Evaluating the Customer Support Experience

Customer support organizations often focus on evaluating the contact with the customer once the individual has made an effort to formally contact the organization. This effort is necessary but can lead to faulty conclusions on the customer contact. Each Chief Academic Officer must understand what is necessary to be a great university. Does the CAO want to measure all contacts and evaluate the results of the experience or is there something else the CAO should focus on? Is there an experience that faculty and/or students are experiencing that is going unnoticed or missed completely?

Let’s be clear, understanding the customer contact is very important; large companies exist to assist in this effort and they will not go away. The question I am asking about is not recognized by our traditional customer contact methods. Specifically I think about a number of areas emerging in the social networking environment. The two most obvious are Facebook and Twitter, but there are many other points of contact we often miss evaluating because of the difficulty. Areas would include friends, social contacts, peers at work, and business contacts. All the above could influence our position on what we decide to do in our university life. The question is: is it worth knowing the value of the early contacts in our everyday university decision making?

My thoughts are starting to focus on early contacts to determine what an effective customer experience means. In the era of instant contact offered by Facebook and Twitter, we cannot ignore the impression faculty and students are forming about the university experience. These new communications tools highlight the thoughts individuals have prior to making a formal contact with an organization. The importance of the two services are not going unnoticed by the consumer industry; the large corporations are mining the data online to catch any disinterest or frustration with a brand. Do universities need to recognize this new phenomena to improve its faculty and student experience? Today universities are spending significant time and money to retain students and are making equal investments to retain the best faculty.

I am confident that traditional methods of measuring customer service only recognize 30% of the overall faculty and student experience. Often by the time a faculty or student makes formal contact with the university, the customer has already formed a lasting impression. To ensure retention programs work, universities must identify methods of recognizing the first touches and ensure they are positive. What should a university do to ensure this happens? The first steps are to go where the faculty and students are…could be the office, could be the traditional meeting places, and often it will be where they gather with friends to socialize. The goal is to get to the faculty and students early and often to ensure we understand what is important and we implement programs that ensure our retention efforts are successful.