The PIE: There’s talk of how agents need to add value to ensure they stay indispensable in the distribution system. What are some example of how you add value to your clients?

OJK: The role of agents has changed a lot. In the 1980’s the agents were like application processors, they received the money from the clients, requested the application forms from the universities or colleges which were delivered by normal air mail and took about three months to arrive. Then they would fill out the application and submit the application on behalf of the students. If they were accepted, they helped the students get a visa.

“If institutions or education groups use their own direct local or expat staff, they struggle to  maintain continuity”

Nowadays the agents are more like guardians or an insurance company for their students. The schools deliver the education and the agents are looking after the students, with very personalised services 24/7.  In Korea or where we have offices in either source or destination countries, the students can be contacted by all of our service providers. We call it, “applicant service”.

The PIE: And do you expect them to pay a fee for that?

OJK: No.

The PIE: And you’re still working with basic commission or in Korea are you adding fees to that? 

OJK: We don’t normally charge a service fee to the student and mainly run the business off the commission and support we get from institutions.  However, there are some cases where we are providing a service to a student and the commission is too low to cover the actual costs (usually with US Community colleges that have very low fees and commissions) and in cases like this, we would charge the student a fee.

“In some cases (usually with US Community colleges) we would charge the student a fee”

This is made clear to them from the beginning and is transparent.  They are paying for the service and support we provide and see value in paying for it.  The fact that in most cases we don’t charge for our services means we receive word of mouth referrals and recommendations as students bring their friends to us. We have lots of good news created through word of mouth promotion.

The PIE: Do you see a trend towards direct bookings in Korea?

OJK: Yes. EF is the biggest company following this direction and some institutions and large groups are also doing both direct and indirect but they are not yet confident enough to do only direct sales. I don’t mind if schools do direct sales that much, as we truly believe that if they do move more and more into direct sales, they’ll actually lose money.

The big headache in running an agency in Korea is training and retaining good counsellors. To overcome this, iae developed an Education Planner (EP) training system for counsellors and we are also running our EP certification system.

The PIE: And your trainees take a test after about three months, don’t they?

OJK: Yeah, and it takes around a year on average (even in a big company like iae), for a counsellor to generate their first real income for the company. So we have to invest quite a lot of time, effort and money before counsellors start returning our investment in them.

“We have to invest quite a lot of time, effort and money before counsellors start returning our investment in them”

If institutions or education groups use their own direct local or expat staff, they struggle to  maintain continuity, as these staff are notoriously fickle and move from company to company. So we don’t see it as a problem in the near future. Also, direct recruitment staff can only sell their own products – companies like iae have a huge number of institutions, programmes and destinations to promote and offer choice to a student.

The PIE: How many iae clients don’t visit a counsellor in person?

OJK: While the main source of enquires is via online and a lot of the interaction as well, we also know that this alone is not enough and to increase more enquiries, we hold our own fair every month. We also attend major college fairs in Korea two times a year.

Clients can directly access the iae system once they are registered as a member, after which they will be followed up in person almost immediately by our counselors…. that’s our system. So while most enquiries are linked to online, they end with one or more face- to-face encounters at our offices or education fairs.

The PIE: So everyone you send is counselled personally even though they start off by enquiring online?

OJK: All of them. This is a serious education and life decision that is a major investment for the family or individual student and not just for fun.

The PIE: Given that you’ve evolved from a very small company to a very large one, what do you like best about the job?

OJK: Of course making good money…..but that has not been that easy since the GFC [global financial crisis]!!  All jokes aside, when the industry people say “I resent you, but I respect you” and competitor agents have said “I don’t like iae because you take a lot of business from us, but I respect you because you show real entrepreneurship in the agency business. You have really built up an enterprise. You are not an agent, you are a true corporation.” That makes me both proud and happy.

“‘You are not an agent, you are a true corporation’; That makes me both proud and happy”

Also, schools who have worked with us, know what sort of business we’ve been doing for them and appreciate our efforts. We respect each other. Finally, the fact that so many of our 10s of 1000s of past students still stay in contact with us or even end up working for us or tell their EPs how much iae has changed their lives for the better….that is something to be very proud and happy about.  That is why our slogan is “Creating better futures since 1992”.

The PIE: And in terms of the commission you offer, are you in a position to negotiate?

OJK: As the largest agency in Korea and one of the largest in the world, we have a significant volume of long term and genuine students from diverse markets, so yes…we can negotiate deals with institutions.  We actually have what we call Key Priority Institutions (KPIs) that have supported us for many years and therefore, we support them.  I guess our business is similar to many others in that 80% of our students go to 20% of our contracted institutions. This is a win/win for both us and the institution, as we deliver far more than counseling to students.

It is important to note that since the Asian Financial Crisis and again after the GFC, our student clients are looking to get the best deal. In reality, we often have to offer discounts or incentives to get the student to sign with iae because they will visit a lot of other agents to negotiate the best price. They’ll say “I have this offer from this agent, I want to use you if you give me this discount”. So we allow the counselors a certain, limited range of discount.