Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Become a Super Service Hero:A Real Life and Real Time Customer Service Example of How to Do It!


There are times during a workshop when a trainer wonders if his or her work is going to lead to something or this is just a brochure. Yuh, a brochure. That's an event that allows the college or business to say well we did it. We had someone in to do some training so I guess we're all done. The same as when a school decides to tackle an issue like campus safety of diversity by printing a tri-fold brochure and make it available in some rack off is some dark corner.

These are both offshoots of the mission statement. The one that is printed in the catalog and forgotten about once it is printed.
"I mean, you’re not going to hold us to those high fallutin’ Seven Steps to Salvation mission statements about really caring about student learning, encouraging lifelong learning; providing close interaction among faculty, staff and students, to instill in its students an appreciation for the human condition, appreciate diversity in all forms, making student success than center of all we do…blah, blah, blah".

I mean, these are just for PR, advertising, pleasing trustees and accreditors and those sorts of purposes. Oh yes, well that’s true. Sometimes we use the mission as a reason why we can’t do something without any recourse to what it actually says.


Anyhow, sometimes when I am performing a workshop and urging people to embrace the techniques and ideas because I really believe what I am saying and besides as an ex-stand up comedian and president I still need an audience, I wonder if I am having any effect. Yes, I do make a living helping colleges, universities and businesses improve retention of students and customer service. But that’s not why I do all the traveling and work. I do it because I really believe what I say or write and I still feel I am a teacher. Now I try to teach whole institutions.Thus it is important that I feel I am making a change; having an effect.

So…well anyhow, here is an email I received from Shelby Wallace, my contact at a great and important school,
Norwich University, where I did a workshop a couple weeks back. Most importantly, this is how it should be done. The author of the email did it perfectly and is an example for us all.In so doing, she became a customer service super hero. Here's how she did and how you can do it too. Please feel free to use this as a how-to for your colleagues and others.

Dear Shelby,

I would like to relate a first-hand incident that occurred last Thursday night, May 21, 2009, just one day after I heard Dr. Neil Raisman speak on Customer Service and Retention at the Staff In-service Day.

Both his main session and the 9:30 AM breakout sessions I attended made me more acutely aware of our students circumstances and how I do my job as one of the Assistant Bursar’s at the University can have a significant impact on our students at NU.

Our family decided that night, due to the extreme heat, I would stop at the Northfield Village Pizza on my way home to Barre and pick up a pizza “to go” for dinner. I arrived at the Pizza place to pick-up my order and while I waited, another employee of Norwich University… came in and sat down at the counter just two seats from me. He struck up a conversation with one of the wait-staff(whom he knew) and then asked her “What are you doing tomorrow?” She said, “I have to go to JACKMAN”. Well, the look on her face and the way in which she said those words, INSTANTLY made my ears perk up. He then asked her where in Jackman and she told him the Bursar’s Office.
I knew I could not just ignore what was happening and decided to take action. …turned to me as he knew where I was employed and I immediately turned to the waitress and said “My name is Loriann Lajeunesse and I work in the Bursar’s Office; what is your name and would you please explain your situation as I may be able to help.” She told me her name and she explained to me her frustration with summer school and the difficulty in securing a loan to pay for her classes which were to begin on Tuesday, May 26.

I asked her for her contact information including email and cell phone and told her I would do my best to look into this tomorrow morning as soon as I got to the office. She thanked me. The expression on her face conveyed to me she was more optimistic than when the conversation began 10 minutes earlier.

In closing, the next day turned out very successful for this student. After I made a few phone calls to VSAC (her lender), the student and her dad I was able to secure funding for her first session of summer school.

She was very grateful and I really felt like I was able to put to good use the information given just one day before from Dr. Raisman’s sessions.

Thank you.

Sincerely,


Loriann B. Lajeunesse
Norwich University

Congrats to Loriann for doing it right and helping that student. Not only did she assist the student and her family, she cemented the ties between her and probably a dozen others with the good name and image of the University. Remember, a good deed will be repeated over and over so the value of providing good customer service travels and lives on. So when people are sitting around and trading collegiate battle stories, the student and her family, friends and acquaintances will chime in with “well, that might have been the case at your school, but at Norwich, they have people like Loriann Lajeunesse who really know how to make students feel welcome and valued.”

This is the way to do it. This is the core of good academic customer service. And yes Loriann was in one of my workshops but I am willing to bet that she would have done what she did even if she hadn’t. Good people do good things. Let’s hope her example will inspire others.


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

Monday, June 15, 2009

Why Students Leave Your College Update - What Can be Learned from For-Profits

Why Students Are Leaving Your College or University

Things are changing rapidly in our society, economy and campuses. The status quo has starting to become more of the status qua? What was truth, fact or really more belief and certainty are being replaced by new realities. And those realities have even started to be felt on college campuses where we all worked so hard not to let change in even though we felt perfectly at ease telling everyone what they needed to change.

The old we always do it that way is being replaced with, well, we can’t do it that way any more. And it really did not work then but we let it go because there was enough money around to let you resist change. Now…not so much. We also need to shelve the oh yuh, well we tried that a few years ago. Didn’t work. That dodge to change will not cut it as we go forward. Just ask the ex-employees and programs no longer on campus.

We have to be open to trying new things when things start to show us that the old has been replaced or is on the way there. It would be normal for a harangue now about the need to shift from a student intake culture to a retention culture; from a focus on admissions to one on population and enrollment. But that will wait because as an annual study of why students leave colleges (that includes universities, career colleges and community colleges) an interesting shift became quickly noted. So instead of waiting until the study is completed and wait to publish in the fall because we always do it that way, we needed to get this information out now. This might allow some schools to start to apply it and maybe save some enrollment.


For the past six years, AcademicMAPS has studied why students leave college. The results have been rather constant over the years with a shift of a percentage point or two. It seemed to hold that 72% of all students left school for academic customer service focused reasons. Here’s the new chart from our preliminary study June 2008



And here is the previous chart published in 2008.


We would have expected that financially motivated dropping would have risen significantly. That was not what we found. Though it could be argued that the major shift in “not worth it” is in part a financial decision. However the larger parts of the category do appear to be a combination of “poor service and treatment” and “College does not care”. These are combined with a sense of “I am wasting my time” and money.

The major beneficiaries of the increase in the belief that cost in time and money is not worth it have been the career colleges. What?


Career colleges???!!! For-profits??? They aren’t as good as us. We provide a better education. They don’t even do research!


Okay, two points here. First, a good college is a good college no matter whether it be not-for-profit or for-profit. And, a bad college or one that does not care enough about its students is a bad college whether it loses money or makes money.


BTW, do you know what the major difference is between a good not-for-profit and a good for-profit is? Accounting systems – fund accounting versus cash accrual. In a not-for-profit, extra money at the end of the year is called “fund balance, carryover, surplus”. In a career college it is called “profit”. And yes, a for-profit can have a loss as well as a not-for-profit. And a not-for-profit can generate a profit…uhhhh fund balance.


The good career colleges are often the ones that make money. How? One of their major focuses is on not just enrolling students, but retaining them. Successful for-profits have realized that retention is the real key to success. The more students they can retain, the more students graduate, get degrees, get jobs and help the school make a profit. This is clearly a lesson more not-for-profit schools need to learn. Not cut budgets but retain students.


Second, which is also important to retention success, a good career college does perform research but into its students and their needs or wants. For-profits actually focus on the students. And many they have learned that if students do not feel their investment will provide a good ROI, they are out of there. That’s why a good for-profit provides a good education first and foremost, celebrates students even with free food and recognition ceremonies, and provide two things that make the usually high financial investment worth it. One – a quick 18 or 36 month to degree. Two – real career and placement services that make a job probable not just possible.


If colleges want to retain more students, they will need to focus on making their education and student experience more valuable. That means learn from good career colleges and focus on making the full student experience worthwhile.


Here are a couple other what we can learn from good for-profit colleges. If success and possibly a fund balance are of any interest.

Increasing Enrollment Through Stitches


Increasing Enrollment Success Through Buying Committees

and one for all with some lessons from career colleges

Ten Steps to Retention Success

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