Thursday, April 30, 2009

From Geek to Hero - A Free On-Line Seminar for Improving IT Customer Service



From Geek                      To Hero      

FREE 60 minutes on-line seminar  

May 6, 12:00-1:00 EST

Presented by Neal Raisman, the leading expert on customer service and retention

 

Sponsored by The Administrators Bookshelf

publisher of Dr. Raisman’s best seller –The Power of Retention

 

IT professionals have acquired an image of geeks - somewhat odd people who do not always touch earth while living in a parallel universe with its own communication and sense of service to customers. Many IT clients and customers complain. They say their needs and wishes are not always met. Moreover, they often state that they receive terrible service from IT people.  In fact, in some institutions, IT is rated as one of the problem areas rather than the solution providers they could and ought to be.

 

But then what would one expect from…geeks.

 

Well, we are going to help turn geeks into heroes with some help in how to best provide customer service to clients and customers, particularly academic clients life faculty, administrators, staff and yes, students.

 

Discover how IT professionals can improve their customer service and interactions with all the denizens within academic environments so they can be better appreciated, reduce stress and get the job done with more smiles and fewer grumbles.

 

Who should attend? Anyone who wants to improve customer service with technology especially IT professionals. There isn’t anyone out there who does not seem to need to provide better technology-based customer service.

Cost?  FREE. 

Click Here to Register

 

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Customer Service, Communication and Castles

academic customer service, customer service, The Power of Retention, graduation, student success
Many of the causes for poor customer service at an institution can be resolved in part through better communication. This is an issue for all academic institutions. As colleges and universities have grown and become more complex, we tend to know less of what others do, are doing and plan to do. We also have fewer chances to interact and learn since our jobs become busier and more demanding just as the need to integrate and share information becomes greater.

Moreover, technology, especially email, makes us all believe we are communicating when we send a message through technology. We generally are not communicating since we end up with a flood of emails and discriminating which we should read becomes difficult. Most people do not read most emails and eliminate or ignore many they should read. But since we believe that by sending an email we have completed a communication, we do not get up from our desks and actually interact. No need to. I just mailed it.


Additionally, as the work becomes more demanding, we focus on what we need to get done and may lose sight of the flow of functions across offices, Our focus is on my area and its work. So we end up making decisions to assure they affect our area best without regard, or at least enough regard, for other areas.


Liege Lords of Higher Education

It is often the case that as long as things appear to be going okay and there are no obvious problems or calamities, those in the chain of command are busy enough themselves to not rock the boat. They leave things and people to do their work in isolation since that is easier. This leads to what are called “silos” in the business literature. In higher education, offices and people in some schools have been left alone to follow their own initiative enough that they don’t live in silos but in a castle. Many even have metaphorical or institutionalized moats made out of procedures, paperwork and technology they chose without regard for integrating it with the rest of the MIS system. The directors or managers of the area becomes like a liege lords with a show of loyalty to the school or president but will rule their land as they wish.


Presidents often have to manage and accommodate their lords and ladies so they don’t rebel and lead a revolt. Presidents hate rebellions. Weakness on the part of the president makes the office and division lords stronger yet. And worse for customer service considerations, to keep the castle free from disturbances, some offices take the meanest dog in the office and make it the receptionist to scare of intruders, i.e. students and colleagues.


At many colleges and universities there are some very strong liege lords. They take care of their operation in a way that suits them best. They may make decisions that will meet their own objectives without regard for the colleagues and offices that their work is “handed off to”. They may also make decisions that please their office more than the customers since castles are essentially focused within the walls in which they exist. Customers, students in particular, become seen as an interruption or a nuisance. Colleagues might have to be tended to differently because one lord might need an alliance to defend against a proclamation that might force changes or some loss of control.


The Castle and Their Keep(aways)

This an administrator’s castle is MY home can often be seen in the physical layout of offices. The offices are set up to accommodate the workers while the customer is provided very little, and often inconvenient space for a proper reception or interaction with staff. One of the best examples of the physical castle with moat can be found in most bursar offices. There is a physical wall between the staff and customer. This wall is made to look strong and heavy. The wall is interrupted by thick, very thick solid sheets of glass that may be broken only by small round holes or perhaps a slot at the bottom. Customers are forced to speak through the holes or slots sort of like prisoners in a lock-up. But this is really more of a lock-in and lock you out.


Bursars will tell you that they need the protection in case someone tried to rob them. There is money back there after all. The thick bulletproof glass would keep the people in the office safe. Okay. But what about the customers in the hall? All the situation does is place them in greater danger. What would stop a robber from grabbing students or colleagues, holding the gun on them and demanding money for their safety? Well, but we inside are safe!


Perhaps I am wrong here but it seems that placing a student into a position in which he or she can be held hostage or even harmed on campus may not be viewed as good customer service.


The fortified walls and all are really just to show the importance of the people in- side and protect them from the customers who might want to actually get better service. Even banks have done away with the thick glass and all because it was getting in the way of being able to provide better customer service. From being able to try to form a mini-momentary community of two with the customer. From being able to engage the customer better. But offices that are set up for the staff do not want to engage. They wish to disengage.


Customers are often made to wait for a break in the staff’s activity to even be recognized. Receptionists or people who may be positioned in a reception location seldom look up to greet and welcome a customer or visitor to the office. Greetings are preemptory, even curt at times as if purposely conveying that the person is inconveniencing them. This makes students feel unwanted, unappreciated and even angry. As one student stated, “they don’t seem to care or give a @#$% that I am paying their salary.” A sure statement of someone who has experienced staff indifference and poor service-two major factors in attrition.


Furthermore, some offices do not provide colleagues in other offices with what they need to do their jobs well. Schedules for accomplishing tasks may not jive. Information requested from students as part of the process may not be what is needed later in another office so students are often asked for more or even the same information if it is not shared. One office may not be able to complete required paperwork if the previous functional area has not completed its work so a student can enroll or pay a bill


Finally, with people living in their own fiefdoms, not knowing what another office does or who does it, students are forced to engage in a continuous shuffle from one office to another as they try to accomplish a required or wanted task. The shuffle or the run around seems to be a constant of student life at every college and university. Students report at every school that they are almost always sent to at least three offices when trying to get a simple task done. The offices may also be in the academic areas it should be noted since there is an apparent divide between the academic and non-academic silos.


Starting the Siege to Tear Castles Down

Begin by setting consistent institutional customer service standards on simple things such as proper telephone and personal greeting, time in which all emails and voice mails should be responded to, time to recognizing a visitor to an office, physical structures, reception areas, etc. Then create a functional workflow process and diagram that integrates all offices around the needs of students and one another.


For example, one diagram should follow a student from application through to showing up on first day of classes. Every step in the process should be charted and a responsibility center indicated. Dates by which the work needs to be accomplished for smooth integration with the next office should be noted. Any paperwork needed should be indicated and by whom it needs to be received as well as if information on it needs to go to another office. Review all forms to make sure they integrate material and assist not only the originating office but the next one. And be certain they are really needed or are we just making students and families do extra work so we can have our personal form?


Finally, students, the customers must always come first. Make sure that every step is streamlined to require the least amount of time and effort for the student and the family first. Second, that every step is needed and in compliance. Third, that every step is understood and integrated by all other offices and people involved. Fourth, whenever possible all material, forms, information and data should be entered into a single, integrated MIS. This could also allow for increased customer service by letting the system pre-fill all and any areas on forms such as name, address, etc that a student might have to complete. Any time we can remove additional repetitive work for a customer, the happier they will be. This can also be accomplished for colleagues if the information is in an integrative data base.


Workflow diagrams can be made for any and all processes that need to be accomplished in the administration of the school and students. Creating them will bring people together into teams. Force them to work together. Help them learn what others do. And perhaps, start taking chunks out of the walls of the silos so people can start to gain a larger integrated vision of the college.

FAQ User Sheets and School User Manuals

Schools may also wish to consider putting together FAQ sheets of the most frequent student issues or questions in each office. Ask the people who work in each office to compile a list of the most common student concerns or questions as well as the common ones that are asked but do not apply to their office. Once compiled, these can be turned into an indexed School User Manual (Our University for Non-Dummies?) that students and employees could access to find answers to their questions. These could be used also to find answers to issues or needs students have but may not be specific to the office. In turn, the manual would provide people in each office with information to know the answers to many common student questions so they could direct students to the correct location for an answer. A user manual could also be the basis for giving people the information needed to end the shuffle.


Moreover, all these efforts can start to tear down walls caused by lack of communication. Interaction is the best way to get people to learn about and know who one another is and what they do. As a result, this can and will improve performance, satisfaction and service to one another and students.

IF THIS ARTICLE MAKES SENSE TO YOU, YOU WILL WANT TO OBTAIN A COPY OF THE BEST-SELLING NEW BOOK ON RETENTION AND ACADEMIC CUSTOMER SERVICE THE POWER OF RETENTION: MORE CUSTOMER SERVICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION by clicking here

AcademicMAPS is the leader in increasing student retention, enrollment and revenue through research training and academic customer service solutions for colleges, universities and career colleges in the US, Canada, and Europe as well as businesses that seek to work with them
We increase your success
Contact Us Today


“We had hoped we’d improve our retention by 3% but with the help of Dr. Raisman, we increased it by 5%.” Rachel Albert, Provost, University of Maine-Farmington

“Neal led a retreat that initiated customer service and retention as a real focus for us and gave us a clear plan. Then he followed up with presentations and workshops that kicked us all into high gear. We recommend with no reservations; just success.” Susan Mesheau, Executive Director U First: Integrated Recruitment & Retention University of New Brunswick

“Thank you so much for the wonderful workshop at Lincoln Technical Institute. It served to re-center ideas in a great way. I perceived it to be a morale booster, breath of fresh air, and a burst of passion.”
Shelly S, Lincoln Technical Institute


Thursday, April 09, 2009

Retain Students Retain Budgets University Business April 2009





Retain Students  Retain Budgets: A How To

By Neal A. Raisman

President, Academicmaps

April 2009

           

Hardly a day goes by without a college announcing jobs, programs, or spending cuts. You would think with all the brainpower at our colleges and universities they would be able to come up with better solutions than lopping off people, sections and services to students. But they don’t seem to. Why not?

 

For organizations preparing students and society for the future, we seem to still be stuck in the past, at least when it comes to thinking about enrollment. The churn and burn of continually bringing new students through the front door, and then just watching them go out the back door, is killing college enrollments and individual and institutional futures. As students drop out, budgets, employment, positions, benefits, class sections, services and the ability to meet the educational mission get cut. Tuition and fees go up.

 

The average college, university, or career college loses between 30 to 48 percent of its enrollment each year. That means schools also lose the tuition, fees and state/federal support that walk out the door with lost students: 30 to 48 percent of it. Some colleges and universities have retention rates as low as 20 percent. Eighty percent of their student body leaves the school and takes almost all the budget with them. These are publicly-assisted schools for the most part because if they did not get assistance they would be out of business. They are the AIGs of higher education and their stimulus packages are not changing anything for them or their students. They seem to accept failure which is something they, their students and our society cannot afford.

 

They, and we, do not have to accept failure. There is something we can do about it, strengthen our students’ success, faculty morale, and stabilize if not increase budgets.

 

Figuring Your Own Revenue Loss

 

The exact amount that your school is losing can be easily calculated using Customer Service Factor 1, which calculates dollars lost due to attrition. The following is an excerpt from The Power of Retention: More Customer Service in Higher Education.

 

Here it is: CSF1 = [(P X A= SL) X T]

 

In the formula, P represents the total school population; not just the starting fall freshman number. Most schools use the fall incoming freshmen number and that is an error. The assumption is that attrition occurs most in the first six weeks of the freshman year. That may have some validity for the freshman year but the reality is that students are leaving colleges and universities in any one of the average six-plus years of a four-year degree and in the four-plus average years of a two-year degree. Students leave a school throughout their experience at the college. In fact, some schools are beginning to realize this and worry about the sophomore bubble. But they really need to worry about the super soph sluff, the rising junior jilt, the junior jump, super junior split, the fourth year flee and so on. Every year, every semester, in fact every day is a chance for a student to drop out. Colleges need to be concerned with every student every day of their attendance, for it could be his or her last. So we look at the total population.

 

Annualized tuition is the number a school should use to figure its real attrition. Not the retention between the first and second semester and the freshman and sophomore years, which are very popular ones. That leaves out all the students who already dropped out before the end of the second term or semester. That number fudges failure. For instance, if a college began a year with 100 new freshman and 99 left in week one but the remaining student stayed the whole year and returned for a sophomore year, the freshman to sophomore percentage would be 100 percent.

 

In CSF1, A equals attrition. Again not just from freshman but an annualized attrition rate. And this rate is to include ALL students who leave for any reason. It does not matter if the student says he or she will be back. They are not in the population bringing in revenue until they actually do return. If they pay a place holding fee, that does not count them as a student until they are actually back in classes.

 

Fudge with the numbers if you have a need for delusion or are insecure, unethical or want to keep the Board feeling better, but when you use the formulas, be fully honest. It will help you understand why the budget is not working or may suddenly implode. No one likes surprises, especially ones that have parentheses around them in the budget and lead to freezes, cuts and the like. Using the formulas honestly can help forecast a reality to avoid surprises and initiate work on retaining students to maintain fiscal and operating health.

 

SL stands for students lost annually from total population and revenue production. And T equals annual tuition at the school. So here is what showed up when we analyzed CSF1 for Mammon University. You may know it. Its motto is Omnes Por Pecunia. Anything for a Buck.

 

Its total population was 500 students annualized attrition was at 39.6 percent. So SL (students lost annually) was 198. Times an annual tuition of $13,000.

 

So, the formula becomes: [(500 x 39.6% = 198) x $13,000] = a revenue loss of ($2,574,000).

 

To carry this forward, we can plug in other numbers and see how an increase in retention could add to the bottom line and thus the ability to pay for full time faculty, staff, their benefits, increases for adjuncts, instructional equipment, tutors, research release, new curricula and programs, maintenance, and so on. All those pesky costs that make a college or university better.

 

If attrition dropped by 5 percent for this school, and we substitute 5 percent increased retention for attrition percentage in the formula. CSF1 = [(500 x 5% = 25) x 13,000] = $325,000 more revenue.

 

Focusing on Retention and Academic Customer Service Are the Answer

 

Most of the billions of dollars out of college budgets and lost futures can be avoided. All a college, university or career college needs to do is engage is some real academic customer service which in its simplest form is treating students as if they really do matter. Like they're your clients. Academic customer service starts with as strong a focus and effort on retaining students as expended enrolling them in the first place. It costs your school at least $5,640 to recruit a student. Why lose them by not expending some inexpensive time and about $25 to $50 a student to keep them?

 

Academic customer service is not like the forced smile of an underpaid clerk in a store. College is not a retail store. In higher education, the client can be wrong. Just look at test scores. But students want to feel as if they are valued and important. Students and their families want what the schools have promised but do not always deliver – fair return on significant investments of money, time, emotion and association with the institution. They invest large sums of money and time as well as belief and faith in our marketing promises and sales pitches through recruitment. We really do sell them on the school and promises. Colleges must invest the same in our students – our customers/clients.

 

Colleges sell themselves as if they were Cheers U where everyone knows your name and everyone’s glad you came. And the students really expect to feel as if people in the school do know their name and really do care about them. Students may be Cliff or Norm in real life but want to feel as if they belong on campus; as if you really do care about them and their success, their value, but it needs to start now if your school wants to save its budget.

 

An Example from One State

 

In Ohio where I consult with the chancellor for example, the average non-graduation rate for all colleges and universities is about 48 percent over six years. That means the average Ohio college or university loses up to almost half of its population. The average state-assisted four-year schools have a slightly higher 53 percent six-year attrition rate. These are four-year or more selective schools. They choose who can be accepted; who they believe is capable of succeeding. Community college attrition rates are higher but they are non-selective. They accept any student who wishes to try to succeed and that is going to open them up to much greater attrition.

 

The cost of attrition to students who leave (most drop out rather than flunk out by the way) is extremely high for them, our society and culture. Most leave feeling as if they failed in some way even though 72 percent usually leave because of what has been identified as weak to poor academic customer service. Their educational and personal needs were not met. Many dropouts also use their college savings, financial aid and ability to obtain a college loan. Many will not go back to school. They become part of the State’s employment problem.

 

When students drop out and do not graduate, the schools lose their ability to meet their educational mission as well as their chance to assist people and our state to meet career and intellectual goals. And they lose millions of dollars a year; something neither individuals not taxpayers can afford.

 

It costs an average of about $6,000 to recruit, enroll and process each new college or university student. So, every student who leaves takes at least $12,000 out the door with him or her. The dropping student takes the $6,000 average financial investment the school made to recruit and enroll him or her initially. The lost student must also be replaced so that will cost another $6,000 recruitment and enrollment cost. Since not every drop out is replaced immediately, tuition revenue is also lost equal to the number of dropouts times tuition cost.

 

Ohio’s state four-year has a total of 182,631 undergraduate students who drop out at an average six-year rate of 55.26 percent. That is within a few percentage points of the national average. Tuition ranges from a high of $12,033 to a low of $5,294. The average tuition is $7,911. As a result, Ohio lost an average $115,678,232 a year over the past six years for a six-year total revenue loss from attrition of $694,069,390.

 

So, focusing more on helping students stay and graduate would have significant results for individual states, the nation, its citizens and economy. Not that Ohio or any other state or its colleges and universities could use additional money and more college grads. Just by making retention at least as important as admissions. This change would require colleges to change their thinking to turn churn and burn into learn earn.

 

Could this happen? Yes! In fact, right now Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut is getting ready to recommend a new higher education funding formula that will reward results based on specific performance measures. The new formula will focus on retention and on graduates rather than fall numbers reflecting new freshmen and current start population for all of the State colleges. This funding formula will make each student important enough to do deliver the service and focus for every student a college accepts to assist them to earn a graduation. This is a bold and needed move that will have long term positive effects for the state colleges and universities and Ohio. It could and should become a model nationally as well.

 

Focusing on Retention and Academic Customer Service Are An Answer

 

Most of the billions of dollars out of college budgets and lost futures can be avoided. All a college, university or career college needs to do is engage is some real academic customer service which in its simplest form is treating students as if they really do matter. Like they're your clients. Academic customer service starts with as strong a focus and effort on retaining students as expended enrolling them in the first place. It costs your school at least $5,640 to recruit a student. Why lose them by not expending some inexpensive time and about $25-50 a student to keep them?

 

Academic customer service is not like the forced smile of an underpaid clerk in a store. College is not a retail store. In higher education, the client can be wrong. Just look at test scores. But students want to feel as if they are valued and important. Students and their families want what the schools have promised but do not always deliver – fair return on significant investments of money, time, emotion and association with the institution. They invest large sums of money and time as well as belief and faith in our marketing promises and sales pitches through recruitment. We really do sell them on the school and promises. Colleges must invest the same in our students – our customers/clients.

 

Colleges sell themselves as if they were Cheers U where everyone knows your name and everyone’s glad you came and the students really expect to feel as if people in the school do know their name and really do care about them. Students may be Cliff or Norm in real life but want to feel as if they belong on campus; as if you really do care about them and their success, their value as defined by reaching their goal of graduation and a job.

 

To help kick start some thinking on retention, here are

10 steps you can start today to improve retention and improve finances on your campus:

 

1. Use the 15 Principles of Good Academic Customer Service. These are the basics for most all of it. Don’t just put them on the wall. Use them. Train to them and then assess how they are used. If you would like a copy, just contact me.

 

2. Everyday is day 1. Make everyday the first day of classes. Students decide to return each day so create the excitement and provide the help you gave students the first days of the term each and every day.

 

3. Turn your school into Cheers University where everyone knows your name and everyone’s glad you came. Give everyone the greeting Norm gets and even make room for the Cliffs of the world.

 

4. Smile and at least make believe you like students. It sooner or later becomes a reality. It may be hard to learn the right way to do it but smile damn you smile anyhow.

 

5. Orient for success. Provide students skills they will need to succeed at the school. Spend the orientation time on money management, time management, study skills and getting focused on careers. If you need help, let me know. We have some modular curricula.

 

6. Throw out lifelines. Make sure students know where and how to use help like counselors and advising. Don’t have your own, hire an external group to do it.

 

7. Do or get a customer service audit of your campus and then make needed changes to improve. Not sure what to check out, click here.

 

8. Listen to students and all employees. Not just faculty and administrators.

 

9. Make academic customer service part of the culture. Make your campus a caring, concerned and civil place for students and all employees. Reward and recognize service and institute.

 

10. Focus not on recruiting but graduating students.

 

 

Dr. Neal Raisman, PhD, author of The Power of Retention and two other books on academic customer service and retention, is the leading researcher, writer and consultant on retention and academic customer service. He has worked with more than 260 colleges, universities and career schools in the United States, Canada and Europe. His zine, www.academicmaps.blogspot.com, is viewed by more than 26,000 academics and businesspeople a month.


IF THIS ARTICLE MAKES SENSE TO YOU, YOU WILL WANT TO OBTAIN A COPY OF THE BEST-SELLING NEW BOOK ON RETENTION AND ACADEMIC CUSTOMER SERVICE THE POWER OF RETENTION: MORE CUSTOMER SERVICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION by clicking here

AcademicMAPS is the leader in increasing student retention, enrollment and revenue through research training and academic customer service solutions for colleges, universities and career colleges in the US, Canada, and Europe as well as businesses that seek to work with them 
We increase your success
Contact Us Today


“We had hoped we’d improve our retention by 3% but with the help of Dr. Raisman, we increased it by 5%.” Rachel Albert, Provost, University of Maine-Farmington

“Neal led a retreat that initiated customer service and retention as a real focus for us and gave us a clear plan. Then he followed up with presentations and workshops that kicked us all into high gear. We recommend with no reservations; just success.” Susan Mesheau, Executive Director U First: Integrated Recruitment & Retention University of New Brunswick

“Thank you so much for the wonderful workshop at Lincoln Technical Institute. It served to re-center ideas in a great way. I perceived it to be a morale booster, breath of fresh air, and a burst of passion.” 
Shelly S, Lincoln Technical Institute