Achieving and Maintaining Service Excellence

Katherine McPhee & Therese Philippa

STUDENT CENTRAL - Who are we?

• Student Central is a newly established service centre at UOW (January 2006).

• Three departments – Accommodation Services, Study Abroad & Exchange, Client Services.

• 3 points of entry - phones, email queries and face to face (over the counter transactions).

• 6 F/T Client Service staff members and 5 casuals.

• 1 Supervisor.

• Processed 100,000 customer queries within first 9 months of operation.

• Successfully met all KPI service targets YTD 2007.

• Currently generating up to 350 pieces of customer feedback each month.

• Maintaining an average score of 4 out of 5 on our service scorecard.

Successes

Text here…

And here

Why we have KPIs:

Allows us to see how we are performing (this is how we knew we had achieved the figures on the previous page).

Allows us to see if our perceptions of performance match our customers perceptions.

Allows us to see trends and to correct those trends which are harmful to the service we provide.

Allows us to roster according to previous weeks/months/years figures.

Allows staff to see how they are performing and self manage their performance.

Why cont…

Allows managers to reward exceptional performance (‘plus-one’ service) and to manage underperformance.

Allows students a transparency of processes and a chance to provide their perspective – as well as to receive documented outcomes as a result of their feedback.

Allows upper management and other stakeholders visibility of performance against service standards.

Allows staff to provide seamless service to clients and to understand how the individual is affecting team outcomes.

Why cont….

Provides a focus for the team in order to move towards formal recognition or accreditation (ICSS requirement).

Allows us to create a full circle of feedback:

• We ask for feedback, • Obtain feedback, • Share feedback, • Act on feedback, • Feedback outcomes to students, • Learn from feedback• Ensure process improvement across ALL departments.

Measuring our KPIs

How do we monitor/measure our service standards against our KPIs?

In its most basic sense, it’s just recording each transaction.

This can be done manually, or by utilising systems. Due to the volume of queries, we have chosen to implement systems to assist us with the monitoring of our service standards.

Limited finances meant finding systems which were cost effective and easy to maintain or update.

Q-Matic

What is it?....

Our Electronic Ticketing System.

Q-Matic Ticketing System

The Good:

Removes the needs for customers to queue & provides greater flexibility

Reports on staff utilisation, desk coverage, waiting times, transaction times, type of query, drop off rate (no shows),

Provides visibility of trends for rostering & comparisons of month/month and year/year.

Q-Matic Ticketing System

The Bad:

Not fully functional;

Not compatible with UOW systems;

Not supported;

Tends to ‘crash’ regularly.

PhonesWhat is it?

Pre-existing system brought back into usage due to cost efficiencies.

The Good: Visibility, on-hold times, transaction times, transfer rate, drop off rate, drop off rate, average abandon delay, instant feedback on queue times and on-hold numbers

The Bad: Clunky system, limited reporting ability, manual reporting

Email – Request Tracker (RT)

What is it? Email communication system developed in-house. A portal which allows us to provide assistance with queries and feedback.

The Good: Visibility, queues, turnaround times, standards can be monitored (ie. Can see that same response is generated by different staff; audits for privacy), sharing of files between staff and departments, permanent record (can’t be deleted – tracks ALL changes), easy to use, FOC, operated internally so reactive to needs of our department.

The Bad: clunky, created for separate function, slow when all users are utilising.

Access to RT system for students is via our web page…

Situated next to the Hot Topics section in order to generate further feedback

Standardised format for familiarity

Allows for consistent reporting

Can be changed instantly for use in one-off promos (eg. SMS trial)

Can see at a glance how many student enquiries are in the queue: Enquiries and Feedback

How we report on our KPIs:

Balanced scorecard containing 6 key areas

Reporting cont…

Reporting cont…

Reporting cont…

What can we measure?

What else can these systems measure?

Student self management

Tracking the change in volume at the different entry points as a result of promotions

Reactions to planned changes which affect students or stakeholders (ie. Pre-emptive feedback)

Problem areas which need to be addressed (ie. Grey areas in the student life-cycle or communication process).

Other useful systems:

Other systems which are useful and tie in to the systems we have discussed:

• SAI (Student Administration Interface)

• SOLSMail

• SOLSBulletin

• Hot Topics

• Online forms

• CMS (Content Management System – web)

CRM (Customer Relationship Management package) system which will tie all of these systems together.

Will allow our own systems to talk, as well as linking us up with the rest of the campus.

Remove silos, share information, seamless service, better service for students.

UOW wide scorecards: In progress.

One central system which allows any staff member to access this information at the touch of a button. All reporting against same KPIS.

CRM

RT (email) system Q-Matic

Phones Website

Next Steps:

New Systems under development:

• 2-way SMS messaging system

• Webcasts

• Podcasts

• Click for callback

• Improved call monitoring systems

In short…

Its not hard to develop these systems. We have found that the benefits far outweigh the negatives.