This document discusses customer service in higher education. It defines customer service and notes that while higher education has focused on producing graduates, it has not prioritized student satisfaction during their studies. The document outlines barriers to good customer service in universities and argues that universities should adopt a customer service approach given changing student expectations and increased competition. It provides principles for customer service in higher education and discusses using social media and developing a customer service culture.

1. Let’s Rewrite The Meaning Behind
Customer Service in Higher Education
By: Haley Vasarella & Kristin Armstrong

2. City Population: 14,000 people
University Population: 14,000 students
12,000 Undergraduates
New Freshmen: 2,150
Transfers: 750
Most popular Majors:
1. Accounting
2. Marketing
3. Undeclared
Students drawn in mostly from a 70 mile
radius of the University

3. Orientation Experience
Plan-It Purple
1 Day - Summer Orientation
Club U-Dub-Dub/TRANSFERmation
2 Day - Fall Orientation
Kick-Off
R U Purple!?
Academic College Meetings
Hawk Fest
Welcome Concert

5. Customer Service
Google Search Definition:
“The assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or uses its products and
services.”
BusinessDictionary.com Definition:
“All interactions between a customer and a product provider at the time of sale, and thereafter.
Customer service adds value to a product and builds enduring relationship.”
Used in a sentence:
The customer service representative kept the caller on the phone and chatted pleasantly with him while
correcting the mistake made in the customer's online billing statement.
Urbandictionary.com Defintion:
“A job which causes your anus to hurt because you’ve been bending over backward and taking it from
whiny, complaining, bratty idiots all freaking day long.”

6. The Great Divide
“Higher education has focused less on the
process of good customer service and more
on the final product of producing educated
graduates. Colleges and Universities have not
been as concerned about whether students
felt satisfied while completing their degree
requirements.” - Boyd (2012)
Demetriou (2008) argued, “Satisfaction is not
an appropriate gauge of quality in higher
education. Within the business realm, the
customer is always right while in an
education setting the student is not always
right”
“If the quality of the initial encounter is good,
and the ongoing relationship is strong,
satisfaction and loyalty remain high”
- Bejou (2005)
“Education is clearly a service, not a product
… in higher education; they have to be
mindful of, responsive to the characteristics,
needs, and expectations of the student”
- Vaill (2008)

7. Barriers
• Needing a cultural
shift and helping
other faculty and
staff to see the
need for customer
service.
“While some departments excel, others are infused with a ‘don’t bother me’ attitude”
“Cranky clerical folks, arrogant faculty, harried receptionists, clueless student workers - you
name it, we’ve got ‘em!”
• We don’t offer effective
customer service
training.
• We don’t know how to
assess our current
service gap.

8. Why Customer Service?
Changing Expectations
Revolving Retention
Increased Competition
Efficiency

9. Experience Means Everything

10. Experience Means Everything

11. Principles of Customer Service: The Higher Ed Version
● High Quality Services
● Service Oriented
● Understand the audience
● One of a Kind
● Golden Rule
● Do it Right the First Time
● Ask for feedback AND listen

12. Three Step Approach
Parents, Students,
Staff
Who Are They? What Do They
Want?
How Have They
Changed?
Quality Customer
Service
Technological Shift

13. ● Relationship Marketing Building (Constantinides and Stagno, 2012)
● Case Study by Hayes, Ruschman, and Walker in 2009 found a notable relationship of
those who logged onto the social network site and the chance of them applying
● Reuben in 2008 looked at Ohio State University’s Facebook Page and noted:
○ From 2007 to 2008, the page had 6,904 members using the page
● In 2012, Bazaarvoice surveyed Millennials and found that:
○ 51% are very much influenced in their decision by recommendations made on
user generated content on social media
Social Media and Higher Education

14. Social Media Lived Out - The Hawk Squad Experience
1. Know your stuff
2. Know your resources
3. Embrace mistakes
4. Putting your best
face forward
5. Team-work makes
the dreamwork

15. Warhawk Culture
• The 10-foot Rule
• On-Stage
• NO Clumping
• Know Your Resources
• Keep it Positive
• Go the Extra Mile
• “It’s My Pleasure”
• Be Warhawk

16. The Do’s and Don'ts of Customer Service
Make eye contact
Feel free to shake
hands
Talk to everyone
Have fun
Approach people
Stare
Hold the handshake too long or
have inappropriate touching
Get so caught up in talking to
everyone that the
conversations are awkward
Be over the top

17. Development
• Form Standards
• Embrace the uniqueness of the individual
• Practice
• Constant Assessment

18. Moving Forward
The essential questions that need to be answered when participating in
customer service...
• What is the goal for my role?
• Who is my customer?
• What messages are we trying to tell our customer?
• What is the best way to get our message through to the customers?
• What skills do I have that are going to benefit the customer?
• How am I going to know if I have been successful?
• Is there anything I learned today that I can take away and implement at my
institution?

19. Let’s Put It Into Practice . . .
Take Following Negative Statements and Turn Them Into Positives:
1) Just go down the hall, take a right, walk about 50 feet, take a left and it should be there.
2) You will have to ask someone else about that.
3) The campus is pretty fun.
4) It is a suitcase college, but I like it.
5) We are going to have something for lunch. . . I’m sure it will be good
6) I have no idea the answer to that question
7) That event will happen sometime after lunch

20. Let’s Get Animated
• Come up with two skits:
• A good interaction with a student/guest
• A bad interaction with a student/guest

21. References
Bazaarevoice. (2012). Talking to Strangers: How Social Influences Millenials’ShoppingDecisions. Retrieved November 24, 2014, from
http://resources.bazaarvoice.com/rs/bazaarvoice/images/201202_Millennials_whitepaper.pdf
Bejou, D. (2005, March/April). Treating students like customers. Biz Ed Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.aacsb.edu/publications/Archives/marapr05-toc.asp
Boyd, R. (2012). Customer Service in Higher Education: Finding a Middle Ground. The Mentor An Academic Advising Journal. Retrieved March 3, 2016, from https://dus.psu.edu/mentor/2012/06/customer-
service-in-higher-education/
Constantinides, E., & Zinck Stagno, M. (2012). Higher Education Marketing: A Study on the Impact of Social Media on Study Selection and University Choice. International journal of technology and education
marketing, 2(1), 41-58.
Demetriou, C. (2008). Arguments against applying a customer-service paradigm. The Mentor: An Academic Advising Journal, 10(3). Retrieved from http://www.psu.edu/dus/mentor
Hayes, T. J., Ruschman, D., & Walker, M. M. (2009). Social networking as an admission tool: A case study in success. Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, 19(2), 109-124.
Kotler, P. (2003), Marketing Management, international edition, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Kuper, S. (2014, October 29). 4 Reasons Why Customer Service is More Vital to Higher Education than Ever Before. Retrieved March 3, 2016, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141029184627-10447704-4-
reasons-why-customer-service-is-more-vital-to-higher-education-than-ever-before
Maringe, F. (2006). University and course choice: Implications for positioning recruitment and marketing. International Journal of Educational Management,20(6), 466-479.
Neff, Jack (2010), “Nielsen: Facebook’s Ads Work Pretty Well. When Social Ads Collide with Stated Interests, Awareness Goes Up,”
Noel-Levitz. (2009) Scrolling Toward Enrollment We Site Content and the E-Expectations of College-Bound Seniors. Retrieved October 18, from
https://www.noellevitz.com/documents/shared/Papers_and_Research/2009/EExpScrollingTowardEnrollment09.pdf
Reuben, R. (2008). The use of social media in higher education for marketing and communications: A guide for professionals in higher education. EduGuru.
Vaill, P. (2008). Beware the idea of the student as a customer: A dissenting view. Retrieved fromhttp://www.people.vcu.edu/~rsleeth/NotCustomers.html
Wallace, K. (2010). 15 principles for complete customer service. Customer Service Manager. Retrieved from http://www.customerservicemanager.com/15-principles-for-complete-customer-service.htm
Zackal, J. (2016, January 29). Changing the Culture of Customer Service in Higher Education. Retrieved March 31, 2016, from https://www.higheredjobs.com/articles/articleDisplay.cfm?ID=814