Largest Private Arts Media College Significantly Improves the Student Experience With TimeTrade's Self-Service Scheduling

BEDFORD, MA--(Marketwire - August 25, 2009) - TimeTrade Systems, the leader in customer self-service appointment scheduling, today announced that Columbia College Chicago (CCC), the largest and most diverse private arts and media college in the United States, has deployed TimeTrade's Enterprise Scheduling Application campus-wide to offer students easy access to time with staff and to reduce administrative burdens.

Leveraging TimeTrade, CCC enables students to self-schedule time with advisors and staff across Admissions, Student Financial Services, the Advising Center, the Film and Video Department, the Portfolio Center, the Writing Center and the Learning Center. CCC provides the student body with a unique learning experience that takes advantage of the fine arts in Chicago. With a campus that is spread out over 22 buildings in the heart of Chicago's South Loop, ensuring that students can easily access all the school's services and opportunities available is a critical part of their mission.

"We grew our student body significantly over the last 4 years -- almost 15 percent," said Bernadette McMahon, Associate VP Information Technology and CIO for CCC. "With nearly 12,500 students, we schedule more than 1,000 appointments a week across campus. It was becoming costly and inefficient and did not serve our Web-savvy campus well to continue to handle appointment scheduling manually. When we found TimeTrade's on-demand solution, it was a 'no-brainer' to move to automated, 24/7 scheduling for staff, students and parents. Each of seven departments using TimeTrade is saving an average of 6 hours a week, which translates to about 262 days a year regained in time to spend on more valuable activities. Students are spending 66 percent less time scheduling meetings and no-shows have been eliminated. TimeTrade is extremely easy to use, enabling fast and painless adoption by departments and students."

CCC offers more than 120 academic programs with access to leaders in the fields of journalism, television, film and video, writing and other media arts. The focus is to provide an excellent education while also helping students to develop their portfolios. As early adopters of technology, CCC utilized a portal to provide students with single sign-on access to financial aid, payment of bills, scheduling of appointments; availability of on-campus jobs; transcripts; and upcoming events. The secure portal becomes an immediate vehicle for students to become familiar with, and be able to leverage, everything that is available on campus. TimeTrade's on-demand scheduling is available through the portal and integrates with the college's ERP systems.

"Today, colleges and universities have to respond to escalating costs, decreasing budgets, changing student requirements and increased competition," said Ed Mallen, CEO of TimeTrade Systems. "Columbia College Chicago is addressing many of these challenges with a fully deployed Web 2.0 campus. According to a recent survey by IBM and the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, 97 percent of students have a profile on a social networking site and 93 percent own a laptop. While being very Web-savvy, students can be overwhelmed in a college environment, which can lead to drop outs or transfers. By providing students with a single sign-on portal as a gateway to everything they need, including self-service scheduling, Columbia College is streamlining its operations and significantly improving the student and parent experience. It is no surprise that Columbia College has experienced dramatic growth and accolades."

About TimeTrade Systems

TimeTrade Systems is the leader in customer self-service appointment scheduling solutions for enterprises and individuals. More than 250 million appointments have been scheduled through TimeTrade. Headquartered in Bedford, MA, TimeTrade offers Web-based solutions that enable customers to streamline operations, improve workflow and increase marketing and sales outreach. The company's customers include some of the largest government agencies, retailers, healthcare, financial services and educational organizations as well as small-to-medium sized businesses. TimeTrade solves complex scheduling issues with high-performance, highly configurable solutions that are scalable to handle hundreds of thousands of appointments across multiple locations. TimeTrade Systems can be reached at www.timetrade.com.

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