Higher Education

Amazon Connect for Higher Education

Route student and staff calls intelligently, scale during enrollment periods, and give supervisors real-time visibility — without ripping out your campus phone infrastructure on day one.

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AWS Partner, Advanced Tier ServicesFounded by former AWS Amazon Connect specialists

Case study · Higher Education under10weeks to a production launch See the project

The problem

Why Campus IT Teams Are Replacing Legacy Phone Systems

Higher ed contact centers sit at the intersection of student services, financial aid, admissions, and IT help desk — with call volumes that spike predictably every fall and spring. Legacy phone systems weren't designed for any of this.

A campus year, in calls

Illustrative
Illustrative: call volume peaks at spring enrollment and fall enrollment. Fixed lines and seats leave callers on hold at the peaks; Amazon Connect capacity scales with demand.

  • Poor call routing between departments — students bounced between offices

  • Long wait times during enrollment and registration periods

  • No supervisor visibility into queue depth, agent availability, or handle times

  • Rigid IVRs that can't adapt when departments reorganize or add programs

  • Limited ability to scale agent capacity during predictable enrollment surges

  • Aging on-premises hardware with rising maintenance costs and no cloud path

Migration methodology

Seven phases. No big-bang cutover.

A phased approach that de-risks cutover and keeps student services running through enrollment and beyond.

  1. Discover

    We inventory your current routing, IVRs, integrations, and reporting.

  2. Design

    Every component gets an Amazon Connect equivalent and a place in the cutover plan.

  3. Build

    Amazon Connect is built alongside your current platform, which keeps taking calls.

  4. Test

    Test calls run through every flow and integration before any agent moves.

  5. Pilot

    A first group of agents or queues goes live while everyone else stays put.

  6. Cutover

    The remaining queues and phone numbers move over in planned waves.

  7. Hypercare

    The same senior architects stay on after cutover to tune routing and fix issues fast.

  • Department lines becomes Skills-based routing
  • Rigid IVR menus becomes Contact flows + Lex
  • Fixed capacity becomes Scales for enrollment
  • No queue visibility becomes Real-time dashboards
  • Aging hardware becomes Managed by AWS

Case study

A University Contact Center Modernization

Contact Center Modernization in Under 10 Weeks

under10weeksto a production launch

Amazon Connect

Higher Education: Contact Center Modernization

The challenge
Legacy phone system with poor call routing, long wait times, no supervisor visibility, and limited ability to scale during enrollment periods.
What we built
Amazon Connect instance, skills-based IVR and routing, 8+ call queues, real-time supervisor dashboards, agent desktop configuration, and go-live training.

Outcomes

  • Production launch in under 10 weeks
  • 30+ agents enabled across student and staff queues
  • Real-time queue visibility for supervisors
Plan a similar project (like Higher Education)

Start a conversation

Ready to Modernize Your Campus Contact Center?

Book a 30-minute working session with a senior Amazon Connect architect who has delivered for higher education institutions.

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