What We Can Learn From Failed Airlines

Three airlines just went out of business last week. Over thirty colleges, universities and career colleges will do the same this year. High gas prices were certainly one culprit but not the only, nor the major one. Client retention, or lack of it, was the final issue. They did not have enough repeat business nor advocates to assure enough booking and revenue for the days ahead. Why? Weak and poor customer service. Same reason why colleges and schools lose enrollment.

We can eliminate cost as a factor for choosing not to return to flying at least one of them. Skybus which was an airline that sold tickets for as low as $10 – yes $10 – yet it was having trouble getting people to repeat flying. You could fly from its base in Columbus, OH to California, Florida, Massachusetts, NY or many other states for less than it would cost you for a few gallons of gasoline yet people were starting to choose more expensive airlines. The last two times I flew Skybus’ full size Airbus planes, the flights each had fewer than 40 people. That includes crew.

When I perform a simple customer service mini-audit on Skybus, some sad issues come forward that can also inform colleges and businesses losing students and clients.

The first contact with Skybus was its web. In fact, for Skybus that was its primary means of contact. In a move to reduce operating costs, it chose not to have any actual people answering phones or addressing questions of potential or present customers. It relied much too heavily on technology when the reality is that technology is not as well received as a customer service provider as Skybus, People want to talk with people. People want to be helped by people. And even when using technology like a website, cell phone or email, people want to know thnat a person is somewhere on the other end and WILL get back to them.

Skybus unfortunately believed all the hype of the people who create and build technology and tried to use it as the main means of client business contact just as too many schools do. Though technology is ubiquitous, it is not as used or even as well known as the people who sell the same technology want you to believe. Most people do not use or even know what much of it is! For example, when you are IM-ing….Oh, that’s Instant Messaging. Point made? But that does not mean you should not be aware of the latest in student contact technology. Just use it correctly in ways that emphasize people talking with people.

People know people. They trust people. They want to talk with and be served by people – not technology though most colleges have replaced people with technology. Maddening phone tree anyone? For yes, press 3. Skybus removed the people. A very bad customer service error. People consider electronic phone answering with its instructions to listen closely…as if you were a child with telephonic ADHD

Skybus and you would have improved client acquisition and retention numbers immensely if it had just hired some people to answer the phone and talk with people; answered questions; resolved problems; been human.

Colleges have similar problems when they replace people answering phones with phone trees or automatons who might as well be. Keep in mind that we hate phone trees. Moreover, we really believe we have some value and when we get an electronic voice telling us what to do, we feel diminished and do not like that. Furthermore, it tells us so much about you. The first thing it says it though you say the call is important, we know it isn’t. Therefore, we know you don’t think we are important. And if we are not important enough to talk with now, what good can there be in the future.

Moreover, the technology that we do use it people to people technology. Cell phones and email are great examples. When we call SOMEONE on a cell phone, we expect to engage is a person and person discussion. When we send an email, we expect a response. Skybus provided neither. They did have some email response but it was so slow and irregular using boiler point replies that it was not acceptable or helpful. Phones must be answered and emails responded to. This is a basic rule of customer service which if broken will certainly hurt you.

And though this does not pertain to Skybus which did not have phone answering, when someone answers that phone, that person must at least sound polite, happy and welcoming. A simple “Yuh” or “Yes?” or “Welcometofillintheblank.CanIdirectyuh call?” is as bad as Press 34 for… People do not answer the phone well and that does not reflect well on you.

Moreover, the Skybus web site was not a good one. It was difficult to navigate. It did not supply the information the visitors wanted and/or needed. The visitors not the company. Websites are for people to visit and learn about you. They are not for you. They should be designed for people who do not know what you do and not assumptions should be made. For example too many, way too many college web sites were designed by and for the campus community. They were set up to make campus constituencies happy not potential students or other visitors. In some cases, this is obvious as every department or office designed its own page making sure there is no consistency in design, information, font, links or anything that could make a positive statement about the college. Most college websites are like Skybus’ was – terrible. And the result, your university or college loses potential students, even donors, when they can’t navigate your web site Click here for more on webs

Skybus also did not train its first contact people very well and dressed them even worse. The people at the Skybus counters in the airport ticket areas were few and not very helpful. Their primary job it seemed was to tell arriving passengers to use the self-check in machines and collect money for checked baggage. Sort of like when we tell students to go on line and do whatever they sought help to get done. That is not to say that some of them were not helpful but not all like receptionists and other first contact people at your school.

The next people the clients encountered were the young people at the gates. They were not rude really. Their level of indifference and lack of concern did not have enough energy to be rude. Too much effort. They just ignored the passengers until it was time to board. Then they gathered up enough energy to call out the boarding groups in a bored monotone.

The company dressed all their employees in cheap black tee shirts with slogans on them such as Only Birds Fly Cheaper or Ten Dollar Tickets to….. Somehow indifferent young people dressed in inexpensive black tees did not inspire a sense of professionalism. Couple that with indifference to customers and Skybus had achieved a level of customer service that helped lead to its financial doom. Always keep in mind that every employee of the college whether they be a president or one of the more important front line service people is a living objective correlative for the institution. Skybus did not do that and cheapened the company and its people with its cheap appearance.

People may want to pay less but they do not want to feel as if they purchased something cheap. Or worse, they were cheap in their buying decision. Skybus’ lack of professionalism in action and appearance made its passengers feel as if they were getting their ten dollars worth but not any more. The company made one feel as if you paid little so don’t expect much. This is a basic and destructive customer service flaw. When we purchase a bargain, we want to feel as if we got a good value for very little money. Just because we saved money by going to say a community college rather than a private baccalaureate school, students do not want to fell either cheap or cheated. They want to feel valued, important and intelligent for choosing to go there. This is the Target approach. Well laid out and lit environment with an upscale look and lower prices. Discount shopping in an upscale environment. That’s also how our schools should look. People do not want to feel cheapened by the appearances of staff or facilities.

This also leads to a problem for many schools. Faculty and staff dress in a manner that says we do not take this enterprise seriously nor did I even bother to try and look professional for you. You are just not important enough for me to take the time to look professional or even semi-professional. Granted it is quite difficult to make anyone on campus especially faculty dress in a manner that reflects pride in what they do and the people they interact with. There is even case law that allows people to dress as they wish but that does not stop an institution from trying based on the reflection of pride in the college, the mission and the work we represent. There is some case law that does allow a college or business to provide guidance on appropriate dress for some positions such as receptionists and basic standards. Role modeling can also be effective. And when a school employs students in offices or other visible areas, they can be instructed to dress for work not play. Moreover, one way to help solve the situation is to supply students and others college logo shirts, blouses, etc (BUT NOT TEE SHIRTS) to wear. That is not only a strong suggestion; it can be a clear statement.

In any case, Skybus did not do any of the above and placed its emphasis on the lowliest part of its name BUS rather than Sky. Not a good service or client retention approach.

Finally, Skybus had some service delivery problems. Too often the airline offered a flight, the client agreed to take that flight and paid for it but later had cancelled it. Too many flights were canceled. How many is too many? For the passengers, one is too many. When they planned a portion of their lives around a scheduled flight only to find out it is canceled, that is a sure first step to never coming back. The same is true for colleges when they offer a course or section, students choose it, pay for it, plan their schedules, their lives around that decision only to have it canceled by the school. A VERY bad decision. And one which is seldom supported by the usual excuse of fiscal concerns as was discussed in the article How many Students Does it Take to Put in a Class?

So what can we learn from Skybus’ bankruptcy?

1. Fiscal problems are most usually the result of poor customer service problems
2. Technology is not the savior and can even hurt when not used wisely.
3. Have your web checked with a WebEval Just mention this blog and it will be free.
4. Have trained people answer your phones and have them do it correctly
5. Return calls and emails
6. Have people ready and happy to help
7. Make the place look more expensive than it is
8. Work at making employees look professional, engaged and proud to be there
9. Do not cancel classes
10. Train everyone on academic customer service and keep training. It is not a one time brochure!

AcademicMAPS has been providing customer service, retention and research training and solutions to colleges, universities and career colleges in the US, Canada, and Europe as well as to businesses that seek to work with them since 1999. Clients range from small rural schools to major urban universities and corporations. Its services range from campus customer service audits; workshops, training, presentations, institutional studies and surveys to research on customer service and retention. AcademicMAPS prides itself on its record of success for its clients and students who are aided through the firm’s services. www.GreatServiceMatters.com 413.219.6939 info@GreatServiceMatters.com

Skybust tee shirt designed and sold on http://www.cafepress.com/

Making Your Campus Safer Starting Today

Objective Correlatives, Broken Windows and Customer Service: 10 Steps to Increase the Feeling and Reality of Security on Campus

The horrendous events at Virginia Tech have led to a number of inquiries on campus safety and retention going forward. There are no good answers for what happened. For the parents, families and the Virginia Tech community there will just be questions and anger. I know, unfortunately. We lost our 26 year-old son to meningitis just over a year ago. We deal with questions and anger over his death and so we know the emotions of the entire VTU community will be running very high. We also know that when others know of our loss, they worry more about their own children. The tragedy will affect every parent with a student on a campus. They will look at their own students and your campus with a very protective and wary eye.

So how can we reduce some of the vehemence over safety and security services that will be felt on every campus? An intensity that will be felt by every administrator and board member. Parents and the media are going to want to know how your school will make certain their child is safe on your campus. And keep in mind that articles like the Wall Street Journal’s October 2006 piece in the FBI Stats Show Many Colleges Understate Campus Crime will be likely kept in front of the media and public as they should be.

This is a time when a policy statement or reprinting brochures on campus safety on campus will not due. People will want action, visible signs that the school is taking steps to make the campus even more secure. If the campus is safe, great. But parents are going to want even more safety, assurance, and visible actions.

Safety as a Metaphor

Visible is an important word here. What comes into play is the concept of the objective correlative. The campus as a physical metaphor for the tone and atmosphere that defines a sense of security, safety and control. Since we all, and particularly our students, think metaphorically, buildings, grounds, bathrooms, interiors and all that is visible inside become metaphors, statements of meaning and values just as objects in a poem set the tone and add to perception of meaning.

Small things and small events can also add to the symbolism that adds up to the appreciation of students and parents that safety, security and protection are in place. That the campus and dorms are as safe as they can be.

So, and without cynicism, the appearances of safety are extremely important. The “Broken Window” approach that helped bring greater sense of security and some argue real safety increases to NYC in the 1990’s, will help here too. The theory was developed by Wilson and Kelling in 1982. It goes something like this. If someone breaks a window in a building and that first broken window in the building is not repaired, people will assume that no one cares about the building. Therefore it is okay to break more windows because no one seems to care. So more windows will be broken. Soon the building will have no windows. It is also likely doors will be busted in and more crime and havoc done to the building. But if the first window is fixed and re-fixed if needed, that action is a statement that we do care and window breaking will not be accepted. The appearance becomes a reality in peoples’ minds.

I was a skeptic of this approach at first when Police Chief Bill Bratton had the NYC police stop the homeless windshield washers from trying to earn a buck cleaning peoples’ car windows at traffic lights, enforcing public nuisance laws, public drinking, littering and so on. But it seems that the enforcement of these nuisance crimes created a metaphor for safety and enforcement for NYC. People believed the City and the NYPD cared. The feeling seemed to be “if they were attentive to small nuisance crimes that made me feel uneasy, they must be really be doing a solid job on real crime. People and tourists began to feel safer. They were not afraid to be out in the City. Tourism increased as did the public’s sense of security. And real crime did drop too. (There are arguments as to whether or not the “broken window and zero tolerance” were the factor but NYC did become recognized nationally as one of the safest cities anywhere.

When I was Chancellor at a college, we employed a version of the “broken window theory”. We had a rash of books, I Pods, purses, computers and other personal items being stolen from students and staff. People were becoming uneasy about their safety in buildings as a result. They also assumed the administration was not doing anything to make them more secure. Word was going out to the community that the school was not a safe one. Enrollment and retention were being hurt.

We were working on it but people didn’t realize it nor care. They just felt unsafe. We finally caught a book thief who gave us names of others he was working with. We called in the police to take them all out of the building in the lunch hour for maximum exposure. I also called a college meeting, canceled classes so students could come, and made some announcements on how and what we were doing to make sure they knew they were safe. We hired three more security people for the building, were changing all locks on doors, enforcing the locked door policy when a room was empty, would randomly check college ID cards and anyone without the card would be escorted off campus, putting in place a parking sticker registration and any car without a displayed sticker would be towed, increasing light bulb wattage in parking and perimeter lights and would not tolerate inappropriate language or behavior in classrooms, halls cafeteria, library, etc.

Faculty were asked to make sure attendance was taken, late students not admitted without prior notice, any student who left the class would not be allowed back in and marked absent, anyone sleeping in class was to be ejected, cell phones were to be off in class and if your's rang you would be asked to leave for the day and not come back in, computers were to be used for class purposes and not web surfing during class, and so on. And I personally assured faculty that I would support them in enforcing all this as long as they applied classroom decorum fairly, without prejudice and consistently,

Within days, surveys, comments and interviews showed the campus was a different place. Students were thankful for our steps. They felt more secure and happier at the school. They were most pleased with classroom decorum enforcement since it changed the learning environment. Students felt inappropriate classroom behavior was cheating them. They were learning less as bad behavior interrupted class and the professor. One student summed it up well. “Now we see you do give a damn about us and our learning and we care more about the school now too. I was outa here at the end of semester but I’ll stay now.”

Broken Window Theory on Campus

Considering the various constituencies and the politics on a campus, having the campus police/security enforce every rule will not necessarily work. For a few days, maybe even weeks, the community might accept greater enforcement, but that will end soon though the admonitions of administration’s “oppression of academic or other campus freedoms” will continue as a part of tradition. So what needs to be worked on is the objective correlatives that will be accepted and create a visible and real increased sense if security for students, parents and the community.

Ten Quick Yet Effective Security Steps

1. Have all employees learn how to say hello, smile and ask others how they are doing once they enter the “greeting zone.” As if they mean it. Also, teach them how to follow-up less than positive responses from others. This is important. The school must indicate it cares about each student to increase a collective sense of comfort through caring. This is also quite important for many reasons from identifying upset students to showing you care to learn what can be done to improve customer services and increase retention.

2. Stop petty theft on campus i.e. stolen books, I Pods, computers, purses, etc. This is for students and staff as well. There is apparently a great new product on the market to help on this too. A company named SafePlace www.safeplace-usa.com has personal safes for students and staff to keep their personal stuff in whether they are in a dorm or set-up like lockers for commuters. They seem to be very effective too as stated by the Long Island University Director of Residence Life and Residences,

Student reports of lost/stolen personal property have been eliminated and reimbursement costs to the University have been eliminated as well…dealing with issues of lost/stolen property in the residence halls has been substantially eliminated….Parents have been fully supportive of this product to secure their students’ belongings.

SafePlace can also make financial arrangements that can even create revenue for schools while increasing safety. And don't overlook the value of these small safes in offices so staff can secure their personal belongings.

3. Fix every broken light on campus and increase lighting in parking lots, pathways, halls and lobbies. Nothing generates a sense of fear than dark areas. Yes, I am fully aware that lighting wattage has been lowered to save money. Calculate the cost of the lighting against revenue lost from drops who feel unsafe on campus. Consider also the size of your evening college and the revenue it generates that IS lost when adults are nervous to park and walk. (Be glad to send a past article on lighting and retention I wrote just after 9/11. nealr@GreatServiceMatters.com)

4. Increase security patrols on foot and in cars. Park patrol cars not in service at the time in entrance areas to parking lots and other visible spots.
Make sure the halls are clean and uncluttered. Remove old posters, fliers and certainly anything ripped or scribbled over.

5. Either wash off or paint over any graffiti particularly in bathrooms. There is graffiti resistant paint that can help out in this area.

6. Consider having all staff and students wearing college id’s so it will be easy to determine if someone is not a member of the college community.

7. Do not ignore the safety needs and concerns of staff. They will be the ones to project a sense, a feeling as well as the metaphoric reality of safety and security on campus. If they are nervous or afraid their personal belongings may be stolen, they will surely project that to everyone around them.

8. Get out of the office, walk the campus and listen to students, staff and the community. Keep in mind that G-d gave us two ears but just one mouth for a reason. They will feel safer if you are out among them. Listening to them can also alleviate quite a bit of anxiety which often comes out of the feeling that the school does not care about them individually.

9. But also use the mouth G-d gave you. Email and fliers too. Let the community know you care and are doing things to increase an already safe campus. Communicate changes and improvements.

10. Have a campus safety and comfort audit conducted. There may be things that are problematic that you and other community members may not notice. This is the worn rug theory in action. It goes like this. When we were buying a house, we often noticed that the rugs were worn down or out. But the seller's did not notice. Why not? We are animals of patterned, habitual behavior so they had walked the same paths in the house every day. Rugs wear out incrementally from constant foot traffic over the same area. But since it was incremental, a little every day, they did not notice the wear pattens that we could easily see. They overlooked the wear and missed the potentially problematic situation. After all, it had always looked the same to them. It might be worthwhile to bring in a new set of eyes to look for rug problems that you and others grow to just overlook because it developed over time and now looks like it was always like that

Bathroom Solutions to Keep Staff and Students from Circling the Dropout Drain

One of the very first times I began to realize the importance of bathrooms was when I was a new dean at the University of Cincinnati’s Raymond Walters College. There had been some unrest among staff so I set up a Quality of Worklife Committee. The committee was to uncover issues that were lowering staff morale so we could work on them and raise morale.

When the committee first met, one problem came up immediately and forcefully. It seemed the hinges on the door to the women’s staff lounge (euphemisim for bathroom) were out of adjustment. So, the door never closed completely. There was about an inch or less opening between the door and the doorframe. Though no one would ever be exposed in that slit of an opening, it left the female staff who used the bathroom feeling vulnerable.

I had the door fixed that day and the effect on morale was immediate and very positive. When we then had the bathroom painted, put in a small couch, side table and table lamp put in from stuff we had in storage. The response was amazing. Morale shot up. Other staff issues seemed to fade away for a while anyhow. Just from a bathroom, I mean lounge upgrade.

Solution 1

Often the solution is simple and apparent. Take a look at and your bathrooms and see what can be done to make them function better. Actually go into each of them to check them out personally. See problems or aspects that might make you feel at all hesitant to use the facilities there, broken stall doors, dingy paint, dirty sinks or floors, doors without locks, no toilet paper, paper towels on the floor or an overflowing waste basket…. – get them fixed. The effort to upgrade such personal areas will be noted and make a strong statement about your dedication to customer service.

Solution 2

A few pieces of furniture in female bathrooms can turn them into “lounges” as well; places of quiet retreat where female staffers or students can sit, relax and share thoughts. Again like at better restaurants. Remember that women prefer to use the lounge together so make it comfortable to do so. You will be amazed what that would do for staff or student morale.

Across town in Cinci a few years later, another school, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College was making its students feel comfortable and at ease with its bathrooms. The dean of students had placed a small lamp stand in the entry way to the ladies’ bathroom. On top of the stand, she had placed a container of dried flowers. The students loved it.

Solution 3

Any school can buy some flowers to spruce up their bathrooms and make them look like lounges in better restaurants. This works best in a women’s bathroom. In either, men’s or womens’ rooms, pictures and or photographs on the walls help spruce up and class up a bathroom.

Uhhh, in the men’s room, leave some brochures or memos you have been wanting to get students to read. They will pick them up and read them while in the “library” (read stall) Men like to read while otherwise engaged.

At Briarcliffe College in New York, the bathrooms were identified by students as a major source of dissatisfaction and even friction. The graffiti on the faded, gray cinderblock walls and stalls was often racist and bigoted. Fortunately, the lights bouncing off the dirtied ceiling tiles were dim enough to make some of it more difficult to read. We had determined that the bathrooms were so disliked that they were a contributing factor in student dissatisfaction and drop outs.

We had the bathrooms painted a bright color. Too much to drink blue might not have been everyone’s favorite shade in the men’s room, but the facility director chose it for its bright stay awake quality as well as its ease of cleaning. I also think he got it on clearance to save a few bucks in the budget and it sure covered the walls well. A few gallons of anti-graffiti paint made the walls look new and clean. Replacing the light bulbs with higher wattage natural balanced fluorescent bulbs made the area brighter and more relaxing. A good scrubbing of the floor followed by a waxing added a sense of clean. Sinks and toilet seats were scrubbed. A daily check removed any new graffiti and touched up any scratched paint.

Solution 4

Bathrooms came off the complaint list. Retention actually went up. Of course, there were additional customer service changes put in place but we were able to recognize a positive response to the inexpensive (paint, cleaning, light bulbs) improvements.

Below are some pictures of the bathrooms at the Career College of Northern Nevada in Reno following an updating. The president/owner of the school had visited a local casino and seen how the bathrooms there were done. He decided that his students deserved bathrooms as beautiful as at a casino. He had the bathroom walls covered with foot square marble tiles like at what he had seen in better casinos and hotels.

The result? Students feel better about the school and themselves. They see their worth reflected in the shiny marble.

By the way, if there were an award for the cleanest and most consistently neatest bathrooms at a school, the award would go to Temple University. Granted I did not see every bathroom and none of the dorms but what I saw was reflective of the pride students and the staff seem to take in the campus. Temple has had a push on customer service going for a few years now and the results seem to be clearly paying off.

Flushing Away Enrollment -Bathrooms and Classrooms

As I have performed customer service audits at colleges, one area that is significantly important to our customers (students, staff, faculty, administrators, visitors……) – external as well as internal – is usually one the most ignored. This important area is the area itself and the actual services we provide within it. Too many colleges overlook or ignore the objective correlative and customer service aspects of facilities, grounds and how we use them to serve our customers – students and employees.

This was extremely well summed up by a student who said the biggest problems at his university were “classrooms and bathrooms”. The classrooms were poorly lit, hot in the summer which made people sleepy or cold in the winter so it was difficult to write with mittens. And, they were filled with furniture that neither fit the students nor the faculty needs. (More on furniture and how we use it later. For discussion on admissions and furniture, click here.)

And the bathrooms…!

Well, at this school, the easiest way to say it is students and staff probably would have preferred a shovel and an old Sears' catalogue to what they had in the bathrooms. The men’s room in the Student Union had holes in the wall, scratched, woobly and loose toilet seats that threatened to slip off, crude and rude graffiti covering walls and stalls and a general feeling of dirt and dust that pervaded the place. The women’s room was not much better, just no holes in the wall, but two fluorescents were out making it even darker than its usual gloomy, medieval chamber appearance.

From an enrollment and retention and retention point of view, these were killers. And though these may have been extremes, they are not that far off from most of the colleges I have worked with on customer service. Simply put too many schools miss the very important concepts involved with the Objective Correlative factor in enrolment and retention, especially in bathrooms.

Bathrooms are uniquely important to people. They are places where people can feel exposed and vulnerable. Because, well, they are more or less exposed. (To save space and explanation that may be too explicit for some, just think on it and emote.)

Bathrooms are essential and primary to students. At one school, a survey we did had as the top two problems, not enough challenging classrooms and too challenging bathrooms. When asked what they wanted dealt with first, students overwhelming responded the bathrooms.

At another residence hall school at which students were fleeing the dorms, students said they could deal with the cramped, old dorm rooms but not the old bathrooms and dingy showers. Some students said they would not even use them. They would actually forgo showers and take their gear to the newer student union and use the toilet facilities there and shower at the athletic facilities.

Staff and everyone else will judge a school negatively if they feel uncomfortable in a bathroom. If it is dark or dirty or littered; not good at all. If the faucets drip or the sinks are dingy, stained or ringed, bad. Lack of toilet paper – enough said! The stalls and commodes, well as Lenny Bruce had a convict say to a man on the way to the electric chair “Just don’t sit down”.

Studies and surveys of staff show a consistent level of dissatisfaction with working conditions that correlates with their rating of bathroom facilities. When we probed staff concerns at a school with discussion of a union among staff and middle management and asked what would staff change immediately if they could do so, one of the top three requests when bathroom facilities were rated as inadequate was “upgrading restroom facilities”.

College employees care about bathrooms at work as much as they do at home. And why not? Consider that actually more awake time is spent at the workplace than at home and you’ll start to catch on.

Tomorrow – some solutions and how to’s to make your bathrooms positive parts of the admissions and retention process.

AcademicMAPS has been a leading provider of retention, enrollment and morale solutions for students and employees since 1999. Its campus audits have proven to be extremely valuable tools for schools and colleges that wish to strengthen their positive customer service ratings. For information, contact us at nealr@greatservicematters.com or 413.219.6939

Starbucks and Enrollment Increases

The way students look at the world has changed. What they are looking for has changed. How the act and interact with their environment has changed. Colleges and schools have.....not changed. And they wonder why enrolling and retainingh students is getting tougher. Duh!

I have been preaching that we need to get away from old worn out admission and retention approaches. They are not helping. The market mind hs shifted and we have not kept up... and create an atmosphere that is more informal; one in which a potential student can relax yet still feel as if it can be a formal, getting business done arrangement. As I studied high school and college students to see where they seem to be comfortable yet able to do school related work. I needed to find a model that would convey to students that this is a place in which I can see myself and also create an affective bond to from my own experience. A place that feels like what I know and with which I can identify.

The answer- Starbucks or a coffee shop.

If you observe the target market for schools, these locations are where the potential enrollees go and spend large amounts of time talking with friends, reading, doing homework, tutoring or getting tutored, IM’ing, WIFI-ing and generally hanging around. It is surprising how much work, often collaborative work, is done in a Starbucks-like atmosphere.

So it became obvious that this should be the structure. Get out of the cubicles. Dump the formal desk that evokes negative affective responses. Set up a Starbucks-like zone area. Small intimate round tables (or small squares/rectangles) where potential students can sit with an admissions rep or even better, two and just talk. Create a Starbuckian-like atmosphere with colors that relax, photographs that will set a calming atmosphere and even music playing quietly in the background. Keep in mind that today’s students have grown up enveloped in music so much that it is de rigueur in all they do – even watching TV. It will not intrude. It will enhance.

Get a multi-purpose coffee machine than can make lattes, and other frou frou drinks they are used to having. They are available in numerous formats from school owned to vended and a range of costs. And use a premium grade of coffee. Potential students have grown up on Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, Pete’s and other quality brands, Sorry Maxwell House and Folgers. Also, for non-coffee or tea drinkers, get a small fridge so you can offer soft drinks. Oh yes, a cookie or some nosh will certainly be a value-added.

To those who are saying, he’s nuts, maybe I am. But to create an affective connection and increase the A-ROI, we need to connect not to our values and world but to theirs. Starbuck-like places are where they connect so bring that to them. And reap the increased enrollments as Herzing is.

By the way, also think about setting up student lounges in a similar way if retention is of any concern. These can be set up as profit centers too. Want to learn more on how to increase enrollment and revenue through changing the correlative function of your physical set-up, just call me 413.219.6939 or email me. Be glad to tell you how.

Enrollment, Metaphors and Poetry

A customer service facet that is often overlooked is the “objective correlative" aspects of a college. The phrase objective correlative is one taken from my English background and was discussed primarily with literature. But I find it has numerous applications to colleges. Besides, using the phrase helps justify all those years of study.

The phrase was popularized by the American poet TS Elliot to explain emotional reactions to literature. Objective correlative refers to a physical object or more likely a grouping or combination of objects, images, or visual descriptions that create(s) an emotional response to piece of literature. For example, if a poem has images of grey things, a tumbledown house and crows sitting on a broken fence, these physical objects could set a tone, an emotional metaphoric response, of gloom and foreboding. Try an Edgar Alan Poe poem for examples and pleasure.

In a college, the objective correlatives are physical aspects of the school - websites, the grounds, the buildings themselves, the colors we choose in the buildings, walkways, signs, offices, lobbies, etc. These all have a very powerful response on a potential student’s emotional reaction to the school and do affect his or her decision to enroll and/or stay. These all create a visual metaphor of the school and its potential to meet the three returns on investment all students bring with them. The three ROI’s – fiscal, emotional and affective – are what help determine if a student enrolls and will definitely be the determining factors in whether a student stays at a school, transfers or steps out.. (The three ROI’s are discussed in Customer Service Increases Retention)

We are aware that one of the most important parts of the enrollment process is the tour. But what most people don’t realize is that students have started creating a visual metaphor of the school as soon as they make contact with the objective correlatives of that school. The tour is generally simply that which polishes or corrupts the metaphor through what students see and hear while on the tour.

Metaphors are very powerful. They become emblematic of the institution and are very hard to shake loose or change. It is important to realize that students think not in words, but in pictures, in metaphors of their world as Gerald Altman discusses in How Customers Think. Students live in a visual environment which has them “read” and value objects emotionally. They trust their images much more powerfully than any words, which are the coin or our realm. They make amazingly quick and assertive metaphoric leaps of judgment and embed them deeply in their belief systems. We view the world intellectually in words and numbers that we want to make some logical sense. We wish to have rationality be the basis for decisions. They use visual objective correlatives and the metaphors they generate.

There is an inherent conflict that leads to problems. Examples of a couple of them in the next posting tomorrow.

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