mortiz0010

Colleges and universities are quite unique professional service providers that do not respond well to retail customer service notions. And they should not. Retail customer service is about providing veneers of service at the point of sale for a tangible product. In fact, retail customer service is all about the brief point of sale moment which runs from “may I help you” to “cash or charge”, “come again” and handing the customer a purchased item. And even if the piece of clothing a clerk helped a customer buy is the wrong size, the consequence of that poor service is not significant. The item can usually be returned or a badly cooked meal sent back for another. Even more the combined retail-service situations of a restaurant or a vacation is a limited, time bound occurrence even if it may have more than one encounter. A customer comes to a restaurant for a meal or to a hotel for a limited stay. The customer may encounter more than one point of sales/service provider; for example, a ma...

Imagine for a moment that you were in charge of an affair for hundreds of people. You made arrangements with the caterers months ago. They had given you a list of food you could choose from. You chose it. Put down a deposit. Sent out invitations so people could attend. Chose all the necessary accouterments and all the arrangements. Took off a few days from work to be able to attend. Bought the guest books. Prepared fully. Then a few days before the affair, the caterer called and said that it was canceled because there were not enough guests to make it worthwhile. Sorry! Would you be upset? Likely so. Mad enough to spit and quit! Never use that caterer again. Your school is that caterer most every semester, quarter and/or term when we cancel classes after registering students into them. One of the greatest dis-services we provide students is during the scheduling of classes. Well, actually the non or re-scheduling of classes. Even more accurately, the canceling of classes during the la...

this is chapter 4 of the new book Collegiate Customer Service from A to G: Admissions to Graduation being provided free chapter by chapter here. Call them students or whatever term or euphemism one wants, the fact is that students are consumers of what the college or university has sold to them and provides. They fit the basic definition of a customer too. A person who exchanges money or something of value for goods and/or services. Students and their families have been sold a set of promises ranging from a vague mission to better their lives and the world to the usual marketing of “personal attention from a caring faculty and staff with small classes and all the services needed for you to be successful in your studies and future career...”   As a result, students and families pay out thousands, tens of thousands, a hundred thousand dollars to attend the school to receive what they were sold. This offer of services, acceptance of the offer and exchange of money for the servic...