There is a significant difference between providing services
and hospitality. Services are actions we take to allow our customers, students,
to get done what they need to do. They are obligatory. Hospitality is making
students (and the general college community) feel welcome and valued. These are
different in not just function but in form as well.
Services are provided by the offices and institution to
allow students to get their required actions done such as paying bills, registering
for classes, getting their tests back and the sorts of everyday functions that
the institution and students are dependent . Hospitality is the smaller yet
equally significant actions we take to make people feel they are happy on
campus. Things such as saying hello to everyone we encounter; making eye
contact, smiling at people and just doing what needs to be done to make people feel
welcome on campus. In other words as Principle 1 of the Principles of Good
Academic Customer Service states “Every student wants to attend Cheers University
and every employee wants to work there! “where
everybody knows your name and they’re awfully glad you came” (If you want a copy of the collected
25 Principles of Good Academic Service just email me by clicking here.)
Let’s try a graphic example of the difference. The picture
below is from a campus service excellence and hospitality audit we did on a
major university. It is the treasure’s (bursar’s) office entry door where
students once paid their bills in person.
Note that the entry door has been blocked by a large
structure that will not let anyone enter the office. This structure is a device
intended for students to drop off their checks without having to go into the
office. Here’s some of what we said about this new “service” in our report to
the university.
Treasurer’s Office
The
Treasurer’s Office (which is the current name for the Bursar’s Office) elicited
many negative comments from students. They uniformly do not like that fact that
the entrance to the office has been shut off to them by a unit in which they
are asked to just drop off payments by check. They do not like having to just
drop off a payment with no way of verifying that the check has been left. They
want to be able to get a receipt for their payments since there have also been
problems with the posting of payments in time to avoid late fees. They also
want to be able to interact with someone when they have to discuss payments and
late fees which they feel are excessive and set up in a manner to cause extra
payments to the University as a result of late fees which they believe are
caused by the University’s approaches to boiling and some bill pay issues
on-line. Furthermore they are outraged that if they owe money their school Cards
are shut off leaving them without access to some services and even the ability
to enter their own dorm which requires the use of the school Card
We
agree with the students a do not understand why the Treasurer’s Office has
become off limits to students. By making it a self-service operation it limits
the customer service that students have come to expect and want especially when
it comes to something as important and sensitive as their bills and payments
for the University. Granted the University is trying to move students more and
more to the web and bill pay online as well as trying to shuttle them off to one
stop Solution Center but we do not believe this is working well or to the
benefit of the University’s service level. The most obvious message from the
blocked entrance to the Treasurer’s Office is a clear statement that the
University or at least the Treasurer’s Office does not want to provide some basic
service in a person-to-person format which students want when it comes to their
payments. We do not understand at all the University’s decision to block off
the Treasurer’s Office from student access and strongly recommend that it be
reconsidered. It sends a terrible anti-customer service excellence message and
blocks students from conducting a basic service in which they feel a need to
interact with a person. Some of the staff that work in the Treasurer’s Office
did comment that they are not at all happy with the situation either and feel
they are giving students short shrift on service. They also are not happy being
the object of so many student complaints and wish to be able to meet with
students to help them.
The new drop off center does provide a service but does so
very poorly. It is still a service center but it is certainly not a hospitality
center. Hospitality is blocked from being able to be delivered in fact.
Moreover, the blocked doorway says that there is no welcome available or any real
customer service as well. There is no one there to provide the hospitality and
services that students want and expect. Many times students want hospitality
even more than the service. What makes them feel welcome on campus is a person
smiling and offering help as we see in the reasons
why students leave a campus.
The drop off box might
make for quicker “service” for students since they will not have to wait to see
a person, be welcomed (we can only hope) and complete their business., But
quite often it is the hospitality of service that students crave even more than
the service itself. In this case, students need to feel they have actually paid
their bills so they have an added feeling of comfort that there will be no
problem. That calls for someone in a bursar’s office to greet the student, meet
with him or her, look over the bill and payment and assure the student that all
is well. That is an example of the service being provided as well as
hospitality.
There are many other examples on every campus in which
services have taken over for hospitality. Let’s just look at the example of a
faculty member passing back papers or exams. The usual way papers and exams are
given back is they are handed to each student at the end of a class. The giving
the assignment or test plus correcting is the service. The way they are handed
back is the hospitality and another service. Normally the service is finalized
when the names are called, the papers are handed back and the class dismissed.
The service is completed but not the hospitality.
The hospitality comes in when the faculty member goes over
the exams with students and offers extra help to understand the answers.
Additional hospitality is extended when the professor hands back the exam and
if the grade is not as high as possible, the faculty member asks the student
getting the exam if he or she could use some extra help. The offer is an example
of hospitality. The extra help when provided is the service. The offer is as important
to the student as the service received. The offer says the faculty member cares
and wants to help. The student receives a message that he or she is important since
the faculty member has taken time for a personal comment beyond what is on the
paper or exam.
The personal contact and offer are examples of academic hospitality
and when the students want and need. If a student did not do well on the paper
or exam he or she may want extra help but even more the student wants a recognition
and offer of that extra help.
All campuses provide services. (Some much better than
others.) But most every campus should know how to provide hospitality and
service. Every campus can begin by doing simple things such as smiling at
students, saying hello to them as they pass by and rethinking all their
services to assure that they also provide hospitality as well as a perfunctory
service.
Moreover, every service should be reviewed to make certain
that it does not just provide a mechanical function as the treasurer’s office above
but increases the contact between student and the school. This is certainly true for the use of
technology to replace services that were provided by a person.
Too many schools have embraced technology to provide basic
services. Some are good and helpful such as some on-line registration systems
but too many others have put the web between students and people to the deficit
of hospitality. Too many technologically-based services cut out hospitality and
replace it with perfunctory service. That is not good. More on this later.
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.
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retention, enrollment and revenue through workshops,
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