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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..

With the end of the first calendar quarter approaching quickly and the relevance of looking back, I was recently reflecting on what similarities and differences there were compared to last year and years past in terms of the type of project I was engaged in. One thing that struck me as relevant during my reflection was the presence of certain trends in change management, including topics in organization and service. Further, in researching a bit on the topic, I came across this article from our managing partner, Dan Feely, written 10 years ago! And while the projects have changed, I feel the top 5 trends in change management are still very much present.

In his article, Dan presents the following trends as the top 5 of change management, with some supporting insight into the experience he has had with these trends:

1. Rapid, Process, and Quality Improvement Events
2. Need for More Performance from Technology (Results Relative to Cost)
3. Developing a Shared Services Model
4. Driving Customer Service and Service Excellence
5. Training

Below, I’d like to share some of my thoughts and insights on how these change management trends are still relevant and top of the list of things we are seeing 10 years later, in 2021.

#1 Rapid, Process, and Quality Improvement Events

Over the course of my first few years in consulting, I became accustomed to long engagements of 6-12 months, or longer. We often performed deep dives into change management and processes, mapping and analyzing over 350 processes for one client alone! While we still have these types of engagements, it seems we are seeing more organizations interested in sprints. This may mean tackling one functional area or more high level processes to see where efficiency can be gained including reducing hand-offs, removing manual entry and review, and adding more automated workflows and approvals.

Regardless of the direction an organization wants to go with their project, we can tailor our service offering to fit their needs and ensure maximum value for their investment with TSI.

#2 Need for More Performance from Technology (Results Relative to Cost)

In 2011 we asked our constituents to consider “do you know your organization’s total spend on technology?” This cost consideration included licenses, security, maintenance, data centers, staff, ongoing support, consulting fees, and the cost of upgrades. 2021 is no different, with additional focus on the sharp movement to the cloud over the last 10 years. The fact of this matter is simple – technology is expensive and the costs arise in a variety of different areas. It is not simply the subscription cost.

Chances are your organization is considering or has recently completed an IT assessment or technology improvement. Many organizations are finding this increasingly necessary due to the sunsetting of legacy systems and the aforementioned move to cloud-based solution. Often, they discover many disparate or redundant systems that have been accumulated over the years. Examining your IT inventory and infrastructure for redundancy, the cost of managing this technology, and where you may see an advantage in right sizing can save you millions.

#3 Develop a Shared Services Model

With the growth of cloud-based solutions and a common focus to reduce redundancy, the shared services model continues to be a popular trend in change management. Just as we have highlighted for several years, the advantages of the shared services model are not just cost savings from reduced redundancy, but also improved operational efficiency by removing information silos. Ultimately, the design of these shared services organizations should take on a focus that leads the organization to being more customer centric and value add focused.

#4 Driving Customer Service and Service Excellence

We’ve seen elements of various trends showing up in the qualities and benefits of the others. Perhaps no more so than the overall improvement of customer service. So much of an organization’s strategic planning, especially in times where competition and information are at an all-time high, is based on service excellence. Additionally, this commitment to service may be the differentiator in shaping customer decision-making. Along these lines, Voice of the Customer is central in many of our projects, even those not specifically devoted to this effort, making the foundation of the project stronger and the results more impactful for the growth of the business.

#5 Training

As we pointed out in our original article, as budgets get tighter training is often one of the first items to be eliminated. However, more pointed training programs may be well worth their investment and pay dividends in the future. We specifically have recently engaged in some large-scale business process improvement training and other change management processes. This program has the benefit of quickly completing valuable improvement of several process and training resources within your organization with skills to keep the improvement efforts going well into the future.

Bottom Line

Just as in 2011, there is a robust market of talent available. However, we recognize that there is also a valuable opportunity to improve the organization by joining one or more of the trends mentioned above.

To share a quote from 10 years ago that withstands the test of time – “investing in self-improvement initiatives, these organizations will create an efficient, cost-effective organization that will thrive in any market.”

If these self-improvement initiatives generate a spark and you would like to learn more, feel free to contact us.

The post The Top 5 Change Management Trends for 2021 appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

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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Some of the dates are quite old. You can find some dated as far back as 1928, as well as many other decades through the 2000’s. One of the things I have noticed is that the older ones, even the ones from the 1920’s, seem to be set in much higher quality cement than the newer ones. Some sidewalk squares that are only 5-10 years old are much more worn and cracked than those from the prior century.

Well, that’s nice to know, but what’s my point? It got me to thinking about product and service quality. Why do the older squares wear better and appear to crack less? When and why did the type and quality of cement change? Did the customers/buyers know the options and differences in terms of cost and quality? Did some of the cement companies lose business due to poor quality? How has the cost varied over the years? And of course, does anybody care?

Think about your business. Most of us are in business to make money. The best way to make money is to delight customers so they return and continue to buy your products and services. In today’s hyper-competitive markets, product and service differentiation is critical to future viability, growth and success.

Customers and consumers often focus on the following criteria when making a purchasing decision:

• Price
• Quality
• Delivery options/item availability/convenience
• Needed functionality/duration
• Alternative products/substitutes
• Service, and;
• Brand/image/company reputation.

Many times, the ultimate buying decision is based on a combination of the above and it varies by customer. However, we know that quality plays a key role in customer loyalty and repeat sales. With this in mind, think about how your organization measures quality, how it compares to your competition, and to what extent it either contributes to sales growth or declining business.

Consider these 3 key quality metric groupings when evaluating the impact of product and service quality on your business:

1. Yield – the percentage of your product/service that is produced and delivered on time and according to technical specifications. What is the trend and how does a 1% change impact the bottom line? From a manufacturing perspective, yield involves the amount of product derived from a set amount of inputs and the corresponding scrappage and waste. For a retailer, perhaps one alternative metric here would be inventory stock-outs. For a services firm, the percent of projects delivered on time and on budget is a valuable measure.
2. Customer rejects/returns – how often are your products returned or rejected by customers? What are the current trends and root causes for returns? For services, what are the equivalent measures? If you are a supplier, you need to know how your end customers are measuring supplier performance and how well your products are meeting their quality standards.
3. Customer satisfaction – this is a standard metric produced by many organizations. How are you measuring it and what does it mean? Does it represent a reasonable picture of your customer’s satisfaction with your product/service value proposition? Does it vary significantly by customer segment? Are you leveraging big data and analytics to provide better clarity and insight into customer loyalty, satisfaction and profitability? Would a net promoter score (promoters minus detractors) provide useful insights, and what can be learned from each group?

So, next time you see a stamped and dated sidewalk square, ask yourself, can you afford to not zero in on customer quality and fully understand how it drives your profits and growth? Contact Transforming Solutions, Inc. to explore innovative ways to improve your company’s performance.

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Cloud computing is changing how companies are doing business. At TSI, we make recommendations to our clients on how they can take advantage of cloud computing. This allows a virtual office and provides the flexibility of connecting to your business anywhere at any time. With the growing number of web enabled devices used today in business, access to your data is even easier.

I have focused on five main benefits of cloud computing for our clients:

1. Collaboration efficiency

Collaboration in a cloud environment gives your business the ability to communicate and easily share information outside of traditional methods. At TSI we use cloud collaboration when we work on projects at multiple locations, client sites, and home. Cloud collaboration allows for a more efficient way for our employees to collaborate seamlessly.

2. Business continuity

Cloud storage will protect your data and systems, which is an important part of business continuity planning. The providers of cloud applications have advanced strategies that take into account natural disasters, power failures, or other crisis to ensure that your data is backed up and protected in a secure and safe location. Cloud storage gives the ability to conduct business that minimizes downtime and loss of productivity. TSI leverages Google drive, which stores mission critical data in a safe and secure off-site location. You may come up with performance indicators by using business intelligence software for your clients.

3. Flexibility of business practices

Flexibility of cloud computing allows employees to be more flexible in their business practices. Employees need to access data from multiple offices, at home, commuting to and from work, and while traveling during business meetings. If you need to access data when you are off-site, you can connect to your virtual office quickly and easily.

4. Lower IT costs

Rather than learning and purchasing expensive equipment and systems to manage your business, you can lower your IT costs by using the resources of the cloud service provider. Cost of paying wages of expert staff, software upgrades, and lower utility costs will be reduced rather than providing these services at your company’s location.

One of our clients signed a software contract with their vendor on a Friday and by Monday morning development could start and 4 environments had already been established. Reduction of the time it takes to setup infrastructure can save several weeks to months in the project delivery cycle..

5. Scalability

Your company can scale IT environments based on the business evolution. Instead of purchasing and installing expensive applications, your cloud provider can handle this for your business. If there is a demand to increase or decrease you applications need for additional system performance, this can be performed more effectively to scale as your business changes. Using the cloud services will allow you to move forward on with executing your business and not worry about system applications.

I have worked with financial firms where their scalability needs can fluctuate due to market conditions. Leveraging cloud services has efficiently allowed the dynamic flexibility for their company to adjust IT scalability to be in alignment to their business needs.

If you want to tap into cloud computing and experience the benefits for your company, contact TSI for their expert experience.

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