Wednesday, November 25, 2009

To Be Grateful


As we thought about all the things we have to be thankful for this year, we realized that we had many blessings. We have had a very busy year helping colleges, universities,career and community colleges as well as major businesses increase student retention and success. We have met thousands of new friends and clients during campus service audits, presentations, training sessions and workshops.

The word on customer service and retention is getting out more strongly than ever. We've had 936 requests for copies of The 15 Principles of Good Academic Customer Service this year. Our new book The Power of Retention:More Customer Service has sold out its first run first which we are all grateful. Another book Customer Service Factors and the Cost of Attrition has sold out completely and is now available only in the digital form. The publisher The Administrative Bookshelf has asked us to update and expand before a new run. Embrace The Oxymoron from way back in 2002 continues to sell well for its publisher. A new three-volume set The Business of Higher Education by Knapp and Siegel has a summative article by Dr. Raisman on academic customer service.

Academic customer service is being embraced by more and more schools so more and more students have an opportunity to succeed. For all of that we are grateful.

But what we are most grateful for are you. The 6518 monthly readers of our blog/zine. For you and all the good people who get copied on our articles and the wonderful people who put the ideas into action THANK YOU.

2 comments:

Matt said...

Hi Neal,

Love the blog. Quick question: how does international education factor into retention? Do students who travel from the other side of the world to attend college in the United States retain at any better rates?

Neal Raisman - NRaisman & Associates said...

question. One I admit I need some help with datat from schools to fully answer so if any readers can help us out - please send what you have on international students and retention.

That said, there are two major groups of internationals - those just here for an experiential year and those here for a degree. Let's not concern ourselves at all with the experiential.

The literature indicates as does my experience that international students are very motivates, have an official college-provided base resource and people to be in touch with and gain assistance, tend to form cohesive groups for support. obtain informal support from the community and this tend to stay in school. Unless, there are either financial or language issues that force them to leave.

Would love to hear from others on the topic of international retention.