You never get a second chance to make a good first impression
It’s the critical moment: that first tangible interaction where a student prospect reaches out to enquire about your institution. How well you respond and manage enquiries can make a significant difference to your conversion rate. Yet truly understanding your performance in the context of the market has always been hard. Until now.
The Enquiry Experience Tracker (EET) is a global syndicated research program that delivers an objective assessment of how well you’re doing. It’s from the student perspective, easy to learn from and very actionable. The research focuses on international and domestic students in alternating years.
Our student mystery shoppers pose as prospects and place enquiries through your key channels and analyse the responses. We mystery shop using a range of personas and enquiry channels.
Our experts score and benchmark the experience against other universities and colleges worldwide so you can understand your performance against local competitors and global peers.
Our scoring model, developed in partnership with UniQuest, measures a range of different data points to provide a holistic evaluation of the enquiry experience.
In your personalised report, you’ll be assessed against 51 criteria, including findability, responsiveness, clarity, personalisation and sentiment. Then you’ll receive an Enquiry Experience Score, representing the average rating from each mystery shopper.
The Enquiry Experience Tracker is a must-have for any data-driven student recruitment team. It’s a powerful tool to help you fine-tune your methods and your team’s performance in the vital window where student interest gives way to action.
Registrations for the 2027 research round will open soon.
Watch the video to know more about the research and how it works.
Key benefits
Understand how you’re meeting
the needs of different students
See how you perform
against competitors
Fine-tune your
competitive advantages
Identify gaps in
your performance
Inform targeted
resourcing and investment
Gain confidence
through objective data
How it works
1
March - April
Registration deadline and institution questionnaire
2
April - June
Mystery shopping fieldwork
3
July-August
Analysis and results preview
4
September
Report delivery and presentation
Mystery shopping
We employ real students as mystery shoppers. They place study enquiries to each institution, using key channels like social media, email and live chat.
Every year we create a set of relevant personas, designed in collaboration with client institutions. We recruit mystery shoppers to take on these identities and enquire about courses.
They also ask questions about common topics such as career outcomes, course structure, admissions requirements and processes, student life, fees, accommodation and scholarships.
The research involves up to 24 mystery shopping enquiries to each institution (six personas each with four enquiries).
Below are the domestic student personas and channels that were used for the 2026 mystery shopping. In addition to the university enquiries, we tasked some students to submit their questions to ChatGPT and compare the results.
Institutions can request changes or substitutions to these personas on an individual basis.
2027 mystery shopping will focus on international students. Personas end enquiry channels will be defined with input from participating institutions.
Scoring and benchmarking
Our benchmarking reports help you understand your performance relative to local competitors and global peers.
You’ll also be compared with our standard of excellence – a measure informed by our expertise in student communication and insights from UniQuest’s conversion and student satisfaction data.
Evaluation criteria include enquiry channels, responsiveness, communication quality, follow-up and impact.
What can you expect?
You’ll receive a detailed and personalised report with mystery shopping outcomes, benchmarking, analysis, qualitative feedback from students and recommendations for improvement.
The Edified team was professional and really understood what we were trying to achieve. The report was excellent and I think could model further reports in the future.
The final report and write-up was the most useful I’ve received in 12 years of working with multiple consultancies.
The Edified team are just a delight to work with: flexible, knowledgeable and deliver great outputs.
We found the Enquiry Experience Tracker exceptionally useful to identify where we could and should do better! We are making alterations to our enquiry streams and processes on the basis of this information.
Enquiry Experience Tracker provides valuable insights to the service you give international students and to better understand how your channels are performing to meet their needs.
EET helped us monitor and measure the level of service our institutions were providing to prospective students. It was an excellent way of making what can be a clumsy exercise, professional and seamless.
Join the 2027 Enquiry Experience Tracker
The Enquiry Experience Tracker is a must-have for any data-driven student recruitment team.
Quantify how well your university delivers against key student engagement standards, and how your performance compares to your competitors’.
You’ll be part of the mystery shopping and receive a personalised benchmarked report to support your student recruitment strategies.
Participation is simple and easy
- Register your institution
- Complete a short questionnaire
- Edified conducts fieldwork and evaluation
- Edified sends you a final report
An early bird discount is available for registrations received before 31 December.
Registration options
Select your region
Essentials
A$ 6,250
Includes:
- 6 mystery shopping enquiries
- 3 ChatGPT enquiries
- Personalised report
- Country benchmark
- Qualitative student feedback
Standard
A$ 9,250
Includes:
- 18 mystery shopping enquiries
- 3 ChatGPT enquiries
- Personalised report
- Country and group benchmarks
- Qualitative student feedback
- Presentation of results
Premium
A$ 13,450
Includes:
- 24 mystery shopping enquiries
- 3 ChatGPT enquiries
- Personalised report
- Country and group benchmarks
- Anonymised benchmarking against three nominated competitors
- Qualitative student feedback
- Data sheet with detailed ratings for each enquiry
- Presentation of results
Two-year lock in discount:
2027 (international) +
2028 (domestic)
Essentials – A$ 5,500/year
Standard – A$ 8,150/year
Premium – A$ 11,950/year
Group discount
Special rates for groups of 6+ institutions.
Essentials
C$ 6,250
Includes:
- 6 mystery shopping enquiries
- 3 ChatGPT enquiries
- Personalised report
- Country benchmark
- Qualitative student feedback
Standard
C$ 9,250
Includes:
- 18 mystery shopping enquiries
- 3 ChatGPT enquriries
- Personalised report
- Country and group benchmarks
- Qualitative student feedback
- Presentation of results
Premium
C$ 13,450
Includes:
- 24 mystery shopping enquiries
- 3 ChatGPT enquiries
- Personalised report
- Country and group benchmarks
- Anonymised benchmarking against three nominated competitors
- Qualitative student feedback
- Fata sheet with detailed ratings for each enquiry
- Presentation of results
Two-year lock in discount:
2027 (international) +
2028 (domestic)
Essentials – C$ 5,500/year
Standard – C$ 8,150/year
Premium – C$ 11,950/year
Group discount
Special rates for groups of 6+ institutions.
Essentials
£ 3,150
Includes:
- 6 mystery shopping enquiries
- 3 ChatGPT enquiries
- Personalised report
- Country benchmark
- Qualitative student feedback
Standard
£ 4,750
Includes:
- 18 mystery shopping enquiries
- 3 ChatGPT enquiries
- Personalised report
- Country and group benchmarks
- Qualitative student feedback
- Presentation of results
Premium
£ 6,950
Includes:
- 24 mystery shopping enquiries
- 3 ChatGPT enquiries
- Personalised report
- Country and group benchmarks
- Anonymised benchmarking against 3 nominated competitors
- Qualitative student feedback
- Raw data sheet with ratings for each enquiry
- Presentation of results
Two-year lock in discount:
2027 (international) +
2028 (domestic)
Essentials – £ 2,750/year
Standard – £ 3,950/year
Premium – £ 5,950/year
Group discount
Special rates for groups of 6+ institutions.
Register for the 2027 Enquiry Experience Tracker
Complete the form to join the 2027 international students research.
A 10% early bird discount will be applied for registrations received before 31 December 2026.
For any questions, please get in touch at eet@edified.com.au.
Insights
Rare, but real: the mistakes putting students off at enquiry stage
With our 2026 Enquiry Experience Tracker results almost out, we reveal the six uncommon but costly behaviours that are worth stamping out.
Now available: The 2025 Enquiry Experience Tracker Global Report
Discover insights from this year's international student mystery shopping and the global and regional benchmarks.