How to build a student-centric service culture
Creating a student-centric service culture in higher education.
“A commitment to service” is a common cornerstone value for colleges and universities. It’s often intended to represent both preparing students to meaningfully contribute to society and delivering academic and administrative services.
Higher education often subscribes to a philosophy of service leadership, or the practice of serving others through empathy, active listening, clear communication, and putting people first. The increasing demands and pressures schools face, however, can make it difficult to fully embody these values. While many leaders are doing their best with the resources they have, this deficit can create a lackluster service experience where the institution’s greatest asset – its students – doesn’t feel supported or invested in. And if students sense a contradiction between these espoused values and their first-hand experiences, it can be hard to reconcile.
In our current climate, attracting and retaining students requires creating a continuous improvement culture in higher education. There’s an opportunity to recommit to our values and make a visible investment in service that’s grounded in a student-centric approach.
Service at the heart of institutional culture
Researchers from the University of Southern California and University of North Georgia explored how we define culture in higher education. Institutional cultures consist of an intricate web of relationships and routines. While it’s difficult to paint a holistic picture of all of the contributions and functions of a college or university, having it defined is increasingly important in a highly competitive marketplace.
Administrators, however, need to be intentional about setting up a continuous culture of improvement that investigates and monitors how that translates to the student experience. In many cases, it may require an organizational and administrative mindset change. Rather than making decisions on the assumption about our audiences’ needs, we need to ground our decision-making around organizational efficiency, operation design, and resource allocation in an understanding of the needs and challenges of our student body.
How to build a student-centric service culture
Building a student-centric service culture starts with understanding every service-based interaction. From this understanding, we bring stakeholders together to create a shared vision. How we measure success and institute organizational change, however, is where the rubber meets the road.
Here are four steps to creating an institution-wide, student-centric service culture:
Step 1: Define service at each stage of the student journey
Establishing a student-centric service culture starts with understanding how service is defined and experienced at every stage of a student’s journey and their daily touchpoints.
Are there established core service values within the school’s mission, vision, or values statements?
Do certain departments or functions have their own defined values?
What are the various touch points within a student’s on-campus experience?
What is the service experience within each of these interactions?
Where do we see areas of misalignment?
Keep in mind that perception aligns with experience. We may have established values, but if students and their families experience misalignment, it can lead to frustrations and strained relationships, potentially impacting your ability to retain students. While the loss of one student has minimal risk, misalignment on a greater scale can result in significant financial consequences.
Creating either institution-wide or department initiatives to evaluate the student experience through qualitative and qualitative research can uncover valuable pain points and insights into the intrinsic needs of your student body. In many cases, the needs and challenges of our students are evolving quickly, but if you’re able to make your research mechanisms continuous, you’re better able to anticipate the need for change.
Step 2: Develop a shared service vision
If you’re experiencing misalignment or missing a shared commitment to service, bring together a diverse set of faculty, staff, and students to envision what service excellence looks like. Meaningful dialogue about your purpose and impact can ensure your key stakeholders feel heard and seen when it comes to what you collectively value.
A service vision statement defines the future state in a clear, easy-to-understand phrase that can inspire and motivate everyone to embrace service excellence. To illustrate, Princeton University’s University Services shares its vision of service excellence on its website:
“University Services provides responsive and reliable services that align with institutional values. We are attentive to customer expectations and treat everyone with courtesy and respect.”
Establishing this vision statement lets stakeholders know what you’re working towards – but it also communicates to staff and front-line teams what excellence looks like.
Step 3: Set your metrics of success
Data should be the foundation of all organizational change. Setting key performance indicators for each of your identified touchpoints of the student experience allows you to monitor whether you’re on track in achieving your service vision or staying aligned with your values.
5 common principles of customer service excellence include:
Responsiveness
Reliability
Trust and confidence
Empathy
Professionalism
The same principles extend to higher education and how we set up our metrics for service success. Here are a few examples of actionable metrics and tools to measure success.
Sample goals for building a higher education service culture might include customer satisfaction, responsiveness, resolution, and escalation. Each goal has different ways to help you measure success.
Step 4: Set your team up for success
You have a vision and the ways to measure it, but whether you’re able to enact your vision depends on how well you’ve set up your team for success. A vision or values statement informs your staff and front-line workers what excellence looks like, but whether or not it’s effective and you’re able to meet your metrics depends largely on how they institute the vision.
To build true alignment, leaders need to take actionable steps to:
Communicate these shared service values regularly
Engage with the teams responsible with enacting this new vision of service
Define what success looks like – and how you’ll measure it
Be attentive and empathetic as front-line workers address challenges that arise
Stay committed to practicing what you preach
Where change management falls short is when we don’t take the time to prepare before we enact it. As you’re establishing your vision and values, take the time to plan ahead for:
How you’ll explain the changes
How you’ll train your staff
How you’ll evaluate your processes
Creating a plan for sustainable staffing
Building a student-centric service culture within your institution is no easy feat, but it is vital to the financial health of your institution. Student success and retention are intrinsically intertwined with the quality of an institution’s service experience. Preparing your students to meaningfully contribute to society starts with providing them with a meaningful service experience.
Interested in exploring higher education consulting to create a student-centric service experience? Let’s connect.