TSPRA VOICE Schools and customer service: Why you should treat your stakeholders like your customers

Oftentimes what keeps

parents coming back

year after year is the

customer service

they receive.

TSPRA VOICE

Schools and customer service: Why you should treat your stakeholders like your customers

By Melissa Martinez

Think back to when you were in school. Can you remember why you attended the school you did? Did your parents look at scores, programs and extracurricular activities and choose a school based on the best fit for your interests? If you attended public school, you likely attended the school that was assigned to you. Plain and simple, no questions asked.

Unfortunately, those plain and simple days are long gone. Parents now have choice: charters, private, parochial, online and homeschooling, among others. Add in open enrollment and even public schools are competing with each other. School administrators can no longer take for granted that students will just show up on the first day of school. Just like businesses, schools now must earn and keep students within their walls. Just as they shop for a car or appliance, parents now go shopping for schools.

What will set you apart? We all have great teachers, programs and achievements. Oftentimes what keeps parents coming back year after year is the customer service they receive. The schools that are doing this the best excel because they understand that stakeholders are customers and should be treated as such. However, when the topic of students and/or parents as customers comes up, many in the traditional school setting find this difficult to reconcile.

“Students aren’t customers.”

“Schools aren’t businesses.”

We have to look beyond the confines of customer service in the business world and understand how it applies to school systems. Customer service for schools is 1) understanding that your students/parents/taxpayer/staff have choice and they can take their “business” or trust or engagement elsewhere; and 2) like a business, the level of service that you provide will determine the relationship with that stakeholder and whether or not they return.

A quick review of the complaints that a school or district administrator receives will likely reveal that most are customer-service related. Rarely does a parent ask to see the principal to threaten to remove a child from the school because of an issue with academics. More likely is that there was a disagreement with a teacher, nobody responded to an email or they didn’t feel welcomed upon their visit.

With the multitude of choice, school districts simply cannot afford to ignore this aspect of the family experience.

Ultimately, good customer service for schools returns the focus to building relationships. Whether you have a district-wide initiative or want to start with a few campuses, here are some things to consider and do to improve customer service:

Welcome wagon: Your front office staff are typically the first people with whom your customers will interact, whether that’s by phone or in person. What kind of welcome are they receiving? Is your receptionist helpful when answering the phone? Are there signs posted with a laundry list of what not to do? One campus that comes to mind used to have an oversized STOP sign right as people entered. The sign stated nobody could go beyond that sign. Now, we all know that safety and security are paramount, and we don’t want that compromised. However, think about what your entryway looks like. Is it inviting or intimidating? Does it look like a place you’d want to leave your child, or does it look like a prison?

Response times: One of the biggest enemies of good customer service is being unresponsive. Best practices indicate that an organization set a norm or standard for response times for all communication received, including emails and social media messages. It’s important to set this as a team so that there is buy-in and it is a realistic goal for the team. Make sure the person assigned to answer questions is someone who can speak and engage with authority on the behalf of the school or district.

Training: Invest in customer service training. Don’t assume that everyone understands what good customer service means. It’s not “the customer is always right.” It certainly doesn’t mean that you must always side with a parent or student. Knowing how to properly address difficult situations can make all the difference. It can help put both the person making the complaint and the person receiving it at ease.

Make it easy to connect: One of the most frustrating things for a customer is getting the runaround. Eliminate the guessing game by having easily accessible directories or communication methods with your public. There are some great services available to help streamline this process.

Don’t be afraid of the feedback: It’s never easy to hear that you’ve fallen short in providing a great experience, but it’s valuable information. The only way to improve is to know what needs fixing. A simple survey or automatic response email can ask a customer to rate their experience. You’ll be surprised how often just being asked makes a difference. The customer may not have received the answer they wanted, but they have felt heard. n

One thing that hasn’t changed since 1962 about Texas School Public Relations Association: Communication Matters

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