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The topic of whether universities and colleges should view their students, alumni and donors (Constituents) like customers is a debate that has been taking place for many years. Recently, TSI has noticed this debate is occurring with increasing frequency, especially in light of our recent Customer Experience training. Now more than ever seems to be the right time to continue the discussion of how to best utilize customer service/experience philosophies when working with Higher Education constituents.

The Challenge of Looking at Higher Education Constituents as Customers

Historically, many leaders in Higher Education abhor the thought of students as customers for many valid reasons. Anecdotally, I have found that the perception of Higher Education towards the concept of a customer is that customers are a number; customers are people that must be solicited or won over, and you need to sell to customers. Additionally, some feel that the merit of education should be separated from a financial transaction usually associated with being a customer.

In treating your constituents like customers, Higher Education institutions may feel pressure to lower their standards and values. While some of this vitriol may be warranted, Higher Education institutions should not dismiss important Customer Experience concepts since these can improve the service to their constituents.

The growing need for Customer Service in Higher Education

A critical factor in today’s higher education landscape is the continued decline in student enrollment across Title IV institutions in the United States. According to recent data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, postsecondary enrollment has been steadily decreasing, with undergraduate enrollment falling by nearly 8% between 2019 and 2022. This trend reflects a shrinking pool of traditional college-aged students, a rise in alternative education pathways, and shifting societal attitudes toward the value of a degree.

Higher education institutions are now competing not only with other universities and colleges (including for-profit and non-degree granting programs) but also with various career, social, and online education options, such as bootcamps, certifications, and skill-based training platforms like Coursera and LinkedIn Learning.

This competition extends beyond just recruiting new students. Alumni and donor engagement are increasingly critical for sustaining revenue. Institutions that fail to excel in student recruitment, alumni engagement, and fundraising risk flatlining or declining revenue streams. This, in turn, forces reductions in operational and capital expenditures, creating a feedback loop of restricted budgets and limited resources for future growth and engagement.

To counteract these challenges, innovative leaders in higher education are taking cues from the private sector. Businesses, particularly in competitive industries, are focusing on customer-centric approaches to foster loyalty and growth. They are investing in high-impact customer service strategies to create differentiated experiences that not only retain existing customers but also attract new ones.

So why should students/alumni/donors be viewed any differently than a business would view its customers?

Starting with the similarities:

1. Both are consumers – Students and customers are consumers of the product that is produced by the associated institution. For example, a student, when not in class, is consuming goods and services. Regardless of how the institution wants to classify these individuals, they define themselves as consumers since they pay, what they feel is a very high amount of money, in exchange for a service. As a result, they have high expectations for this service.

Think about how vocal students are when their Wi-Fi is slow; the course registration process has errors and/or takes too long; or the food in the Café does not meet their standards. Each of these seemingly small occurrences can influence how the student will share their experiences with their friends or peers, especially via social media, which enables other potential students to form their opinions as to whether they want to attend that institution.

A great example of Higher Education institutions appealing to their constituents that closely aligns with Customer Experience principles is through their athletics programs. There is no denying that in many major Universities in the United States, their football programs have become very proficient in marketing themselves to gain the best recruits, develop a rabid fan base, and ultimately profit from this fan base. Universities do not need to go all the way to this extreme; Higher Education administrators can still learn valuable lessons looking at how Athletic programs are appealing to their constituents.

2. Variety of appeals – People are constantly bombarded via social media, television, movies, newspapers, magazines and other channels to donate to this organization, or be a customer of that organization. This makes it very difficult for a single organization to “Cut through the noise”. I particularly like Forbes contributor, John Hall, advice to “Invest in your company leaders’ brands”.  Specifically, the leaders who had “invested time and resources in building their brands were attracting more attention from investors and even other participants.” Replace investors with students or donors, and this statement is fit for Higher Education. Of course, the question is how to build your brand. That is another topic for a different day.

Now, the key differences between Higher Education Constituents and customers:

1. Regulatory implications—Higher Education institutions that offer Title IV funding for their students are subject to rigorous federal and state regulations and policies that determine how the university interacts with the student and tracks the student’s outcomes. In addition, FERPA regulations strictly define how institutions are to maintain and protect student information. The closest parallel to this is in Healthcare, which is going through a similar debate with the Patient vs. Customer paradigm.

2. Student / Donor Lifecycle – Students have a unique lifecycle within Higher Education. At a high level, the lifecycle of a Customer involves attraction to the product, successfully completing the transaction, and maintaining a relationship to generate future transactions. The student lifecycle, at the same high level, has a few more steps in the process:

1. Becomes attracted to a particular college or university;
2. Applies to the university;
3. Is accepted by the university;
4. Completes required degree coursework, and ultimately;
5. Graduates from the university with their desired degree.

This process differs from the Donor lifecycle, which only begins when the Student lifecycle ends. The need for Higher Education to do more and more advancement work (fundraising) has required Schools to be cultivating relationships long past graduation, to aid in the fundraising needed to fill growing state funding gaps. In short, the student/alumni lifecycle is more complex, and needs to be treated as such.

The Donor lifecycle can be equally complex. Appeals for donations to a University can not only span years, but also can span generations. This requires extensive planning, communication and patience on the side of a university that often most businesses are not willing to invest.

So, what is the answer?

The answer to whether Higher Education institutions should view their Students, Alumni or Donors as Customers when discussing Customer Service in Higher Education is yes… and no.

Valuable lessons can be learned from the customer experiences of private businesses. Colleges and Universities do not need to feel like they are compromising their mission or selling their soul by considering the “personas” of their constituent base and defining differentiating experiences and processes that personify the “brand” of the institution.  The key however, is to really know your constituents including each of their objectives and the “moments that matter” to them.

When looking at how to improve Student enrollment and drive Alumni engagement and Donor interest, understanding how to serve them in a way that will lead to a truly differentiated experience is where to spend time and resources. However, if Higher Education institutions try to blindly apply all concepts from private businesses’ customer service practices without understanding how your constituents are different, they will create problems with their students, alumni, and donors. I would be incorrect if I said that these concepts are new to Higher Education and are not being practiced at all today.

What can you do for TSI, and vice versa?

It’s simple – help us help you. We at TSI always like to hear new and innovative ways that institutions are applying Customer Experience concepts to their customer service in Higher Education.  Please let us know:

• What did you think of this summary? And;
• What is your greatest challenge or achievement in providing a differentiated service to your constituents?

If you are interested in learning how your institution can apply Customer Experience concepts to student recruitment, donor engagement, and your advancement activities, contact us to discuss various approaches that can make a difference.

The post Adopting a “Customer Service” Mindset in Higher Education appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

While the predictions from Gartner and Oracle in previous years highlighted the rising importance of customer experience, it’s undeniable that in 2024, CX is not just a competitive advantage, but a business imperative. Regardless, few professionals would argue that the emphasis on an organization’s Customer Experience, (i.e., CX is the product of an interaction, including the resulting perceptions, between an organization and a customer over the duration of their relationship)  is not simply a fad, but an important tool to achieve what industry leaders like Seth Godin and Clay Hebert (among many others), recommend to connect to those vital to that organization. As Ian Altman says in Forbes: “it has become clear that we are in a Connection Economy. “

As we say at TSI, “the Customer Experience is the glue to make the connections come to life.”  Recently, it seems that there is something incongruent with the articles and statistics I read, the experiences we have with our clients and other organizations contemplating new strategies in this area.  Perhaps it is just what we are seeing here, I would posit that it appears many companies and higher education institutions are simply going through the motions in this area.

How are you approaching this change?

How are you TRULY enhancing your Customer Experience?

I want to use this short article to hit 3 points that will have a BIG impact for your organization in enhancing your customer experience:

1. Start by honing your CX awareness skills; these will pay off for you if you are planning to enhance or improve the customer experience within your organization.

2. Rather than simply going through the motions, use CX to create a real, legit, unfair advantage for your organization.

3. Expect the journey to be difficult, but prepare to persevere.

Hone your CX awareness skills

I challenge you to book your next business trip, make a doctor’s appointment, plan a vacation, buy a car, get a mortgage (or refinance your existing one), drive a car in Mexico (well maybe we’ll save that story for another day), apply for a college course (or apply to a university).

After completing one or more of these, take a step back and assess how these experiences were in terms of the following:

1. How ETDBW (Easy to do business with) was this organization, or process? What best reflects the impression the vendor left? Ask yourself the following:

• Do they care about your business?
• Would they rather maximize profit on one transaction, or have you become a loyal customer for a lifetime?
• Does your time matter to them?
• How would you rate the experience overall?

2. Aside from the efficiency and effectiveness aspect of the transaction, did the transaction have any emotional connection that left you with a memory that was more positive, neutral or negative in nature? Many of the readers of this likely saw the video from a recent United flight when a ticketed passenger was removed against his will, simply because the plane was over-booked, and members of the United crew had no room to board.  Based on the reaction by United’s CEO, that was not the intended emotional connection the organization was hoping to achieve. And although this example can be seen as an outlier, both in terms of how ridiculous the situation, as well as how vastly the customer’s “experience” was shared on social media, consider the financial effects alone. Fortune reports that United Airlines’ stock has dropped $1.4 Billion since this controversy took place!

In each of these examples, the business or higher education institution on the other end of the transaction would accurately tell you that they are in a very competitive industry.  Yet, at the risk of generalizing, each of these examples is, what we in consulting refer to as “opportunity-rich” with respect to how they often fail to create a memorable, meaningful and intentional moment that matters to the customer. Or, in United’s example, just the opposite.

Become a CX Jedi warrior to develop awareness skills that you can apply in your organization.

Your Legit Unfair Advantage

When we consult with our clients or lead CX training workshops on the topic of developing an improved Customer Experience, we emphasize the notion of creating, in very tangible terms, the organization’s unfair advantage (UA). Yeah, it sounds a little like defining your own super power.  In fact, it is a LOT like creating your organizational super power.

What do you want to be KNOWN for?  What will you be famous for?

We look at it this way – your UA is a function of your organization’s: 

Quality x Originality/Uniqueness x Service x Convenience/Comfort/Location x Price

There is a lot to unpack in this formula and you and your colleagues could easily spend a few focused work sessions on this topic.  Don’t expect to nail it on the first time.   But if you can truly understand, from your customer’s perspective, what are the “moments that matter” and define your unfair advantage that provides a unique and memorable CX, you are on your way.

Yes, it’s hard, but Worth it!

In short, a positively memorable CX matters! Why? It’s certainly a logical leap to think that a customer who has an excellent experience, remembers it.  Because of one positive experience, they can tell others about it; sometimes even becoming mini marketers for that product or service.  Further, those that are loyal, having had a positive experience are retained, becoming much more likely to buy a product or service over and over.

Consider the following:  Studies by Bain & Company, along with Earl Sasser of the Harvard Business School, have shown that even a 5 percent increase in customer retention can lead to an increase in profits of between 25 and 95 percent.

There are several reasons why this small increase in retention can have such a substantial impact on profits:

1. Customers are likely to spend more with companies they’ve already done business with. Particularly with small businesses that don’t have a lot of brand recognition, a customer’s first purchase or two can be considered somewhat of a risk. So they are likely to keep the cost relatively small, and then increase spending as the relationship grows.

2. Repeat customers are more likely to refer others. Bain & Company’s research showed that after just one purchase from an online apparel retailer, an average shopper was likely to refer three other people to the site. But a customer that made ten purchases from an online apparel retailer was likely to refer seven different people to the site.

So what?

Creating a positively memorable experience is HARD!  Especially for an organization that has any degree of complexity around the following:

• The types of products/services your customers want;
• How easy or hard, fast or slow, manual or automated, simple or cumbersome it is for you to quote/price the right products/services;
• How easy or hard, fast or slow, manual or automated, simple or cumbersome it is for them to order it, receive it, process the invoice, and actually pay for it.
• What about the delivery, set up/configuration, training, etc., how seamless are these processes?
• Do you have numerous people involved, sometimes with “less than ideal” coordination when you think about those involved from a contracting, pricing, order processing/execution, set up, training, implementation touchpoints?

In closing, I urge you to start this journey. Now. Waiting only lets your competition gain ground on you.  Follow the three steps you just learned:

1. Hone your CX awareness skills – these will pay off for you as you can be the CX Jedi that design’s the amazing and enhanced customer experience for your organization.

2. Use CX to create a real, legit unfair advantage for your organization – consider how your organization can effectively complete largely, if not solely, on the basis of the experience.

3. Lastly, expect the journey to be difficult and prepare to persevere – consider TSI’s Change Readiness Survey as a tool to assess your organization’s readiness to change.

As you know, TSI is always happy to discuss your situation, should you need any assistance enhancing your Customer Experience.  Regardless, please give us feedback; we love hearing from you! Contact us via our website, or reach out via social media.

The post Are You REALLY Enhancing Your Customer Experience (CX) To Create an Unfair Advantage For You? Or For Your Competition? appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

Through our work at Transforming Solutions, Inc. (TSI), we believe that understanding critical aspects of emotional Intelligence and applying them to our work with clients and other parts of life is essential to achieving goals and realizing one’s potential in many areas. In addition, leading organizational research on emotional Intelligence and effective organizational management shows a strong relationship between emotional Intelligence and effective organizational management. Leaders who have high emotional Intelligence are more likely to be effective in their roles and are better able to create a positive work environment. Do a Google search “Importance of Emotional Intelligence, and you will see an overwhelming number of articles supported by research that discuss the correlation between emotional Intelligence and success. One recent study, “What matters more for entrepreneurship success? A meta-analysis comparing general mental ability and emotional intelligence in entrepreneurial settings”, was authored by Jared S. Allen, Regan M. Stevenson, Ernest H. O’Boyle, and Scott Seibert; notes Emotional Intelligence has an 89.1% predictive variance in determining an entrepreneurs success with IQ being only 10.9% predictive of their success.

Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist and renowned author, says emotional Intelligence is highly predictive of success. He has also said, “CEOs are hired for their intellect and business expertise – and fired for lack of emotional intelligence.“. Goleman explains emotional Intelligence can be broken down into the following five categories (pictured in the graphic), as summarized by Andrea Ovans’ 2015 Harvard Business Review article titled “How Emotional Intelligence Became a Key Leadership Skill“:

• Self-awareness
• Self-regulation
• Motivation (defined as “a passion for work that goes beyond money and status”)
• Empathy for others
• Social skills, such as proficiency in managing relationships and building networks

6 ways to practice your emotional Intelligence as an organizational leader

1. Practice empathy: Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. As a leader, it is essential to be empathetic toward your employees and their situations. Practicing empathy can help you build trust and respect and foster a positive workplace culture.

2. Practice active listening: Active listening involves hearing what someone is saying and understanding what they mean. As a leader, you should practice active listening to gain insight into your employees’ concerns, needs, and desires. This will help you understand what motivates them and how to best support them.

3. Manage conflict effectively: Conflicts are inevitable in any workplace, but as a leader, it is your responsibility to manage them effectively. Emotional Intelligence can help you understand the underlying emotions driving the conflict and guide you toward a solution that benefits all parties involved.

4. Provide constructive feedback: As a leader, it is essential to provide feedback to your employees. However, the way you deliver that feedback can have a significant impact. Emotional Intelligence can help you frame feedback in a constructive and empathetic way that encourages growth and development.

5. Build strong relationships: Building solid relationships with your employees is critical to success as a leader. Emotional Intelligence can help you connect with your employees deeper, understand what motivates them, and build strong bonds that contribute to a positive workplace environment.  

6. Use tools: Using tools can help you gather input from others to better understand their perspective. While you can use various surveys, check out TSI’s Free (and short) Change Readiness Assessment.

Overall, emotional Intelligence is valuable for any leader looking to improve organizational management. By focusing on empathy, active listening, conflict management, constructive feedback, and relationship building, you can strengthen your emotional Intelligence and become a more effective leader.

If you’ve liked what you read and would like to hear more on this topic or similar topics, feel free to comment or reach out to TSI for more.

The post 6 Critical Factors of Emotional Intelligence That Can Make you an OCM Boss appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

Transforming Solutions has had the privilege to work with some of the fastest-growing and progressive organizations in both the corporate and higher education sectors. Throughout these experiences, we have taken a deep dive into efficiency, quality, customer satisfaction, and profitability. While the fundamentals have not changed, process improvement principles continue to adapt to the times.

Our Top 5 Process Improvement Principles

1. Incorporate User Experience (UX), Customer Experience (CX), and Organizational Change Management

As you define and analyze your processes, we encourage you to consider the experience as a whole. There are countless examples of organizations that did not do this and failed as a result. One thing that comes to mind is a leadership group inadvertently creating an opportunity for a competitor through neglecting a more holistic approach. However, for those who take the holistic approach, topics such as people, culture, technology, and strategy are considered in addition to operations.

2. Don’t Assume Technology Will Automatically Change Your Processes

Many organizations assume that a change in their CRM or ERP will inherently fix their processes. However, there are two shortcomings in this thinking that organizations do not consider:

1. Technology is generally not built to drive processes – Technology has a built-in process (best practices) that may not align with your organization’s current state. Adapting to the technologies processes will yield incredible benefits as you can take advantage of all the features your new tool/platform has to offer. This is why it’s important to pick the right tool.
2. The ‘Lift and Shift’ Mindset – Organizations who exchange a legacy system for a new system, and apply the same processes to the new technology, will not properly extract the value of the investment. You will switch the systems out, but miss out on all of the benefits.

3. Improve and Renovate

In addition to a holistic approach and the integration of technology, you need to continuously renovate your processes. You renovate your processes through monitoring, evaluating, adjusting, and improving on a regular basis. However, neglecting these adaptations will result in a similar effect as the ‘lift and shift’ mindset. As a result, there will be a reduction in the value gained from your investment. Process improvement principles and processes are only strengthened by their supporting considerations.

4. Employ Continuous Improvement From End-to-End

As you keep an eye on your organization’s consistently changing environment and focus on process improvement, be sure to apply the first principle – Incorporate User Experience (UX), Customer Experience (CX), and Organizational Change Management. In addition, organizations must remember that their customer is consistently changing as well, not just their organization’s environment. Your customers are becoming smarter, more discerning, and are constantly offered other alternative solutions. With this in mind, you must consider these factors from end to end.

5. It’s Never Too Late to Act

Many Individuals in functioning organizations say something along the lines of ‘we’ve always done it this way and it works. They also believe their highly customized processes mean that there cannot be a better solution for them. Both of these scenarios neglect the potential for technology to greatly improve processes, highly configured systems, and consider software selection efforts. You may be functioning with your current processes; however, process improvement principles enable organizations to thrive.

So What?

Overall, these five principles are key to a successful organizational strategy. To learn more about how our process improvement consultants transform businesses, check out our services. Visit our industry offerings to determine how our methodology could benefit your industry and organization.

Don’t know where to go from here? Contact us! We would love to set up a brief call to further understand your organization’s needs and walk you through how our processes work.

The post Our Top Five Secrets to Doing Process Improvement Right appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

In an effort to achieve your goals and realize your potential, it is crucial that you understand critical aspects of emotional intelligence, as well as understand how to apply them within your organization.

The Five Factors of Emotional Intelligence

1. Self Awareness
2. Self Regulation
3. Motivation (known as “a passion for work that goes beyond money and status”)
4. Empathy for Others
5. Social Skills, such as managing relationships building networks

Daniel Goleman, an American Psychologist, breaks emotional intelligence down into these five categories. In addition to his work, Andrea Ovans’ 2015 Harvard Business Review Article, “How Emotional Intelligence Became a Key Leadership Skill”, looks at these five categories in how they relate to being a leader. She addresses cultural intelligence, as well as the connection between empathetic leaders and financial performance.

Let’s Break Down the Five Factors of EQ

Self-Awareness:

Individuals often think of self-awareness as a few physical and emotional practices to regulate mood, body language, and tone. However, self-awareness extends to understanding how all of these factors are impacting others around you. In addition to understanding how to regulate yourself, take a few minutes every day to evaluate who you are working with, as well as the approach you need to take to manage your emotions in the settings you step foot in throughout the day. It can be easy to lose sight of this important practice, as a result of the hustle of work, meetings, and to-do lists.

Self-Regulation:

Self-regulation and self-awareness are a tag team. The actions you take to improve your emotional state are the key components to self-regulation. In order to improve your performance and the overall cohesiveness of your team, practice taking these actions daily. A tangible way to regulate yourself with your awareness is through the concept of ‘thinking before you speak’. It is one thing to be aware of how you may be affecting others, but it is a whole different battle to be able to act on that on awareness. In practice, pay attention to physical and verbal cues like body language, tone, and eye contact. These small adjustments from your team members can serve as hints to adjust your communication style.

As we continue to work with team members and other organizations who operate remotely, these cues remain the same; however, they can be more difficult to spot. Depending on the angle and nature of the virtual call, it may be difficult to read body language, tone, and eye contact. However, these cues are still present in the conversation and serve as your best hints to adjusting your communication style.

Motivation:

According to Daniel Goleman, motivation is “a passion for work that goes beyond money or status,” (Ovans 2015). This passion is important in terms of improving your position in the working world both short and long term. In an effort to maintain this passion, keep your goals (90-day, 12-month, 5-year, etc.) in mind. This will only serve to improve your position inside and outside the office. As you lead within your organization, don’t be afraid to share your passion behind these goals with others in your team. A shared level of awareness and drive will help realize personal and organizational performance metrics.

Empathy:

Empathy is the ability to identify with another person’s emotional state at a given moment and then react accordingly. However, this is easier said than done. The connection between emotional intelligence and empathy benefits both you and others simultaneously, with the right intentions behind it. For example, barriers in terms of authority, resource availability, and other factors can affect overall mood and willingness to perform. However, the ability to identify and name these barriers can benefit both parties involved. This concept extends beyond your immediate team. Empathy is also strongly correlated with how your organization understands customer service.

Social Skills:

Social skills can make or break your organization’s performance. In service-oriented organizations, beneficial social skills look like engaging on LinkedIn, networking with your community, and stepping outside of your comfort zone. Beyond extending your network, the people you surround yourself with will impact your everyday life. This impact stretches beyond your physical workspace or your organizational team. In a largely virtual and remote world, you also surround yourself with individuals online. The individuals who you follow, interact with, and build connections with will impact what you see on your feed. This, in turn, affects your everyday life.

So Now What?

This was a brief overview of emotional intelligence, as well as the five factors. However, there is so much more to understand and learn! If you are interested in continuing to explore this topic, we encourage you to dive deeper into the work of Daniel Goleman and others to learn more about your EQ.

Our Top Tips to Honing Your Emotional Intelligence Toolkit:

1. Pay attention to those communication cues we discussed earlier and then adjust accordingly
2. Consider how you are delivering your message, as well as what you are saying
3. Aim to understand others’ motivations and goals through asking good questions
4. Work to empathize with others and offer help if they want it
5. Network with others and recognize that every person you meet may benefit you in ways you couldn’t imagine (or vice versa!)
6. Use tangible tools and assessments to understand others’ perspectives even better. Check out TSI’s free and short Change Readiness Assessment to get started!

Emotional intelligence is a key player in not only our work lives, but our personal lives as well. Through these five factors, your organization has the opportunity to thrive. If you are wanting more guidance on what this could look like for your team, let us know!

The post How to Level-Up Your EQ With Five Critical Factors appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

A few of TSI’s favorite Harvard Business Review articles come to us from over the years, focused on a number of organizational topics, from transformational leadership to machine intelligence; even how to talk to your boss about the possibility of working from home. The following list is comprised of seven intriguing articles we’ve found recently, that are still trending today. Below each link is an interesting highlight from the article’s content. 

Check out our favorite Harvard Business Review (HBR) articles below (they are listed in no particular order), and let us know your thoughts! 

What the Best Transformational Leaders Do, by Scott Anthony and Evan I. Schwartz

Quite possibly the most critical of which are the tendency to “Develop a Road Map Before Disruption Takes Hold”, and the ability to “Communicate Powerful Narratives About the Future”. (Anthony & Schwartz, 2017)

The Most Important Leadership Competencies, According to Leaders Around the World, by Sunny Giles

When the top 10 leadership competencies were grouped into 5 themes, the most common theme was noted to involve strong ethics & safety within the organization: “This theme combines two of the three most highly rated attributes: “high ethical and moral standards” (67% selected it as one of the most important) and “communicating clear expectations” (56%).” (Giles, 2016)

The Simple Economics of Machine Intelligence, by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb

Disruption in the way of machine intelligence proves the ever-changing dynamic of business process and automation: “As machine intelligence improves, the value of human prediction skills will decrease because machine prediction will provide a cheaper and better substitute for human prediction, just as machines did for arithmetic.” (Agrawal, et al., 2016)

Four Tips for Better Strategic Planning, by Ron Ashkenas

Ashkenas details four key steps to follow in order to improve your organization’s strategic planning capabilities, as well as execution, as follows:

1. Insist on experiments to test the assumptions you’ve made
2. Banish fuzzy language
3. Escape from template tyranny
4. Ask provocative questions (Ashkenas, 2013)

A Healthier Approach to Business Travel, by Peter Bregman

“Although business travel can be exciting and even fun, it is a surprisingly profound stressor on the body, mind, emotions, and spirit.” (Bergman, 2015)

The Truth About Customer Experience, by Alex Rawson, Ewan Duncan, and Conor Jones

Customer experience can often be overlooked due to the multitude of tasks and projects underway, but the authors describe the overall benefits of effectively managing your customer experience by stating: “In our research and consulting on customer journeys, we’ve found that organizations able to skillfully manage the entire experience reap enormous rewards: enhanced customer satisfaction, reduced churn, increased revenue, and greater employee satisfaction. They also discover more-effective ways to collaborate across functions and levels, a process that delivers gains throughout the company.” (Rawson, et al., 2013)

How to Convince Your Boss to Let You Work from Home, by Rebecca Knight

Knight’s list of “Do’s” when attempting to convince your boss to let you work from home:

• “Be honest with yourself about your motivations for wanting to work from home
• Make your case with empirical evidence. It’s hard to argue with someone who is reasonable and prepared
• Experiment with a three- or six-month test run, after which you and your boss discuss what went well and what needs fine-tuning” (Knight, 2017)

TSI’s Resource Library:

TSI also has a comprehensive resource library, comprised of Blogs, Case Studies, and White Papers. See our expert team’s thoughts on various industry trends and other important content related to technology strategy, process improvement, organizational change management, business transformation, management consulting, and much more here.

The post TSI’s Favorite Harvard Business Review (HBR) Articles: May, 2017 appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

Are You REALLY Enhancing Your Customer Experience (CX) To Create an Unfair Advantage For You? Or For Your Competition?

Customer Service in Higher Education

Upcoming Workshops in 2017; Customer Experience and Higher Education Student Experience

Our next training workshops will take place in September, 2017! 

TSI’s Newest Addition – Jessica Schein

Higher Education Business/Program Analyst

The post TSI’s Customer Experience and Student Experience Articles, Training Workshops, and our Newest Team Member! appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

According to Gartner, “89% of companies surveyed plan to compete primarily on the basis of the customer experience by 2016”. According to Oracle, the percentage is even higher. Regardless, few professionals would argue that the emphasis on an organization’s Customer Experience, (i.e., CX is the product of an interaction, including the resulting perceptions, between an organization and a customer over the duration of their relationship)  is not simply a fad, but an important tool to achieve what industry leaders like Seth Godin and Clay Hebert (among many others), recommend to connect to those vital to that organization.  As Ian Altman says in Forbes: “it has become clear that we are in a Connection Economy. “

As we say at TSI, “the Customer Experience is the glue to make the connections come to life.”  Recently, it seems that there is something incongruent with the articles and statistics I read, the experiences we have with our clients and other organizations contemplating new strategies in this area.  Perhaps it is just what we are seeing here, I would posit that it appears many companies and higher education institutions are simply going through the motions in this area.

Is your organization in the 89% or the 11%? 

How are you approaching this change?

How are you TRULY enhancing your Customer Experience?

I want to use this short article to hit 3 points that will have a BIG impact for your organization in enhancing your customer experience:

1. Start by honing your CX awareness skills; these will pay off for you if you are planning to enhance or improve the customer experience within your organization.

2. Rather than simply going through the motions, use CX to create a real, legit, unfair advantage for your organization.

3. Expect the journey to be difficult, but prepare to persevere.

Hone your CX awareness skills

I challenge you to book your next business trip, make a doctor’s appointment, plan a vacation, buy a car, get a mortgage (or refinance your existing one), drive a car in Mexico (well maybe we’ll save that story for another day), apply for a college course (or apply to a university).

After completing one or more of these, take a step back and assess how these experiences were in terms of the following:

1. How ETDBW (Easy to do business with), was this organization, or process? What best reflects the impression the vendor left? Ask yourself the following:

• Do they care about your business?
• Would they rather maximize profit on one transaction, or have you become a loyal customer for a lifetime?
• Does your time matter to them?
• How would you rate the experience overall?

2. Aside from the efficiency and effectiveness aspect of the transaction, did the transaction have any emotional connection that left you with a memory that was more positive, neutral or negative in nature? Many of the readers of this likely saw the video from a recent United flight when a ticketed passenger was removed against his will, simply because the plane was over-booked, and members of the United crew had no room to board.  Based on the reaction by United’s CEO, that was not the intended emotional connection the organization was hoping to achieve. And although this example can be seen as an outlier, both in terms of how ridiculous the situation, as well as how vastly the customer’s “experience” was shared on social media, consider the financial effects alone. Fortune reports that United Airlines’ stock has dropped $1.4 Billion since this controversy took place!

In each of these examples, the business or higher education institution on the other end of the transaction would accurately tell you that they are in a very competitive industry.  Yet, at the risk of generalizing, each of these examples is, what we in consulting refer to as “opportunity-rich” with respect to how they often fail to create a memorable, meaningful and intentional moment that matters to the customer. Or, in United’s example, just the opposite.

Become a CX Jedi warrior to develop awareness skills that you can apply in your organization.

Your Legit Unfair Advantage

When we consult with our clients or lead CX training workshops on the topic of developing an improved Customer Experience, we emphasize the notion of creating, in very tangible terms, the organization’s unfair advantage (UA). Yeah, it sounds a little like defining your own super power.  In fact, it is a LOT like creating your organizational super power.

What do you want to be KNOWN for?  What will you be famous for?

We look at it this way – your UA is a function of your organization’s: 

Quality x Originality/Uniqueness x Service x Convenience/Comfort/Location x Price

There is a lot to unpack in this formula and you and your colleagues could easily spend a few focused work sessions on this topic.  Don’t expect to nail it on the first time.   But if you can truly understand, from your customer’s perspective, what are the “moments that matter” and define your unfair advantage that provides a unique and memorable CX, you are on your way.

Yes, it’s hard, but Worth it!

In short, a positively memorable CX matters! Why? It’s certainly a logical leap to think that a customer who has an excellent experience, remembers it.  Because of one positive experience, they can tell others about it; sometimes even becoming mini marketers for that product or service.  Further, those that are loyal, having had a positive experience are retained, becoming much more likely to buy a product or service over and over.

Consider the following:  Studies[1] by Bain & Company, along with Earl Sasser of the Harvard Business School, have shown that even a 5 percent increase in customer retention can lead to an increase in profits of between 25 and 95 percent.

There are several reasons why this small increase in retention can have such a substantial impact on profits:

1. Customers are likely to spend more with companies they’ve already done business with. Particularly with small businesses that don’t have a lot of brand recognition, a customer’s first purchase or two can be considered somewhat of a risk. So they are likely to keep the cost relatively small, and then increase spending as the relationship grows.

2. Repeat customers are more likely to refer others. Bain & Company’s research showed that after just one purchase from an online apparel retailer, an average shopper was likely to refer three other people to the site. But a customer that made ten purchases from an online apparel retailer was likely to refer seven different people to the site.

So what?

Creating a positively memorable experience is HARD!  Especially for an organization that has any degree of complexity around the following:

• The types of products/services your customers want;
• How easy or hard, fast or slow, manual or automated, simple or cumbersome it is for you to quote/price the right products/services;
• How easy or hard, fast or slow, manual or automated, simple or cumbersome it is for them to order it, receive it, process the invoice, and actually pay for it.
• What about the delivery, set up/configuration, training, etc., how seamless are these processes?
• Do you have numerous people involved, sometimes with “less than ideal” coordination when you think about those involved from a contracting, pricing, order processing/execution, set up, training, implementation touchpoints?

In closing, I urge you to start this journey. Now. Waiting only lets your competition gain ground on you.  Follow the three steps you just learned:

1. Hone your CX awareness skills – these will pay off for you as you can be the CX Jedi that design’s the amazing and enhanced customer experience for your organization.

2. Use CX to create a real, legit unfair advantage for your organization – consider how your organization can effectively complete largely, if not solely, on the basis of the experience.

3. Lastly, expect the journey to be difficult and prepare to persevere – consider TSI’s Change Readiness Survey as a tool to assess your organization’s readiness to change.

As you know, TSI is always happy to discuss your situation, should you need any assistance enhancing your Customer Experience.  Regardless, please give us feedback; we love hearing from you! Contact us via our website, or reach out via social media. Be sure to let us know if you’re interested in attending our next CX event (planned for September 20, 2017) at TechNexus in Chicago!

[1] https://smallbiztrends.com, 2014

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The topic of whether universities and colleges should view their students, alumni and donors (Constituents) like customers is a debate that has been taking place for many years. Recently, TSI has noticed this debate is occurring with increasing frequency, especially in light of our recent Customer Experience training. Now more than ever seems to be the right time to continue the discussion of how to best utilize customer service/experience philosophies when working with Higher Education constituents.

The Challenge of looking at Higher Education Constituents as Customers

Historically, many leaders in Higher Education abhor the thought of students as customers for many valid reasons. Anecdotally, I have found that the perception of Higher Education towards the concept of a customer is that customers are a number; customers are people that must be solicited or won over, and you need to sell to customers. Additionally, some feel that the merit of education should be separated from a financial transaction usually associated with being a customer.

In treating your constituents like customers, Higher Education institutions may feel pressure to lower their standards and values. While some of this vitriol may be warranted, Higher Education institutions should not dismiss important Customer Experience concepts since these can improve the service to their constituents.

The growing need for Customer Service in Higher Education

A key factor for this discussion is that since 2010, student enrollment in all Title IV institutions has been declining nationally. Since the fall semester of 2010 to the fall of 2014, Title IV institutions in the United States have lost 928,000 students, a 4.3% decline. (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics) This means that the available population is either shrinking, or potential students are choosing not to go to traditional colleges and universities. Thus, most Higher Education institutions are required to compete between other Higher Education Institutions (including For Profit, as well as non-degree granting institutions), but also between other social and career avenues and interests.

Keep in mind this fight for attention does not only apply to gaining current students, but to donor and alumni engagement as well.  If Higher Education Institutions do not become better than their peers for student recruitment, alumni engagement and donor/alumni fundraising, revenue will remain level, or possibly start to decline. With a decline in revenue, the Institution may also need to reduce operational and capital expenses. This results in the institution applying less and less resources to engaging the institution’s future students, alumni and donor bases. Overall, this slippery slope will result in increasingly restrictive budgets, paired with an increased focus on being efficient with resource expenses.

To battle the many competing interests for potential students and alumni/donor engagement, some progressive Higher Education leaders are looking to private businesses that have been doing similar activities successfully for a long time. Businesses are currently going through their own period of discovery and change. They are looking more and more closely at their customers and trying to provide high impact customer service. Their aim is to achieve a differentiating experience, which drives loyalty and repeat business. This mindset is where Business can help define and provide inputs into the discussion of customer service in Higher Education.

So why should students/alumni/donors be viewed any differently than a business would view its customers?

Starting with the similarities:

1. Both are consumers – Students and customers are consumers of the product that is produced by the associated institution. For example, a student, when not in class, is consuming goods and services. Regardless of how the institution wants to classify these individuals, they define themselves as consumers since they pay, what they feel is a very high amount of money, in exchange for a service. As a result, they have high expectations for this service.

Think about how vocal students are when their Wi-Fi is slow; the course registration process has errors and/or takes too long; or the food in the Café does not meet their standards. Each of these seemingly small occurrences can influence how the student will share their experiences with their friends or peers, especially via social media, which enables other potential students to form their opinions as to whether they want to attend that institution.

A great example of Higher Education institutions appealing to their constituents that closely aligns with Customer Experience principles is through their athletics programs. There is no denying that in many major Universities in the United States, their football programs have become very proficient in marketing themselves to gain the best recruits, develop a rabid fan base, and ultimately profit from this fan base. Universities do not need to go all the way to this extreme; Higher Education administrators can still learn valuable lessons looking at how Athletic programs are appealing to their constituents.

2. Variety of appeals – People are constantly bombarded via radio, social media, television, movies, newspapers, magazines and other channels to donate to this organization, or be a customer of that organization. This makes it very difficult for a single organization to “Cut through the noise”.  Forbes contributor John Hall wrote about this specifically for attracting investors. However, Hall has many parallels in his article to what Universities should be doing to attract both potential students as well as donors (Hall, 2016). I particularly like his advice to “Invest in your company leaders’ brands”.  Specifically, the leaders who had “invested time and resources in building their brands were attracting more attention from investors and even other participants.” Replace investors with students or donors, and this statement is fit for Higher Education. Of course, the question is how to build your brand. That is another topic for a different day.

Now, the key differences between Higher Education Constituents and customers:

1. Regulatory implications – Higher Education institutions that offer Title IV funding for their students, are subject to rigorous federal and state regulations and policies that determine how the university interacts with the student, as well as tracks the outcomes for the student. In addition, FERPA regulations strictly define how institutions are to maintain and protect student information. The closest parallel to this is in Healthcare, which is going through a similar debate with the Patient vs. Customer paradigm. [1]

2. Student / Donor Lifecycle – Students have a unique lifecycle within Higher Education. At a high level, the lifecycle of a Customer involves attraction to the product, successfully completing the transaction, and maintaining a relationship to generate future transactions. The student lifecycle, at the same high level, has a few more steps in the process:

1. Becomes attracted to a particular college or university;
2. Applies to the university;
3. Is accepted by the university;
4. Completes required degree coursework, and ultimately;
5. Graduates from the university with their desired degree.

This process differs from the Donor lifecycle, which only begins when the Student lifecycle ends. The need for Higher Education to do more and more advancement work (fundraising) has required Schools to be cultivating relationships long past graduation, to aid in the fundraising needed to fill growing state funding gaps. In short, the student/alumni lifecycle is more complex, and needs to be treated as such.

The Donor lifecycle can be equally as complex. Appeals for donations to a University can not only span years, but also can span generations. This requires extensive planning, communication and patience on the side of a university that often most businesses are not willing to invest. The Chronical of Higher Education had a recent article listing the largest private gifts to Higher Education institutions. I would be willing to bet a sizable sum that the vast majority of these gifts were not solicited then given within a weeks’ time. Let us know of recent examples you have had with large gifts and the time it took to generate those gifts.

[1] For more, start with this excellent article from the Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2012/01/the-trouble-with-treating-pati

So, what is the answer?

The answer to whether Higher Education institutions should view their Students, Alumni or Donors as Customers when discussing Customer Service in Higher Education is yes… and no.

Valuable lessons can be learned from the customer experiences of private businesses. Colleges and Universities do not need to feel like they are compromising their mission or selling their soul by considering the “personas” of their constituent base and defining differentiating experiences and processes that personify the “brand” of the institution.  The key however, is to really know your constituents including each of their objectives and the “moments that matter” to them.

When looking at how to improve Student enrollment, drive Alumni engagement and Donor interest, understanding how to serve them in a way that will lead to a truly differentiated experience is where to spend time and resources. However, if Higher Education institutions try to blindly apply all concepts from private businesses’ customer service practices, without understanding how your constituents are different, they will create problems with their students, alumni and donors. I would be incorrect if I said that these concepts are new to Higher Education, and are not being practiced at all today.

What can you do for TSI, and vice versa?

It’s simple – help us help you. We at TSI always like to hear new and innovative ways that institutions are applying Customer Experience concepts to their customer service in Higher Education.  Please let us know:

• What did you think of this summary? And;
• What is your greatest challenge or achievement in providing a differentiated service to your constituents?

If you are interested in learning how your institution can apply Customer Experience concepts to student recruitment, donor engagement and your advancement activities, contact us to go through our Customer Experience workshop.

Works Cited

Hall, J. (2016, May 15). Forbes.com. Retrieved from Cut Through The Noise: How To Differentiate Yourself To Attract Investments: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2016/05/15/cut-through-the-noise-how-to- differentiate-yourself-to-attract-investments/

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (n.d.). Total fall enrollment in all postsecondary institutions participating in Title IV programs and annual percentage change in
enrollment, by degree-granting status and control of institution: 1995 through 2014. Retrieved from National Center for Education Statistics:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_303.20.asp?current=yes

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