mortiz0010

etention, academic customer service, retention, enrollment, students, attrition, graduation There are many retention efforts that work and some that do not. Most are almost always consciously based on some academic or intervention approach. The approaches are often also based on some scholarly research on educational practice. Some may use established methods such as First Year techniques. Others may use a survey tool such as the NSSE to determine their educational engagement with students. Some use research and its results such as the  Hierarchy of Student Decisions  below. They all use some rational basis for their program or efforts. They may often have good results and that is great. But after working and talking with thousands of students at colleges, universities, community and career colleges, one thing becomes very clear. The programs that are most successful are not ones that increase the educational, intellectual,...

Customer service. Just what in the world is it really? Maybe it’s like art? We may not know why a picture is great or not but we can feel it when it is or isn’t? Or better, like love. We all know when we have found it or lost it but cannot explain why or how we know. Most experts will tell you that it is focusing so fully on meeting the satisfaction level of the customer, that he or she will love you. Others will say that it is loving your customer – hug them, overwhelm them with service, and they will love you back. Yet, others will say that it is a series of activities that make the customer more than happy from dealing with you. And some even propose that customer service is providing the customer service beyond service. Almost as if the customer were royalty in the days of kings. After all, THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. Right? And rule number one is the customer comes first, second and third. And rule number two is “read rule number one.” Besides, we are all here to m...

Ted Kaptchuk is a unique Harvard medical professor. He has neither an MA or PhD. He instead has a degree in Chinese medicine from an institute in Macao where he became an acupuncturist. He is also a director of the Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter (PiPS), headquartered at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA which was opened last year largely due to Kaptchuk’s innovative work in placebo research. Research that can tell us a lot about some aspects of customer service. According to an article in Harvard Magazine , Kaptchuk"in a collaboration with gastroenterologists studying irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a chronic gastrointestinal disorder accompanied by pain and constipation. The experiment split 262 adults with IBS into three groups: a no-treatment control group, told they were on a waiting list for treatment; a second group who received sham acupuncture without much interaction with the practitioner; and a third group who received sham ac...