How the Customer Service Experience Counts for Colleges

For the several years that I worked at a community college, my prior background in customer service operations was a big help. It also helped that I had the support of the school’s leadership, which understood that attention to the customer experience enhances enrollment numbers. By customer, I’m mainly referring to students, but also to internal and external customers, the community, and the people I came into in contact with daily.

As we all know, the slow economy has contributed to record enrollment growth at colleges nationwide. The economy will improve, but it is important to look beyond current enrollment numbers to focus on how colleges are going to retain the students that are now coming into schools by the droves.

Here are five tips to enhance the student (that is, the customer) experience, so that he or she will want to stay at the college long after the economy improves.

1. Provide a positive experience at every touch point. Each time a person contacts the college by telephone, mail, fax, or online, they should be confident that they are going to have a great experience every time.
2. Follow up with each student contact. If you are not capturing each contact, you are missing an opportunity to either retain a student or gain a new one.
3. Follow through on all requests in a timely manner—if you are asked to send out information, make sure that you do so quickly. You will rarely have a second chance.
4. Invest in technology that enhances, not replaces, the overall customer experience. Automated systems that cause people to become frustrated lose you business.
5. Engage you students to ensure student success and provide support systems that go beyond registering for classes. Put yourself in the student’s shoes and create relationships that last beyond the first day of classes—remember, your customers may have younger siblings.

Now is the time examine and reevaluate the overall customer experience your students are receiving. You cannot afford to wait until the economy gets better.