Somehow,
administrators think that customer service is like taxes – something
for others but not me. “Sure we need more of it but I don’t think I
should have to be the one to have give up any of my time
or concern.
Customer service, that’s for those who earn less than than I do".) And the more the
administrator makes, the less he or she thinks customer service training
is something needed. “Customer service is something needed by those who
work directly with students and…..” Uh, anyone see a flaw in that
reasoning?
Yet
that sort of logic (illogic) is at play in almost every college or
university we work with to improve retention through academic customer
service. Training is needed by so-called front line people not those who
manage or supervise them and everyone else. Too many
administrators do not see themselves, and probably aren’t, working with
and making direct contact with students on a daily basis. They hide out
in their offices and go to meetings to talk about what needs to be done
for and to the students without really identifying with their primary
customers.
Oh
sure, part of the reason is that the administrators do not see students
as their primary customers. For example, presidents see the faculty and
trustees as the most important customers in the old academic caste system. Faculty and trustees were classes to please and keep holy. That
is a system that was also thought to guarantee the president’s position
and job but often backfired when the budget started into the red zone.
Faculty empowered by their attention started to fight change. And in today’s university and college are not merely go into the red zone, they are bleeding red everywhere.
Presidents, boards and administrators need to embrace two things: 1) the new caste
approach and 2) their role in customer service. To survive in the new
world in which students go to the head of the caste, administrators need
to realize that the old college order is ending a new one is being born
– one in which students and their success are number one in maintaining
stability and revenue. Certainly grants will bring in some large
revenue sources as one time money that will come and then disappear
leaving more costs behind in their wake to maintain what the grant
originally set up. Moreover, grants do not normally go to the general
fund to run the school.
What
does go to general fund? Tuition and fees. And where do tuition and
fees come from – students. I have left out public support since that is
not a reliable revenue source and with the pledges to cut state and
national costs, it looks like most every college or university will
sooner than later be running as if it were a private institution –
living or drying up on tuition, fees and endowments.
That
means that students will start to return to their position as important
people on campus as they are on many private schools and some privates.
This also means that the administration will need to make direct contact with students on a regular basis
to make sure that their decisions will have positive impacts on the
most important customer base – students. This is not to say that some of
the more successful college administrators do not already do that. Gordon Gee for instance, when he was
president of Ohio State University, got out among the
students every day and even some nights. They know him and his presence
says they count. Enrollment and retention went up at OSU.
So
administrators who see academic customer service as something for
others but not for them are wrong and actually have always been wrong.
Customer service is not something for one group of people to do, it is a
philosophy, an approach to success and a core aspect of institutional
culture if it is to work – really work.
Consider that the president’s primary job is to represent, to embody a sense of the institution. He
or she is the symbol of the school that everyone looks to as if he or
she were the school. When the public wants to hear from the school, they
go to the president for example. The day-to-day work is really not done
by the president. It is done by everyone else from the provost, vice
presidents and on up to the clerical staff. That is why
the president can go off campus so often and the place still keeps
running just as well (and sometimes better) than when he or she were
holed up in and office or meeting. As an ex-president I can say now (but
not when I was presidenting) that the least important position to getting the work of the university done is the president except in setting the tone and character of the campus culture and direction.
That
setting the tone is a big job though. It is in fact, the most important
one when it comes to focusing the institution. And since student success is what the campus is all about in the eyes of the public
as well as most importantly in the mind and heart of the bill payers –
students – it should be the primary role of the president to set a tone
that focuses on students and their success. That be in keeping with any
mission statement that exists, (I mean whose mission statement does not
have some self-serving clause about students are our business, our only
business except for….)
Moreover,
since the president will be blamed for fiscal problems, it should be
the role of the president to do inculcate a focus on what can increase
revenue. And what is the primary source of consistent, reliable revenue – tuition and fees. And these come from what? Students.
So administrators should be all about students and student success at the school. Why success? Because the churn and burn approach
of front loading tuition does not work. Front loading? Looking at new
or starting enrollment and planning on a large attrition loss rather
than focusing on retention. Most schools plan to lose thousand, hundreds
of thousand even millions of revenue dollars in attrition and think
that’s okay because they planned for it. They build student and
institutional failure into the budget. That is simply dumb and even
worse, unnecessary.
If
the school focused on student success which has academic customer
service at its core, it could and would succeed in keeping as much as 84% of the lost attrition revenue.
If the president and administrators saw academic customer service as
their job too and obtained some training and understanding of it, they
could and would do their jobs much better. And the school would benefit
as well.
As
a starting point for administrators, here are ten rules for university
and college administrators to follow as they hopefully begin to embrace
and become a champion for academic customer service. (If you are not an
administrator, pass this on to one who is.)
Customer Service Rules for Managers
Rule 1
Students are our primary customers
Rule 2
Our colleagues are our customers too
Rule 3
Take care of our customers
Our customers’ needs must come before our own or we will lose customers. Always have time for customers!
Rule 4
If an employee deserves praise, praise her
If an employee does not deserve praise, retrain him
Rule 5
Annual reviews are too late and have limited value
Conduct informal reviews at least once a month and
Listen twice as much as you talk
Rule 6
Say thank you to each employee at least once a day
Rule 7
Celebrate small victories
Celebrate big victories big
Rule 8
Remember that your colleagues have lives outside of work
You do too
Rule 9
If the phone is ringing and everyone is busy, answer it.
No work is below you
Rule 10
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
N.
Raisman & Associates is the leader in increasing student
retention, enrollment and revenue through workshops, presentations,
research, training and academic customer service solutions for
colleges, universities and career colleges in the US, Canada, and Europe
as well as businesses that work with them
We increase your success
CALL OR EMAIL TODAY
www,GreatServiceMatters.com
nfo@GreatServiceMatters.com
413.219.6939
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