Using Customer Service Strategies
Which customer service strategy will you incorporate and how do you think it will improve the service you provide?
I already use the strategies; however, I need to do a better job at developing consistency. I think I sometimes get caught up in how busy I get. So I have my personal list of reminders. 1) Always greet people with a hello and a smile. 2) When being introduced to prospective students and their families, stop working and turn away from the computer and work. Body language speaks volumes. and 3) address people by name whenever possible. It shows you care.
Great, Dale! Sounds like your group of three are leading the charge!
Elizabeth Wheeler
Thanks for sharing, Ann. Student and graduate surveys can be very helpful to see what is working well and what could use improvements. What are some of the questions that you ask in your surveys related to customer service?
Elizabeth Wheeler
One strategy we are going to improve upon is developing consistency. We will do this through education of our standards and policies concerning customer service. First, however, we will need to provide more descriptive standards and policies, and provide examples of what exactly we expect.
One strategy we are currently attempting to improve within our institution is to educate everyone. Currently, three of our faculty (including myself) are enrolled in continuing education courses regarding customer service, student retention, and class management. These courses will help us improve our customer service. After completion, we will hold a meeting with all of our faculty and staff to relay this information and our improvement plans based on this information. In this way, we will make sure that all of our staff/faculty is educated and aware of the improvements we are developing to better our customer service both externally and internally.
We utilize student and graduate surveys to obtain feedback from our students about their experience with our school and the program in which they are enrolled. We then review this feedback and create a summary. From this summary, we are able to create an improvement plan based on this feedback. We currently do not follow-up these surveys with an email, thank you note, or meeting. In our circumstance, a class meeting may be our best option to follow-up on this feedback and let the students know what we are doing in response to their comments/concerns.
I want to stress the philosophy ‘it takes a village’. Everyone needs to be focused on student services. Enforcing the Top-Down approach is a great strategy as well as Educate Everyone Everywhere.
I would like to have some of the employees from ‘back office’ type position ‘ - Walk a Mile as a student and even as a front line employee as well.
I agree that surveys could be beneficial for immediate feedback. However, we do not get results as instructors asap. We cannot improve customer satisfaction without feedback from these.
Geri, Thank you for sharing in the forum. I want to make sure I understand what you mean by student report cards. Are these reports on the students, or by the students?
Elizabeth Wheeler
Student report cards I feel are an excellent tool.
Make sure good questions are asked and make sure the student feels they are helping.
Our institution utilizes surveys as well. They provide some interesting insights into how well the course information and instructor is received. Some of the questions are not terribly relevant, asking about how relevant the information they just learned will be to them in the field. Since they have never been in the field, they really have no way of knowing that. That having been said, they do portray a broad general overview of how things went in the class room.
Mary, Great awareness! The brain moves toward the positive, so celebrating the wins along the way will help your team keep going!
Elizabeth Wheeler
The strategy I will immediately incorporate is Recognizing Excellence every chance I get. The concept what get's recognized, get's done is simple but profound. As a manager, I don't celebrate the accomplishments of my team as often as I should. I am fortunate to have a great staff filled with a passion for changing lives through education. I need to say thanks and recognize their efforts more often.
One of the customer service strategy I will incorporate and use daily is the top down approach. I feel leadership must model the actions, behaviors, and expectations of the front line employees on a daily biases. This will improve customer service within the organization by demonstrating that everyone is accountable, regardless of their professional or organizational title.
Jamie, Great! What role do you play in the customer service training?
Dr. Jean Norris
Karen, Great idea! It's important that the institution is working together in a seamless fashion.
Dr. Jean Norris
I will be incorporating develop consistency to ensure each customer is treated with the same level of customer service. I am in the process of creating a virtual student support department for my college. I am in the process of hiring additional student mentors. I will be developing service standards to ensure that each customer received consistent customer service. These standards will set the customer expectations for each of the new student mentors.
Dr. Norris,
We are in the process of reviewing customer training options as a mandatory activity for all our staff and faculty. This is to "educate everyone!" We have realized that we do not all have the same concept of what great customer service is and that we need to fix that. We can then establish clear performance expectations and incorporate them into our daily activities and performance measures.
#3 Educate Everyone, Everywhere
I manage the front desk at our school. We have a small staff so I believe it is vital that everyone be trained in how to manage the front desk. We do that to some degree now.
The value to that is if I'm out on vacation or ill someone can step right in and keep things running consistently. Which in turn makes everything run smooth and keeps the students stress level to a minimum.
