As an applicant-first platform, we take pride in improving the admissions experience and making it more enjoyable for applicants.
Every applicant has a story to tell and we love being able to help them share it through a fun, accessible, and convenient channel: The Kira Assessment.
To measure the success of our efforts, we ask for anonymous applicant feedback at the end of each Kira assessment. We then take that data and publish a summary of our findings.
Based on our last report, we crafted two goals to improve the applicant experience in the coming year:
- To reduce the number of “poor” evaluations (last year: 1.45%)
- To lower the amount of applicants opening support tickets (last year: 9%)
After analyzing this year’s data, we’re happy to announce we achieved both goals! Let’s dig into that accomplishment further, and explore other highlights in our 2018 Applicant Experience Report.
2018 Applicant Experience Report
Highlights:
Over 79,000 applicants left feedback on their Kira experience from January 1, 2018 to January 1, 2019.
Insight: The number of applicants who left feedback grew by more than 9,000, meaning we have more feedback to learn from!
82% of applicants rated their Kira experience either “Great” (4/5) or “Exceptional” (5/5)
Insight: This stat has risen since last year. We’re thrilled to see our base of happy applicants is growing.
51% of applicants rated their Kira experience “Exceptional” (5/5)
Insight: Last year this number sat at 48%. The jump of up three percent shows that our efforts to continually improve applicant experience are bringing results.
The average rating overall was slightly above “Great” (4.2/5)
Insight: We’ve achieved this rating for two years now! The majority of applicants remain more than happy with their experience. In fact, only 1.41% of applications rated their experience as “poor”.
7% of applicants opened a support ticket while completing a Kira assessment.
Insight: This number has dropped, meaning fewer applicants had an issue that required help from our support services.
90% of applicants who left feedback on support rated their experience as great. The options were great, okay, and not good.
Insight: Because this number was higher last year, we were inspired to audit the quality of our support services.
Through the audit, we found an issue with our live chat service. The live chat agents couldn't always find solutions, causing them to re-direct support inquiries to our internal support team. This process didn’t provide applicants with the best experience, so we streamlined our support services to address the issue.
Any problems that our 24/7 chatbot can’t resolve are now sent directly to our in-house support team, leading to more personalized service and efficient solutions for applicants.
Applicants’ Ratings of Kira Experience
Complete breakdown of ratings on a scale of one to five with five being highest.
Why publish this data?
To hold ourselves accountable for continued improvement. For 2019, we’re hoping to increase satisfaction levels in applicants who open a support ticket during their assessment. We’re confident that the changes we’ve made to our support processes and the continual training of our chatbot will aid in this effort.
Background: Earlier this year, our support team took the initiative to revamp our chatbot responses to help applicants find quicker, simpler solutions to their support inquiries.
The results so far have been great!
We’re seeing more applicants who are able to leverage our chatbot to solve technical issues without escalating their inquiry to our internal support team.
To celebrate our success and the success of our applicants. Each year we continue to see an increase in applicant volume, and this year was the highest in Kira history. We’re incredibly proud of that fact that the vast majority of applicants had a positive experience using our platform.
To be transparent with prospective clients. Any technology vendor that your applicants interact with will reflect on your school. If you’re considering Kira, you should know what the latest cohort of applicants has to say, and we should be comfortable standing by that feedback.
Reports from other years
Kira Applicant Experience Report 2022
Kira Applicant Experience Report 2020
Kira Applicant Experience Report 2019