Too Much Customer Service
As we value every student we help on a daily basis, is there ever a time where we provide too much student service / activities to where it takes away from their education?
John,
I do not believe there is a way to provide "too much service" as long as we are still accomplishing the instructional and developmental objectives.
Jeffrey Schillinger
For example? I think we do a much better job of educating students in the soft skills and intangibles, in addition to skills, which we all know employers are looking for.
We need to educate our students as we would want to be educated ourselves.
Anne,
Some might say educating our students as we would want to be educated is not th right thing to do. The theory here is that we need to educate our students in a way that best works for each of them. How would you respond to this position?
Jeffrey Schillinger
I don't believe you can give too much customer service the student is the customer and the more the student feels as though they are getting the most out of their money the better they will do and the more likely they are to refer students and market for the school.
I agree, we want to hold to the idea that we want to educate others as we would want to be educated. I take this very differently, though. I think that we want to help create the situation in which they would best be successful, as we would want for ourselves. We want to set the standards high and support students in maintaining these, as we would want done for ourselves.
I also think that there can be such a thing as "too much" customer service in educating our students. I struggle to consider students as 'customers'. Though they are paying for a service, or education, and many principles of customer service are important in education (as well as every aspect of life), it is difficult for me to make all students 'customers'.
An example would be the 'customer is always right' philosophy. I believe we need to meet a student at their developmental level (cognitively, developmentally, experientially, emotionally, etc), but sometimes they are not right and we need to make those teachable moments. These moments should be as unbiased as possible, thinking of our blind spots and HABEs, but it is one example I feel that contradicts students vs customers.
Megan,
I do not know if there is a way to provide too much service. Some studens need a lot of hand holding all the way from orientation to graduation while others need very little.
Jeffrey Schillinger
I agree on providing the student with the knowledge and education he or she is paying for, and not all the extra fluff. Provide the support to help them reach their goals and obtain vision.
Traci,
I am not sure what you mean by "extra stuff." Please elaborate.
Jeffrey Schillinger
I am often reminded of the saying "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats for life". Unfortunately, I do see examples of "too much customer service". When instructors or administrators take the position of "do whatever to keep the customer happy" but do not consider that an action may be contrary to instructional and developmental objectives, we are failing to teach, and are performing a disservice in the name of customer service. Being late with assignments has consequences as this is teaching students the need to meet deadlines at work. I tell my students that developing good attendance habits is important - after all, if you missed 40 days of work per year you would most likely be out of a job.
