Customer Service in Advising

1. Customer Service in Advising Nourishing the Flowers & the Weeds Brian Henry – Academic Advisor Muir College UCSD Karla Kastner – Academic Advisor Muir College UCSD

2. Ice Breaker – Discussing our Unique Experiences • Think of a time when you experienced excellent customer service. . .what did that experience look like? How did it make you feel? Why was it special or meaningful? • Think of a time when you experienced the worst customer service. . . what did that experience look like? How did you feel afterward? What made it a negative moment?

3. Why is this important? • Student expectations shaped by consumer driven society. • Entitlement when see tuition as paying for services/education. • As advisors we can employ customer service best practices to shape our interactions with our students and create more quality outcomes for both students and advisors.

4. What we’ll be talking about. . . • Different Models • Disney-Welcoming and Setting the Stage • Nordstrom-Personalized Service and Innovation • Healthcare-Service Recovery and Evaluation • Implications for Advising

5. Disney: the whole experience, start to finish “We keep moving forward , opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” – Walt Disney

6. Hallmarks of the Disney Model Greeting & welcoming Setting the stage – cast members in a show Take advantage of every opportunity – magical express. “What time is the 3pm parade?”: never make guests feel like a question is silly. We mentality: we all take responsibility It’s about the whole experience

7. Implications for Advising • Creating a show • Group advising series marketed specifically to incoming freshman. • Welcoming guests & answering questions • Frustration about decentralized campus: by holding hand a little bit and explaining why we’re referring out can feel more personal and less like being turned away. • In-between opportunities • Passive programming: use the waiting area, website, Facebook.

8. Nordstrom: the gold standard “Nordstrom Rule #1: Use your good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.” – Nordstrom Employee Handbook.

9. Hallmarks of the Nordstrom Model Use your good judgment Follow-through: make them come back! Innovation Creativity Initiative Establish rapport with the customer Goal setting essential to company culture

10. Implications for Advising • Initiative • Give student all information relating to a question including what they aren’t asking. • Avoids “you never told me.” • Follow-through • Advising students on academic probation: ask them to follow-up before week 4 & 9 deadlines. Always surprised that we want to see them more than once—translation: I care. • Creativity/Innovation • Share best practice ideas & trends with coworkers to meet changing demands.

11. Health Care: what to do when something goes wrong “The way an organization seeks complaints and service failures sends a loud message about what it truly believes in.”

12. Hallmarks of the Health Care Model Service Recovery The Six A’s “Poka-yokes” Employee-Driven Strategies Evaluation and Systematic Change

13. Implications for Advising • Feedback • Create opportunities for feedback during and after meeting with students. • Take Responsibility • Proactively “mistake-proof” your department and anticipate problems. • Model responsibility for our students and be accountable for mistakes. • Change and Improve • Once mistakes are identified, use them an opportunity. Work not only with your department, but the larger university as well.

14. Summing it Up – What do we want our advising to look like? As advisors, we are the public faces of our universities and have the power to help students understand how to utilize our services & shape expectations of what advising is. • Using these customer service techniques can be the antidote to the entitled student & empower the advisor. • Creating an experience leading to trust promotes student “buy in” and allows us to advance our advising goals. • Create Loyalty and Identity • Why as a form of action • Barriers: too much time/work • We all feels pressures of stress (high volume of students/not enough resources), but in the end we are professionals who are passionate about education and maybe by working within the frame work of student expectation we can create the change we want to see.

15. References Bell, Steven J. "Antidote for Entitled 'Customers' | Inside Higher Ed." Antidote for Entitled 'Customers' | Inside Higher Ed. 29 July 2011. Web. 31 May 2012. <http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/07/29/bell_essay_on _changing_ clasroom_experience_to_meet_student_demands>. Clark, Paul Alexander, and Mary P. Malone. Making It Right:Healthcare Service Recovery Tools, Techniques, and BestPractices. Marblehead, MA: HCPro, 2005. Print. Elizard, Brian J. "6 Things Disney Can Teach Us About Academic Advising." Elizardi Dot Com. Web. 30 May 2012. <http://elizardi.com/blog/2011/01/24/6-things-disney-can-teach- us-about-academic-advising/>.

16. References Fottler, Myron D., Robert C. Ford, and Cherrill P. Heaton. "Fixing Healthcare Service Failures." Achieving Service Excellence: Strategies for Healthcare. Chicago: Health Administration, 2010. Print. Payne, Kirby J. "What Time Is the 3PM Parade? (Should Your Hotel Have a Some Mickey Mouse(r) in It?) / Kirby D. Payne, CHA." What Time Is the 3PM Parade? (Should Your Hotel Have a Some Mickey Mouse(r) in It?) / Kirby D. Payne, CHA.Web. 31 May 2012. <http://www.hotel online.com/Trends/Payne/Articles/WhatTimeParade.html>. Spector, Robert, and Patrick D. McCarthy. The Nordstrom Way: The inside Story of America's # 1 Customer ServiceCompany. New York: Wiley, 1995. Print.