Certain moments in our community’s calendars carry a little more weight than others, and for universities, student arrivals are undoubtedly one of them.
Thousands of students arrive at a new home, often in a new city or country, ready to begin an entirely new chapter of their lives. Some are buzzing with excitement; others are understandably nervous, while families are taking in the moment and preparing to say goodbye. Behind every one of those arrivals is a university team that has spent months preparing, hoping that those first few hours will feel as welcoming and seamless as possible.
This year, many people from across Kinetic gave up time at their weekends to support our customers during this incredibly busy period, while colleagues across the business worked behind the scenes to make sure help was there when it was needed.
Although our volunteers went out expecting to lend an extra pair of hands, they came back with something equally valuable: a much deeper understanding of our customers, the pressures their teams face and the students all of this work ultimately supports.
Rolling up our sleeves
Across the different arrivals weekends, our volunteers found themselves checking students in, issuing keys, answering questions, directing families and stepping in wherever another pair of hands could make a difference.
What became clear very quickly was how easily the usual customer and supplier distinction disappeared when everyone was working towards the same goal.
At Royal Holloway, Liam Thompson described how the Kinetic team threw themselves into the weekend, helping students and families, supporting colleagues behind the scenes and stepping in wherever they were needed. The feedback from colleagues was universally positive, and Liam Thompson said the experience “brought our partnership to life.”
It is a phrase that captures what these weekends became for us.
Partnership can mean roadmaps, meetings and conversations about the future, but sometimes it is much simpler than that. Sometimes it means turning up on one of your customer’s busiest weekends, rolling up your sleeves and asking,“Where do you need me?”
The same sense of partnership came through at the University of Edinburgh, where Tom Sherwood’s contribution made a lasting impression. Jennie Anthony felt that Tom Sherwood became so involved that“it felt like he was one of the team,” while Andrew Glass shared that colleagues had nothing but praise for the support provided.
Being welcomed into our customers’ teams in that way gave us a perspective that is difficult to gain from behind a screen.
Seeing the student journey first-hand
When you are standing in the middle of arrivals, the technology you work with every day suddenly takes on a different meaning.
A check-in isn’t simply a workflow when there is a student standing in front of you waiting for the key to a new home. There might be a family trying to work out where to go next, a nervous student taking everything in or a growing queue that needs to keep moving, all while university teams quietly manage countless moving parts in the background.
Our technology sits within those moments, and volunteering allowed our teams to experience that for themselves.
At Royal Holloway, KxMobile supported a drive-through check-in process, allowing students to be welcomed efficiently during an incredibly busy weekend. Being part of that process meant our volunteers could experience not only what worked well, but also practical details that are much harder to appreciate away from campus.
Elsewhere, the scale of arrivals demonstrated just how important reliable processes can be. At the University of the West of England (UWE), our team saw Kx support approximately 1,200 student check-ins in a single day, while at Newcastle University, one Kinetic volunteer helped the university welcome more than 1,500 students across four busy days.
Seeing our products being used in those real, high-pressure environments gave our people something incredibly valuable: context around not just how our customers use Kx, but why certain things matter so much to them.
The impact lasts longer than the weekend
The immediate value of volunteering is easy to see. During an exceptionally busy few days, our customers have another pair of hands ready to help wherever they are needed.
The longer-term value is perhaps even more important.
The experiences our colleagues bring back help us understand how Kx performs when demand is at its highest, where everyday processes could be made even better and what life actually looks like for the people using our products. They also give our customer-facing teams a deeper appreciation of the pressures universities manage and create conversations that can help shape how we support them in the future.
Most importantly, spending time on campus brings us closer to the reason all of this work exists in the first place.
Behind every room allocation, barcode scan and check-in is a student beginning a significant new chapter in their life. For many, that interaction might be one of their first experiences of their new university home. If our people and technology can help make that moment a little easier, calmer or more welcoming, then that matters.
What partnership means to us
We talk a lot at Kinetic about being a partner to our customers, but arrivals gave us the opportunity to demonstrate what that can look like in practice.
At times, partnership is about developing technology, sharing a roadmap or having conversations about what comes next. At others, it is about listening carefully to feedback and making sure it reaches the people who can do something with it.
And sometimes, it is simply about being there.
The Kinetic colleagues who volunteered this year set out to help our customers through one of their busiest periods. In doing so, they strengthened relationships, brought valuable learning back into Kinetic and contributed, in their own small way, to the experience thousands of students received as they began university life. Clare reflected internally that the impact extended far beyond the arrivals weekends themselves, touching customer relationships, student experience and Kinetic’s reputation.
That is ultimately what these weekends reinforced for us.
Being a good technology partner isn’t only about providing technology that works. It’s about understanding the people using it, listening to them and being willing to stand alongside them when it matters most.
And sometimes, there is no better way to understand your customer’s world than to step into it with them.
You can read more from Kinetic Voices, here
If you’d like us to join us for your arrivals next year, please get in touch: marketing@kineticsoftware.com
