Less than 60% of entering freshmen will graduate from 4 year colleges and less than 35% from our community colleges. This represents a loss of billions of dollars to students, families, and taxpayers and is scandalous.

As set forth in “Crossing the Finish Line” by William Bowman, institutions may do a great job of recruitment and enrollment, but a very poor job of seeing their mission through to graduating students.

One of the most overlooked reasons for such high dropout rates is the lack of a culture of service excellence. Many of our schools feel it is not their responsibility to create an environment that promotes graduation, that this is the sole domain of the student. Many professors feel that they are there to cull the unworthy students from worthy, that they are the gatekeepers for society in admitting only the most deserving. Many feel that service excellence applied towards students means giving “A’s” for poor work and pandering to the lazy.

None of this is true. A culture of service does not mean lowering the bar for all to achieve. It means engaging the students to motivate them to high achievement, providing the support, recognition, and feeling that they belong and are part of something special. This is not the duty of just the professors, but everyone from the groundskeepers, administrators, admissions, bursar’s office, and trustees.

What is the culture of service excellence at your institution?

What better time than Valentine’s Day to let your employees know how much you love and appreciate them. Without them, where would you be with your customers? There is a direct correlation between excellent internal customer service and excellent external customer service.

Here are some suggestions:
1. Send a handwritten note. Supervisors can send them or they could ask the senior managers to write a personal note to an employee who deserves recognition.
2. Flex their hours. Giving someone a little latitude in deciding their work schedule so they can take time for personal issues, goes a long way in building trust and relationships.
3. Applaud their efforts. If someone has done something really worthwhile, at the next staff gathering have everyone give a standing ovation to the employee.
4. Serve coffee and refreshments. From time to time, the executives should take a morning and serve coffee and refreshments around the office and facilities. Let’s employees visit and reconnect on a personal level.
5. Say “thank you”. Two simple words that are undervalued, but give the highest return on your investment. People want to feel appreciated.

I was told I could return a dress my mother had purchased for me at the Fresh Produce store in St. Augustine to the Orlando store as long as I had the receipt and was within the 30 day timeframe. The Orlando store is located in the center of Universal Studios Park – the tourist part of town. Not a regular visitor to the tourist attraction area, it was quite an ordeal finding parking, getting entrance into the Park, and hiking to the store. Once in the store, I realized I couldn’t find the receipt which I had had with me the day before.

Exasperated with myself and dreading a return trip to just get the receipt, I was frustrated. The clerk was wonderful! Rather than the typical “well, we can’t do a return without the receipt” and a turning away to be done with me – she said “we must be able to do something – let me think about this a moment”. She then began going through ideas which resulted in her calling the St. Augustine store and asking them to look up my mother’s name electronically and as I had my mother’s credit card and date of purchase – she was able to verify and the two stores collaborated.

It is the “CAN DO” attitude that sets indifferent and even good employees apart from great employees.

With graduation rates around 50% for four year institutions, families, state legislators and governors are looking for greater efficiency and return on investment from higher education.

Research shows that while GPA and SAT scores are good predictors of academic success, they are poor predictors of graduation rates. Non-academic factors are a much better predictor for graduation rates. Studies show that less than 25% of dropouts leave an institution for grades, personal emergency , or finances. This leaves over 75% of dropouts leaving for controllable factors such as level of service, appreciation, and cultural issues.

All institutions public, private, profit or non-profit can prosper or suffer from the public’s perceived image or brand of them. Customer service or service excellence is at the heart of this.

Service excellence is not fluff or some trite politically correct nuisance. It is an essential management practice that is the new battlefield in the competitive higher education environment.

Three reasons I’d like to share with you as to why customer service is important to higher education:

1. prestige and image
2. social, moral and ethical responsibility
3. financial viability

Service excellence is directly applicable to the prestige of the college or university. The graduation and retention rates are intertwined with the image and reputation of the institution. The higher the prestige of the college, typically the higher the graduation and retention rates and the perceived level of service provided to the student and family. Prestige is not only relevant to students and their family, but alumni, community support and donor giving. For many institutions, endowments, contributions, and grants are the major sources of revenue. Everybody wants to be affiliated with the college/university that provides a sense of pride and prestige for being associated with them. There is an affection level that extends far beyond the time spent as a student as evidenced with lifetime donations, attendance at football games or other school events, day-to-day wearing of the college sweatshirt/hat. Going with my daughter to New York City this Christmas she took me to a sports bar and grill that was known as the Auburn spot. Apparently there was another known as the Alabama gathering spot. It seems many of your major cities have identified places created by the alumni to continue their affiliation with the college. Who would go if they were not proud to be part of that heritage?

The college Brand is also directly related to the level of service the institution provides. However the staff must not just talk the talk, they must walk the walk. Does the institution have processes and systems in place that allow them to consistently deliver on excellent service or is it just an advertising campaign and ploy?

Community support is also a big factor based on the brand and image of the college. Think of all the little towns in our country that are centered around a college or university. If the perception of that school is poor, who wants to be associated with or support it through advertising, funding, and marketing?

Secondly, there is a social, moral and ethical responsibility that higher education has to their students, parents of students and society at large for the investment everyone is making. With dropout rates being around 50% at 4 year colleges/universities and 70% at 2 year community colleges – is higher education really providing such a great return on investment. Students are now graduating with debt levels of up to $200,000. What return on this investment are students, families, and the public receiving? There is increasing scrutiny by state legislatures and the government on higher education- as to “Are these institutions truly meeting the needs of our citizens?”

A key purpose of higher education is to produce future leaders for society and productive citizens for the workplace – how can this be accomplished when students dropout as such an alarming rate? If we are to compete in the global market place, we need a much better educated workforce and citizenry. Receiving a diploma is no longer just a nice thing to have, but a required ticket to get in the race. Graduation is important to not only careers but also to life….

The third reason as to why customer service or service excellence as I like to refer to it, is important, is that the financial viability of educational institutions is directly related to the perceived value in the tuition and the ability to graduate with a degree and get a job. Low retention and graduation rates cost institutions millions of dollars in lost revenue and unnecessary high costs. Faculties are recognizing that if they want more tenured positions, endowments, grants, research funding and success, that the institution as a whole must be successful. Endowments and grants are a large portion of revenues for many institutions and these are again related to the perceived level of service excellence. Cities and communities rely on the success and stability of the college. Businesses are more apt to put a stake in the ground of a city/town that surrounds a college with a solid reputation and image.

So, in summary, service excellence is not just smiling nice, giving good eye contact and a quaint thing to do. The educational environment has become much more competitive. Students have multiple options and many organizations are competing for the same student enrollment. In order to compete in this environment, an organization must develop a brand of providing superior service and value.

Going into a Subway restaurant that I had never been into before, I stood in line behind two other customers.  A young mother with a child in a stroller was at the counter and the employee (called “sandwich artists”) greeted her by name and asked if she wanted her usual – turkey on wheat bread with provolone.  She smiled and said “of course”.

The next customer in line was a big, tall guy wearing a Boston Red Sox baseball cap.  The employee greeted him by saying “Hey Joe, good to see you again.  Want the regular?”  Joe grinned and nodded.

I was next and when I got to the counter, the employee smiled, gave me eye contact and asked what kind of sub would I like.  As I gave the order and then followed him down the sandwich topping line, I asked him how he knew the names and orders of those customers in front of me.  He shared that he had recently been laid off from his company due to the economy and not wanting to sit around, he had found this job at Subway.  Initially he was very depressed about his stiuation; however, he realized that he was lucky because he had found another job.  He felt that because many  people are going through tough times that he would try and make a small impact on his customers’ day by making them feel special.  What can you do to make person feel special?  Remember their name!  And so he started learning and memorizing the names and orders of his frequent customers.  He showed me a scratch piece of paper he pulled from his back pocket where he would write down what they ordered and their name so that when they came in, he could greet them with a sense of familiarity.

That’s WOW world-class service!

1.  Quickly admit to the mistake and not try to cover it up.  When you come forward and admit a mistake, customers are more forgiving.
2.  Take ownership and don’t try to blame it on others.  Notre Dame School teaches their students to not ever deflect blame on someone or something else, but to always accept the wrong and take responsibility.
3.  Apologize.  Saying you are sorry that the situation occurred can go miles in retaining the relationship.  Sometimes a sincere apology is all the customer really wants.
4.  Tell how you will fix the problem.  Clearly communicate what you are going to do to remedy the situation.
5.  Follow through with any promises made and follow up!

Interestingly, 70% of the people responding to the survey said they would recommend a company simply because a representative was on time!  That dropped to 43% who would recommend a company if they had to wait an extra 15 minutes.  Why?  Customers say they think the reason that companies who aren’t showing up on time is because they “don’t care about my time”.

Bottom line cost:  study found companies lose an average of $330 for each customer who decides to stop doing business with them.  I’m sure it gets much larger than that if you figure in lost referrals.

The question becomes:  do you look through the lens of the customer when designing your delivery processes or only through the lens of the organization? Great customer service must come after the sale too – its all part of the customer experience.

When you think of a business, it is really composed of many customers and suppliers internally within the organization itself. In a manufacturing company for example, the sales department usually starts the process by getting an order from a customer. They pass this order to the Purchasing department, who sends it to the Engineering department and from there it goes to Manufacturing and then is passed on to Shipping. Each of these departments has certain things they need from the prior department or “internal supplier”. Therefore each department is a supplier and a customer to each other.

There is a domino effect between internal customer satisfaction and external customer satisfaction. In order to produce happy external customers (the ones who buy your product/service), it is important and imperative to build customer satisfaction between the internal customers.

How to do this?  Start by having each department:

1. Identify an internal customer and an internal supplier.
2. Talk to this internal customer and ask them specifically what is needed for them to do their jobs that their department provides.
3. Ask this internal customer what they currently do that disappoints them in delivering what they provide.
4. Ask this internal customer what they could do that would delight them and make their jobs easier.
5. Go to supplier and ask what you can do to help them deliver what your department needs.

Continue to repeat these five actions with all of your internal customers and internal suppliers. Keeping internal customers satisfied and happy is the first step towards creating external customer loyalty.

When you are helping people create memories, you must be honest.  And that’s the driving value at Holiday Isle Properties, Inc. in Destin, Florida.  Patrica Denny, the owner, and her staff all work hard to ensure their guests have the best possible experience for that special occasion when someone wants to get away and enjoy the beautiful beaches and area of Destin.  By being honest up front with guests, the staff believes they can ensure the vacation rental that is ultimately selected, will be the one that will make their guests happiest.  And happy guests turn into repeat guests!

How many times have you been misled by sales staff who are so anxious to make the sale?  When the moment of truth arrives, you, the customer feel manipulated, misled, and deceived.  Chances of you recommending or going back to do business with that organization is zero to slim.  Why?  You feel you can’t trust them!

Holiday Isle Properties go out of their way to ensure you know what you are getting with the vacation rental property you are booking.  They will spend time actively listening to your desires and needs, send 3 dimensional pictures, advise you of what’s what – all so that when you book and when you arrive, there are no surprises.  Of course, this means that all their employees are competently knowledgeable on each one of their properties.

Not only have they survived the recession and Gulf oil spill, they have doubled their repeat business in the last year by creating loyal customers.   Superior customer service pays and that includes being honest about your product!