Day 3 - Student Service

Good Student Service

It is actually not particularly hard to deliver good student service.

The key is to focus on the student, and what they need and want from you, at all stages before, during and after they have decided to apply at The Chicago School.

To achieve this, it is important to build a relationship with your students.

Increasingly few of us are looking for a transactional relationship with any organization. We no longer want to buy a single product and move on without further contact with a brand. Instead, we want to build a longer-lasting relationship with an organization or brand that genuinely sees us as individuals and understands our needs. This goes as much for any business practically including higher education.

There are a number of things that you can do to ensure that students are satisfied with your service. These include:

  • Responding rapidly to prospects, whether on the phone, email or text. Especially electronically prospects expect a more-or-less instantaneous response, just as they expect an answer to a phone call within normal business hours. It is as well to respect this and respond quickly. If you don’t have a full response, at least reply to show that you have seen their message and are dealing with it. If the prospect is complaining, a reply should probably steer them towards a private message, rather than continued interaction in public.
  • Getting to know your prospects by keeping records of your interactions. Nobody wants to repeat their story again when they call back, or have to provide more information if they call after emailing for a while. Having accurate records of conversations, email exchanges and so on, and, crucially, keeping them so that you can track by customer rather than separately by channel, means you will be able to respond to your customers as individuals, and in the full knowledge of their history.
  • Acknowledging and fixing mistakes as quickly as possible. As often as not, all a disgruntled student wants is an apology and a way to fix the issue when they make a complaint.  You are empowered to provide both of those as quickly as possible.
  • Going the extra mile. Going that little bit further can be the difference between ‘satisfied’ and ‘delighted’ prospects / students, and it often takes very little additional effort. It is especially worthwhile for good and long-term customers. However, make sure that what you do will actually solve the customer’s issue: it is no good going above and beyond if what you do doesn’t actually help.Running with Sue