 |
|
AGENTS'
BEST KEPT SECRETS
TO PAY OR NOT TO PAY?
There are some educational institutions that do
not pay agents’ commission – they prefer to deal with their
prospective students directly. This is typical, for example, for some
elite boarding schools with waiting lists full for the next ten years
and for cheap (usually unaccredited and sometimes merely “visa shops”)
language courses dealing with direct Internet bookings. However, recently
even elite boarding schools and universities that have already enough
clients have started to make marketing efforts to get highly motivated
brilliant students from Russia, and therefore have started to pay marketing
fees to agents, because qualified agents do a very important job on their
behalf: they find potential students, help arrange entry tests, do all
the paperwork connected with visa issues etc.
Most quality schools receive a considerable part of their students from
their local agents. Therefore every school has to create a network of
reliable agents who could guarantee a constant flow of students from various
parts of the world. Ideally, such a network, once created, continues to
work without any specific additional efforts on one's part, except for
occasional visits to agencies and mailing current price-lists and brochures.
However it happens sometimes that you have a number of agents in a certain
place but they do not send you enough students and do not match your expectations.
You contact agencies, arrange appointments at workshops, send your latest
info-packs to them , visit their offices – and still receive no
students.
Or an agent who used to send you a lot of students, suddenly stops sending
them.
Why does it happen?
HOW DO THEY WORK?
Imagine that you have a school in London offering
General English courses for adults (18+). What can you expect from your
local representative?
Let’s take a well-established middle-sized agency
located in Moscow or St. Petersburg, sending abroad 200 individual students
per year. Let’s assume that they send 140 students to Britain. 70
of them are adults, and 50 would prefer to go to London, Brighton, Oxford
and Cambridge. Hence there are approximately 15 students who are ready
to come to London for their studies and who are your potential customers.
However, your agent has another 10 partner schools located in London and
offering the same type of courses, at similar prices, with the same level
of commission. According to this statistics you can expect to receive
1 or 2 students per year, provided that nobody of your competitors should
offer any kind of additional incentives or bonuses for agents.
IDEAL SCHOOL, AGENT’S POINT OF VIEW
In order to be competitive on the Russian market
your school must offer high-quality courses, it must be accredited (member
of ARELS etc.); your staff has to answer any requests immediately, to
work efficiently issuing invoices, visa documents etc.; your host families
must be good enough.
If something is wrong with your product and services, it does not make
any sense to bother with promotional activities – all your marketing
efforts will be useless. You can expect to receive only one student –
the first and the last. Thank you, don’t waste your money sending
us your brochures.
However even in case your school is extremely good (and maybe even the
best – which is so hard to explain to agents), there are at least
several schools in your region offering courses of the same quality, with
the same level of commission.
Any agent working in competitive environment tries to get maximum profits:
to sell more expensive courses, to get higher commission and more preferable
payment conditions. However personal relations are also very important
– for example, if you invite a Russian agent for a free 2-weeks'
language course and treat him/her as a guest, he (or she) will inevitably
feel obliged to send you some students as a matter of courtesy.
To put it short: if you offer quality courses in the centre of London
or Brighton; pay 25% commission of the package price; allow your agent
to optimize payment expenses transferring payments on a monthly basis
after your students have successfully received their visas ; your staff
(or even better – one contact person who solves all arising problems)
answers requests promptly and provides agents with necessary papers as
required by visa officials, - OK, you definitely will get a constant flow
of Russian students to your school.
If you offer General English courses in Manchester or Bristol; pay 15%
commission on tuition only; require full payment 4 weeks in advance before
the course begins; have permanent problems with your office e-mail system
and fax machines, - don’t be surprised if the number of Russian
students sent to your school by agents is close to zero. In this case
you’d better not rely on agents, but try to increase direct bookings,
using Internet, advertising, exhibitions etc.
If you offer highly specialized professional courses for doctors, lawyers
etc. – we also recommend to promote your courses directly to companies
or professionals. Every big company usually has a number of secretaries,
training managers, personnel managers etc. who prefer to contact the school
directly rather than use an agency.
WHAT ABOUT SPECIAL OFFERS?
It happens sometimes that a big group of students
from Latin America suddenly cancels their course due to economic or political
problems in their country, and now your school will be half-empty unless
you immediately find extra 80 students from Turkey of Russia. In order
to encourage bookings you make a special offer: “Pay
for 2 weeks, get 3”, advertise this
offer in the Internet, send it to your agents – and, strangely enough,
do not receive as many students as you expected. Why?
This is simple: imagine that an agency has a client who is ready to spend,
say, 1000 Pounds on a 5 weeks' course(500 for tuition and 500 for accommodation).
Agent’s commission in this case is 20% of tuition, i.e. 100 Pounds.
The same student finds your special offer “3 for the price of 2”
in the Internet and asks your agent about it - now he can get 6 weeks
of tuition instead of 4. However he has to pay for an extra week of accommodation.
It means that he pays 400 Pounds for tuition and 600 for accommodation,
and his agent gets 20% commission for tuition, i.e. 80 Pounds only, which
is 20 Pounds less compared to your regular course price. The student is
happy – he gets an extra week of tuition and accommodation for the
same price.
Do you think your agent is happy too? I’m afraid not – especially
in case he (or she) has a calculator at hand.
Of course, your agent can hide your special offer from the student (which
some agents do) and get additional 100 Pounds apart from commission. However,
if the student comes to your school and notices special stands full of
colourful flyers “pay for 2, get 3” he will understand that
there is something wrong with his agent and will decide to turn to another
agency next time.
This is not a problem for some agencies, however a well-established agency
will never jeopardize its reputation.
You have to decide: if you want to receive more direct bookings then make
your “3 for 2” offer open and advertise it widely in the media
and in the Internet (this is the case when you have to pay for advertising).
However if you want to get more students from your local agents then it
is more simple to offer 40% commission for tuition for a limited period
(conditions may apply, like the minimum number of weeks etc.) –
it will be the same discount but offered to agents, not to students.
|
