Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Guaranteeing Student Retention and Academic Customer Service

Academic Customer service, student retention, customer service,
The AcademicMAPS Guarantee
After much discussion and self-study, Great Service Matters/AcademicMAPS has decided not just to help colleges, universities, career and community colleges. We have decided to guarantee our assistance and its results.
Budgets are tight and schools need to be sure they will really get value for their investment. Just as students expect a good return on their investment, we want to assure our clients they can be guaranteed a solid ROI when they hire us to work with them. That is simply ethical and good customer service.
It may strike some as unusual to guarantee our services but then guarantees are nothing new to me. Back in the early 1990's I led the college I was president of to offer a guarantee. Yup. That's right, we guaranteed that we would do what we said we would. I figured that if you got a guarantee with a toaster a student should get something more than a promise with a college degree.
And now, we are offering a guarantee with our work and services to our clients.
If we do not succeed in helping a college, university, community college, career college, school or a business client increase its retention and thus its population and revenue, we will return any fees paid to us for our work.
All we ask is that the school actually implement at least the two major retention and/or academic customer service solutions we provide in a workshop and/or implement an agreed upon set of findings from an audit.
That’s it. Just do what you and we agreed should and could be done from the assistance you paid us to provide.
If you do so and retention does not increase, we will refund any and all fees,
New Fairer Fee Structure Too!
We have also have decided to change our fee structure to be even fairer, clearer and based on what it is we and you are so appropriately focused upon – student retention and success. It also takes into account the per student revenue received from each student at a school. We will not have a set fee but one that fluctuates based on a school's annualized per student tuition. This will work to allow the school to also better gauge its and our success.
We work with colleges to save and retain students. Retention is a student by student issue and each additional student retained equals a set amount of money. Each school has a different student tuition. So our fees should recognize that and not just charge everyone the same. This way finally is fairer since schools with lower tuition will actually be paying less under the new system and certainly less than they would have under the old fee structure.
Besides, it is not fees any of us should focus on but students and their success.
So here is the structure.
Full Campus Customer Service and/or Retention Audits
Category Fee equals the annual per student tuition
Private colleges and universities 2 students
Public colleges and universities 2.5 students
Community colleges 4 students
Career Colleges 2 students

Workshops and presentations
Category Fee equals the one semester/term tuition for
Private colleges and universities 0.5 student
Public colleges and universities 1 student
Community colleges 1.5 students
Career Colleges 0.5 student.


Other services such as research, surveys, training will be determined based on the scope of the work but will be guided by the categories above.
We also realize that there will be a few schools that will need to be considered for a scholarship due to their particular circumstances. We will of course consider the actual situation of each school and if it is appropriate, we will adjust appropriately.
Our guarantee will be in place for all our work indifferent to whatever fee is agreed upon.
Books and Presentation Special Pricing
The Administrator's Bookshelf which publishes my book The Power of Retention: More Customer Service in Higher Education has agreed to repeat its special offer to pay for a workshop or presentation when a school makes a bulk purchase of books. Here is the Administrator's Bookshelf's offer.
For any school, college, university, business or conference that purchases 25 or more copies at a 20% off cost to make things even easier, Dr. Raisman will provide a one-hour audio seminar on any topic you choose or wish. We will also help out by dropping S+H to just $2 per copy.
If a school or other purchases 50 or more copies and hires Dr. Raisman to give a workshop or seminar on-site, we will pay for his travel expenses and provide a follow-up seminar on any topic of your choice.
If a school or other purchases 100 or more copies and hires Dr. Raisman to give a workshop or seminar on-site, we will pay half his fee.
For much less than the value of retaining just one more student, you and your school will save as much as $5,000, get copies of the Power of Retention and Dr. Raisman’s services, and increase you present and future success.
And Dr. Raisman will provide a year of telephone consultation for free. We will also help out by dropping S+H in the United States to just $2 per copy for up to 50 copies and a dollar each for over 50 copies instead of the usual $4.95.
To take advantage of this special arrangement, click here and enter SXO after your name on the order form.
If you have any additional ideas to make the structure fairer, please let us know.
We hope this guarantee and approach will take the concern out of moving forward to increase
For more information or details about our guarantee, services and/or solutions just call 413.219.6939 or email at info@GreatServiceMatters.com

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