Best Practices in Student Communication
Submitted by Steve Greenough, Regional Account Executive, American Student Assistance

Those of you who serve student loan borrowers on a daily basis aren’t too worried about the students and recent grads who cross every T, dot every I, and call regularly to check on the status of their paperwork. The ones who keep you up at night are the hard-to-reach, slip-through-your-fingers cases—the ones who ignore every email, phone call and piece of mail from your office.

But don’t give up! American Student Assistance has conducted several experiments in borrower outreach, learning along the way that communication can strongly influence student behavior. Here are some of ASA’s top tips for reaching the “unreachables”:

Don’t get lost in the tidal wave. Students are bombarded with massive quantities of junk email and printed mailings, often consisting of disingenuous advertisements masquerading as legitimate financial documents. Your student audience puts these ads where they belong—in the trash.

To avoid getting discarded with them:

• Use your school’s logo and colors on everything you send out, so students recognize an institution they trust.
• Identify yourself. In emails, use “ABC College Financial Aid Office” as the sender instead of your name. Students may delete a message from Jane Doe, even if she is the director of financial aid.
• Personalize email subject lines. Use the school’s name, and be sure to use “you” or “your”—the Millennials tend to want to know “what’s in it for me?” For example, a good subject line might be “Your XYZ University School Loans.” If your email’s subject is “A message about student loans,” how will students know you’re not one of the crowd of consolidation advertisers?

Know your students. Once you get your students to open your email or letter, how will you know if they read and understand its content?

• Understand your students’ level of financial literacy. Student borrowers at a business college may have a different financial vocabulary than a class of aspiring artists, and resumed education students may understand the concept of interest from their experience with mortgages in a way that 18-year-old first-time borrowers may not. Think about your audience as you construct your message, and don’t be afraid to send different materials to different subsets of borrowers.
• Find out if they’re listening. Using email is an excellent way to track whether borrowers are opening your correspondence and reading it. With the help of simple software, you can find out whether your message is getting lost in the shuffle or is losing their interest once they’ve opened it.
• Ask them about themselves. Inserting a survey with a few questions into an email or onto a postcard can allow you to learn about your students’ concerns—what areas of the borrowing process still seem a bit fuzzy—or even prevent problems before they occur, such as identifying students who are considering taking time off from school and will need help with the financial transition. You’ll find that students respond best when your message truly targets their concerns and interests.

Timing is everything. In communicating with borrowers, as in the rest of life, timing is key.

• Introduce yourself early. Don’t let the first-time borrowers hear your name or see your emails be in a crisis: for instance, when they’ve left school unexpectedly, or when an important financial aid deadline looms. Let students know who you are and that the financial aid office is available to help, provide guidance, and answer their questions. That way, they’ll know where to turn if a problem does arise.
• Don’t pester them. ASA’s research found that students who had recently consolidated their loans were more likely to respond to email and mailings six months after consolidation than they were one month after consolidation. Whether they were overwhelmed with all the financial talk and needed a break, or it took them a few months to realize that they needed some help even after consolidation, the message is clear.

Our studies have shown that borrowers respond better when you wait longer between contacts. If they aren’t overwhelmed with supply, they may have a greater demand for the help you provide!