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/

Tap into the Social Networking Craze

Connect with Students Through Social Networking
By Jerry Allocca,
President of CORE Academics

As of October 2007, hundreds of millions of young people logon to social networking sites like MySpace.com, Facebook.com and hi5.com every single day to connect with old friends, make new ones, discuss interests, share news, photos, videos, and get advice. This is where a great majority of your prospective and current students are. But how do you reach them?

Special my space Section Dedicated to Colleges & Universities
Did you know that myspace.com has a special section dedicated specifically to colleges and universities to help students find the right school? And it’s FREE! Here’s the link. Go ahead and explore it: www.myspace.com/collegesanduniversities If your college or university is not using this free space to connect and promote yourself, you are missing the simplest and most available way to let potential and current students know you are at least aware of their networks. It is correct that students show great disdain if your school attempts to be one oif them by trying to write like a college student. But this spot on myspace is there for you to use. If you need some help with it, just give me a call and I'll be glad to help.

Statistics and Growth
The three social networking sites I mentioned above are all ranked in the top 10 of the most highly trafficked sites according to www.alexa.com, the authority on the subject. As of the end of 2007, myspace.com continues to get the most traffic out of all other social networking sites. However, things move fast in the Internet world. Their closest competitor, facebook.com, is not far behind and growing at an incredible pace. From September 2006 to September 2007, facebook’s traffic ranking increased from 60th to 7th, according to Alexa.com. Here are some highly important statistics for MySpace.com—currently ranked 6th on Alexa.com. There were 106 million MySpace users as of September 2006. There were 200 million MySpace users as of September 2007. The site is currently growing at a rate of 230,000 new users per day! An average MySpace page is visited 30 times a day. And this is just myspace.com. There are others. Many others. And they are all growing, and becoming more and more important to the digital generation, every single day! And your students, current and potential are there. You should be.

What Can I Do On A Social Networking Site?
Most social networking sites enable users to communicate and collaborate in a number of different ways. You can search for friends with similar interests and get or give friend requests. You should always be building your friend list and staying in touch with friends. One way to communicate is through a community bulletin board organized by category and similar interest. Here you can listen to other people’s posts/messages, then reply with your own posts. You are a critical part of the site and your contribution to the site is what makes the experience truly interactive while keeping the content fresh and interesting. The site would have no content without other people’s contributions. People just like you! Another way to communicate is through private groups where you have a group of friends who want to privately share a common web page and message board. This becomes their private collaboration space online. You can instant message anyone in your friend list and communicate immediately. View/share photos, video clips, audio clips, and of course comment on these media items for others to see what you have to say--and then reply back to them. Take advantage of reading up-to-the-minute news stories and articles. Search classifieds or post free classified ads within the following categories: For Sale, Jobs, Housing, and more. You can also create events, public or private, to let people in your friend lists, and people in your friend’s friend lists, know about your upcoming events—as well as getting them (gladly!) on board to help organize the social gatherings. Create blogs to share your thoughts and listen to others. The amount of features and things you can do on social networking sites is burgeoning, but the keys are ease of communication and collaboration.

Niche Social Networking Sites
Suddenly, niche social networking sites are popping up. Do you like dogs? There’s now social networking for dogs: www.dogster.com allows you to create a profile for your dog complete with photos, videos and more. You can even search for other dogs that have similar interests to yours. You can probably guess that if there is a dogster, then there must be a catster too. And you’re right! www.catster.com makes social networking for cats (and cat lovers) a reality. Pets not your thing? Perhaps you’re into, ummm, I don’t know, sneakers? Try www.sneakerplay.com for those obsessed with sneakers. Whatever you’re into, I’m sure there is a social networking site out there for others just like you. And if there isn’t, why not create one yourself?

In fact, if your college has a specialization in an area of study, you could create a networking site to promote it by hosting for those interested in that area. If you are a veterinarian school, shouldn't you be posting appropriately on both dogster and catster? If you have a loarge animal vet program maybe you should create and host cowster or some other site. If you want to know if a name is available, I'll even be glad to check it for you. Just send it to me and I'll let you know.

Where Is Your School?
It all comes down to this…social networking is growing at an incredibly fast pace among young people. The technology is free and available to anyone with an internet connection. This is where your prospective and current students are spending their time. This is where your school should be. This is where your admissions reps should be. This is where your financial aid reps should be. This is where YOU should be. It takes more than just a cool website to connect with today's digital generation. You've got to tap into their social network. Listen to their thoughts. Join in the conversation. Be a part of their world.

If I can help you in any way, please do not hesitate. It will be my pleasure to help you myself.

_______________________________

This article was written by Jerry Allocca, President of CORE Academics, an award-winning internet solutions firm and the creator of the award and enrollment winning on-line admissions personalization application program Leadwise . CORE has been helping colleges and universities leverage new technologies to increase leads, enrollments and brands since 1998. Its Webeval college website evaluation system has been used by hundreds of schools to let them know their strengths, weaknesses and what they can do better. To get Jerry and CORE on your team, visit www.COREacademics.com send an email to Jerry@CORE.bz or call at 516-719-6235 ext 111.

The picture above of Dr. Raze Man is my facebook photo. It was created by Chris Sanna a great graphic designer who does excellent design work for colleges, business and real rappers. I recommend him most highly for any design work you may need.

The ROI of Retention part 3 CSFactor 3

A school loses an average of 12% of its potential enrollments as soon as a prospective student makes contact with it. Whether that contact be the website which was created by the tech designers of Sites That Hoover, by telephone, email, or make it onto campus, 12% of probable enrollments are lost with actual contact. And these are most often people who were seriously thinking of enrolling in the college.

They had found an enough interest in the school to explore it and consider applying or enrolling. But then they made contact. And that contact convinced them that they were no longer interested. That leads to

Customer Service Factor 3

[(AE x12%=EL) x tuition] = CSF3

IE - Initial actual Enrollment

12% is what is lost on initial contact

EL - is the Enrollment Lost and

T once again is the tuition.

So, continuing with Mammon U, (which has just written a formal complaint about US News and World Report for not including it in its top tier of colleges and universities which everyone at Mammon knows is an error and just makes education a commodity in the minds of the public which should care about purer motives while Mammon knows that a top ranking will improve its application flow and mean a more likely full class and reduced advertising expenditures and can actually consider raising tuition for more revenue because it can still attract a class at the higher cost from the increased ranking…..)

Mammon’s original enrollment is budgeted at 200 in the Fall. They aren’t there just yet so the admission’s folks are beating the bushes and going through every potential applicant they have. They are at 180 enrollments at this point so the CFO is concerned that the budget they created in June will not be met for the third year in a row. And the president is now reading the Chronicle starting with the career section. So if Mammon does not find the last 20 enrollments, CSF3 will be calculated like this.

CSF3 [(200 x 12%% = 24) x $13,000] = ($312,000).

The point that may hit you immediately if you are not an admissions or enrollment management person is the revenue loss of $312,000. That is a solid amount of lost revenue which may lead to starting the year with some budget, employee, equipment, maintenance or other cuts. That will usually catch most everyone’s attention. We all hate cuts.

But if you are in admission’s what you will be thinking now is “DARN (well maybe stronger than that) “Darn, we would not have just hit the 200 goal but we would have exceeded it by 4! We would be celebrating instead of commiserating”. The formula could have shown

[(200 +12%% =+224) x $13,000] = +$312,000.

Okay, So Now What?
So now the issue is what to do in the future to gain, rather than lose 12%. The list is unfortunately long for some schools but realize it all has to do with how the school presents itself and provides its services to potential customer/ clients/applicants on their first contacts with the school. Since the list is long, we will address parts of it in other postings. But for now, one of the first customer service turn-offs.

Websites and CSF3
Far too many of them simply vacuum. They do not provide viewers with what they want but with what we, a group of adults, out-of-contact with our potential students’ world and technology, think they should want. We load them up our web pages with words when the web is a visual medium. The words we use are those we are comfortable and generally have little meaning to those outside of academia. This is so since they are too often our academic-ese technical or vernacular language. The information we provide is how we would want to see our college and not how a potential student might wish to see it.

We make sure we load the web site up with things the staff and faculty ask for such as a link labeled FACULTY that if a viewer clicked on, he or she would be told it’s not for them. Foolish viewer. Thinking one might learn about the faculty from a tab labeled faculty.

We often even include the whole college catalog on our sites as if someone would want to try and read a long, turgid, ponderous, tedious, self-important document that even less than 5% of the college has ever read through. And they had to since they were assigned to do so on the catalog update committee. And what’s even more foolish is on the websites, the catalog do not even come with an active index. There is no search protocol to help users find what they are looking for. There may be the original index but fear not, the entries are not active links to take the reader to a specific section. Would not want to make the catalog accessible after all. By the way if you do want to have the catalog on the we site,at least use a program like Leadwise to make it accessible and personalized.

Even if we discount all the many, many, many words on a web page, the graphics and the layout of the pages immediately tell potential students “old skool technology.” BORING! The designs and layouts are old fashioned and the graphics used too often clichéd. There is little that conveys a message that this university is technologically exciting or even up to date. And the so-called “blog postings”, c’mon. Everyone realizes that they are either written by the PR office or by people so carefully chosen that they sound like advertising copy. They do not make the college sound up-to-date but manipulative. If you you want to use blogs, take a chance and let people say fully what they want to say.

I could go one quite a bit more but then I will sound to much like an entry on one of these web sites. Just one more issue. One that really ticks off potential students and viewers. Difficult or impossible navigation. This includes links that don’t work (and yes, I know I too have created and apologize for them). Links that take you to a page you cannot return from since there is no return link. Or links that say a reader can make contact or ask a question that take people to an “apply on-line” or fill in the request for an “admission’s person to contact you” form. That pushes the issue and makes the viewer feel once again, manipulated.

Sure the goal is to get the potential student contact admissions. But let them make the decision. Web users like to at least have a semblance of control over their use of a site. They want to be the ones to initiate the contact. So let them click on, contact admissions or apply on-line or some such link. Don’t manipulate. Even if they do complete the contact the college form that goes to admissions without their assent, the college is not getting anything more than a very weak inquiry. It is not a lead.

We will get to other negative CSF3 factors such as poor phone protocol, messages not returned, misleading or just plain ugly signage, parking problems, rude greeters and a few other issues in other postings. This one has gone on long enough.

"IPod" Webs -Webs for the ME Generation

So how does one market to ME?

The I'll Manage my own Experience thank you very much Generation?

Well, to some extent, you don’t. Not in the old sense of marketing. Not using the old marketing 101, Madison Ave control the image approach. In fact, what needs to be done is to cede much of the control to the audience. Let the potential students manage the experience as they manage their own. Try and make the college a marketing IPod.

That can be done with some of the technology we have today. For example, your college’s web site. Without even looking at it right now I can assert that it is probably killing sales…I mean applications. Your web site was designed by the people at the school for the people at the school and not for potential students. The home page is all cluttered with stuff that make the internal community feel good about but does not respond to the needs or wants of the customer. That by the way is a classic definition of poor customer service. Not listening to the customer and then telling them what they can have and that’s it.

“Your Website Hoovers” (a verb)
Now I know, as you do, that the homepage was a compromise anyhow to try and keep people happy. And the marketing people felt they needed some control too so the Campus of Dreams image comes across because that is how they6 want to see their school. So we end up with the same bland homepage as every one else. In fact, it is so compromised that it could represent any college in America with just a change of the headline name. What is worse, it does not sell to the market.

And the internal pages!!!!!! They are often done by everyone. “Let’s not offend anyone so we will let each department create its own page to make sure it is happy.”

”What about the students? Do they have a say?”

“Huh? On the college’s website?”

Right. Why should they be involved? How about because it is a primary point of contact for them and potential students? Therefore it should speak to them and what they want. Moreover, remember this is a generation that wishes more control itself – not be controlled or given reheated, old marketing to eat or go hungry. They won’t go hungry though. They’ll go somewhere else.

IPod Websites
So Step 1. Ask students what they think of your web and how you could make it better for them. Not just the students you’ve got either. The students who might apply. Go to high schools and get some focus groups going, surveys or get someone to do it all for you with a national audience.

LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS.

Then, step 2. GIVE UP CONTROL. How about providing an IPod homepage. A homepage that allows the visitor total control over what will be on it. That’s right. A homepage you don’t design but the visitor does. Just as a student decides what he or she wants to download onto an IPod, the student downloads what he wants on your college homepage thereby making it his own. It can be done.

CoreDataCenter (our technology partner) has been working with us to develop a webpage that has a cluster of graphic images with simple captions to allow visitors to assemble their webpage of your school. They get to select the information they want and not what the college wishes to give them (or actually itself). This places the control in the mouse of the visitor.

Granted they still get to choose from images and information that you may provide but you can also open up the image and information to students who can create videos and information for other students.

“OH MY G-D! YOU WANT TO LET STUDENTS POST WITHOUT OUR MARKETING CENSORS VETTING WHAT THEY SAY? ARE YOU MAD?”

Not yet, but your students and I will be if you don’t place some trust in them. And in the fact that they can talk to your potential students much, much better than you can and will ever be able to. As for the danger and marketing potential, read the WIRED article “And Now a Word from Our Customers” by Frank Rose in the December 2006 issue. (BTW, if you aren’t reading WIRED, you are missing the boat that has already sailed. A must read for college marketers for certain and most everyone else too if you want to have an inkling what your students are doing, thinking and going to do and think.)

Okay, so here is how what is currently being called LeadWiseWebs™ works.

The potential student comes to your landing page. That was your boring, overly wordy homepage. Clicks on some areas that interest him or her like a graphic or picture of a diploma for academic programs, a dollar sign for tuition costs ,a mob picture for adjunct faculty, or a football helmet for administration decisions………That leads to some other graphic-based choices to click on. For instance, if she clicks on the diploma, that moves to a page of a group of graphics representing the majors. A briefcase for business, an apple for education, a jail cell for criminal justice, and so on. They in turn guide other choices like scholarship information (a hand giving you money maybe). So if a student clicks on the jail cell and also scholarships, only scholarships that relate to CJ majors show up. That eliminates the dreaded list of all the scholarships for left handed nursing majors from Podunk which only turn visitors off and wear them down since they have nothing to do with their interests.

The end result is that LeadWiseWebs™ generates the student’s homepage for the school with just what he or she wants. And since it is an offshoot of our already prize and enrollment-winning Leadwise™ personalized view book generator, everything can be fully personalized with the student’s own information like his name. Then the student can save that homepage and even change or update it later.

This would also be a fantastic portal creator tool too. Ever wonder why students don’t use the portal you created for their use? Because you created it actually for your use. To let students do what you wanted to let students do to make it easier for the school.

Did you know for example, that we found that students would rather have their grades mailed to them than have to go to your portal and get them. That’s why some of them never see their last semester grades and sign up for wrong courses.

But, let students generate the portal they want and they may actually use it.

The college can still maintain full control in the classroom if it wants to. It can also lose more students by doing that as I have written before but let’s face it; academia is a control-focused universe. But as long as we realize that finally it is the students who are in full control of his or her decision to enroll and stay, we will focus on them and work to provide them the customer service they need and deserve.

Web Sites, Signs, Objective Correlatives Hurt Enrollment

Let’s take one of the first correlatives students see – the web site. Most school websites are, well since it is the holiday season I’ll say they are not as good as they can be in working as objective correlatives for students. Why? Because they were created by people who believe in words and in linear realities. Not metaphoric leaps based on correlating objects and images.

We create webs as if they were documents, packed with words and minimal graphics or pictures. We even include entire catalogues on web sites as if anyone would want to read them online. Students hate catalogues and their page after page of, you guessed it, words we believe are important. They don’t nor do they believe catalogues are helpful or speak to them. That’s why catalogue personalization programs such as Leadwise are being adapted by schools. They speak to each student’s personal world and provide graphics and photos students can identify with.

Just look at where students go to on the web-YouTube, Facebook, Shoutwire - and you’ll see few words and almost all visuals. Moreover, the pages are packed with small boxes and thumbnails of choices to click on and download. We may have some trouble with this visual overload. They do not. Nor do they have trouble with the crawls at the bottom of screens during TV shows that can drive us nuts. Not them.

And the web is one of the first contacts with a school. Thus it is a very strong objective correlative. It has the power of the law of primacy – that which is first encountered is first and most powerfully to come to mind. And what most college websites do is create a picture of a school as very “old school.” Not good.

Another powerful, primary objective correlative that is almost universally overlooked is the signage, a fancy way of saying signs. When a potential student first comes to a school or campus, the first material object they see are the signs used to direct them, to inform and to welcome them. If the signs are unattractive, too small or not quickly and easily informative, they generate a negative metaphor for the school’s concern for people.

When we do a college service audit, we find that schools usually don’t even have adequate or enough signs to guide people to locations. It is sort of like a test to see if you can find your way around to qualify for going there. After all, we who live at the school now got lost at first because there were no signs for us and we found our way around. If we could do it, new students can too. Dumb belief.

The lack of signs, uninformative signs, outdated signs and so on, create a very powerful correlative to how much the school cares about helping and assisting. So much so that we have found poor signage such a very dominant force in forming early metaphors that we would rank poor signs as a major negative factor leading to lost enrollment. We have found that if students can’t find their way around with signs, they often just trace their way back to their car and leave. Remember that as posted earlier, as much as 12% of enrollment is lost when students make actual contact with a school.

These are just a few examples of the objective correlative in customer service leading to loses in enrollment and retention. It is a topic we will come back to in later postings.