won’t come as a shock to hear that students spend a lot of time on social media platforms. However, despite schools knowing this, student support in higher education is often neglecting this channel. While 98% of schools use social media, the majority use it to improve brand awareness, image, and engagement, while missing out on one of its most important uses; as a support channel. 

Your students are already on Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, and Discord. They’re messaging friends, following campus accounts, and engaging with content daily. So why are you forcing them to call a phone number or fill out a web form when they need help?

Meeting students on their preferred platforms isn’t just about convenience — it’s also strategic. When a prospective student has a quick question about application deadlines, they’re more likely to send a direct message on Instagram than navigate to your website’s contact page. When current students need help with course registration, they’ll reach out through the platform they’re already using.

The platforms that matter most to students keep evolving, but the principle stays the same: be where your students are. More on this on the next point.

4. Students Expect: Helpful & Personalized Support

The solution: Omnichannel Student Support

77% of students want support staff to remember previous conversations they’ve had.

So far, we’ve outlined what students want: instant answers through live chat, 24/7 AI agent support, and help through the social media platforms they already use. Most administrators hear this and immediately think about the operational nightmare it would create.

Many schools would shudder at the mere thought of offering all of these channels, worrying that some, if not all, of the following are true:

• “We can’t manage Instagram DMs, live chat, email, and WhatsApp without doubling our staff size.”
• “More channels just means more volume we can’t handle with our current team.”
• “Our agents won’t know if a student already contacted us through email when they message us on Facebook.”
• “The technology costs alone would blow our budget.”

These concerns are valid if you’re thinking about managing each channel separately. Imagine this scenario: A student emails your admissions office about transfer credits on Monday, then messages your Instagram account about the same issue on Wednesday because they haven’t heard back.

Meanwhile, they also start a live chat on Friday asking about housing deadlines. Your email team, social media manager, and chat agents are all working in isolation, and none are aware of the full context.

This creates exactly what students hate most: repeating their information multiple times and getting inconsistent answers.

An omnichannel communication platform like Comm100 solves this by connecting everything into one unified system. When that same student contacts you through any channel, your agents immediately see the complete conversation history.

Here’s what this looks like in practice:

• Unified agent workspace: One console shows all conversations from every channel, so agents never miss context
• Complete student profiles: Agents see previous interactions, account status, and relevant student information regardless of how the student contacted you
• Seamless handoffs: A conversation started on Instagram can continue via live chat without the student repeating their question
• Consistent responses: Your knowledge base and response templates work across all channels, ensuring students get accurate information every time 

The impact on student experience is dramatic. 74% of Gen Z say they prefer personalized products or services, yet only 32% feel like they are being treated as a unique individual. An omnichannel approach bridges this gap by giving agents the context they need to provide truly personalized support.

The importance of student support services across the board can’t be stressed enough. The quality of student support can be the decider for admissions to graduation rates and everything in between. However, students’ high expectations have exposed gaps in the student support service capabilities of many universities and colleges.

• Students cannot get support quickly with basic phone or email support
• Students are limited to office hours and/or waiting for long periods for reply
• Students have to use inconvenient channels to get support
• Support staff are overwhelmed with manual processes needed to support student inquiry volume
• Support staff are not trained adequately to manage support tools
• Security is compromised with inadequate support systems in place.

Most leaders of student support in higher ed recognize some, if not all, of the above, in their own operations, and realize they are failing to provide the student support that is expected of them. In an Academic Impression’s survey, only 8% of higher education professionals from 79 colleges and universities graded their institution’s student support with an ‘A’. So what are the key ways to improve higher education customer service?

Next steps

To level-up your student support services in higher education and match your students’ expectations, book a demo with Comm100’s specialists.

With live chat, messaging, voice, bots and automation all wrapped up in a secure, personalized and AI-powered solution, Comm100 fits your needs now, and later. Join the likes of Stanford University, McMaster University, California Southern University, and transform student support services in your school.