Ubiquitous in usage, smartphones on college campuses are also essential to the health, well-being, education, safety, and growth of a student population. Implementing a strategy to help keep those students (and their devices) powered on is critical to the expansion plans of a college or university. Centrally located charging kiosks, tables, and stations don’t just provide an essential service to students, but they also enable colleges and universities to analyze usage and crowd behavior, communicate in real-time, and foster long-term relationships between the students and the school. Let’s look at 5 ways that a smart charging strategy on your college or university campus would have an impact:
- Keep Students Safe
A fully charged cell phone is the difference between life or death during an emergency on campus. By deploying charging stations strategically, Universities and Colleges can help keep students safe and connected during emergency situations. Using digital signage and a central administrator, the charging stations can also act as emergency information hubs, capable of delivery key information. At Power Up™, the remote management tool can be used to push out this type of messaging in real-time during emergencies and closings. The system can also display weather forecasts, RSS feeds, and a variety of other media.
- Provide a Quality Education
With students frequently relying on technology (phones, laptops) during and after class for note-taking, research, and class information, running out of battery is the equivalent to missing class or running out of paper. Charging stations and kiosks in central lobbies, libraries, and study halls help students stay connected during class and with their study groups/partners. At The University of Alabama, Power Up™ charging kiosks were deployed to keep students focused on their education. “The kiosk gives students the opportunity to charge their devices for free while managing their busy schedules,” Nugent said. “I think we can all relate to when we’ve run out of battery power or forgotten our power cords at the worst possible time.”
- Drive Recruits and Satisfaction Scores
It’s no surprise that students today are more closely connected to their phone for social and personal use than ever before. For colleges and universities, keeping students connected online to social networks is imperative to drive recruitment and satisfaction. Ralph Valle, Towson University’s director of marketing and communications, lauded the school’s initial placement of the Power Up™ Charging Kiosks on campus. “Since installing the Power Up™ cell-phone charging kiosk in our student union, a very high traffic area right in front of the entrance to our university book store, students have inundated us with positive feedback. It’s no secret that today’s college student spends a significant amount of their time – both personal and for their studies – on their smartphone, tablet or other mobile internet computing device, and Power Up′s kiosk provides them with a very convenient, secure, accessible resource for them to charge their device.”
- Enable Real-time Communication
Smartphones provide instant access to all things happening at the college or university. Without a smart charging strategy in place, administrators are missing an opportunity to keep students connected. The University of Alabama has branded their Power Up™ kiosk with the school’s logo, social media links, and a QR (Quick Response) code to direct students to specific a landing page. Currently the kiosks display messages to the students that are controlled by a central administrator on campus. The Power Up™ digital signage solution allows for the staff to remotely change the content on all of the kiosks across campus from a central location.
- Build School Spirit
By strategically planning the deployment of charging kiosks and tables, a college or university can directly impact school spirit and student satisfaction. By keeping cell phones charged, smart colleges and universities are driving more positive conversations online for all types of school-led events like sports, arts, and music. The more students are able to share their positive experiences, the better the brand of the college or university. At Towson University, officials installed a freestanding charging machine that also features a screen on which the university can display marketing messages. Towson’s model from Power Up™ provides devices with a rapid boost, delivering a quick charge in 10 minutes. “Inside Jordan-Hare stadium where the 2010 BCS National Championship Auburn Tigers play, students and fans are constantly using their mobile devices to update friends on the game, post messages via twitter and Facebook, or track scores from games around the country and with that having low batteries on their devices. With the thousands of visitors to the 87,000 seat Jordan-Hare stadium for every home game, this helps provide an excellent customer service amenity to fans and provides an additional revenue opportunity to the vendor and school,” said Ralph Valle. “Every time I walk around the corner, I see a couple of students sitting on the sofa getting their cell phone charged, so I say this is well worth it.”