Customer Care

Submitted by Triena Bodart, Financial Aid Manager, Moraine Park Technical College, Wisconsin.

A few years back I presented my thoughts on Customer Care vs Customer Service.  If you know me well enough you aren’t surprised that I feel quality customer service comes from attitude and the bravery to care.  This raises customer service to customer care.  Customer Care is so important to me!

Customer service, according to Investopedia is the “process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of an in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.” Customer care raises the expectation of satisfaction to “providing more than what they expected” according to the Urban Dictionary, or ensuring satisfaction even after the interaction is complete.  But to be able to do this, one must have the heart and intentionality. 

First and foremost, one must care to go beyond what is expected from the customer.  Customers, our students, often have no idea what to expect with financial aid.  Let me give you an example.  Imagine yourself when you were 24 years old, at a new job, when the HR person has dropped off forms to complete.  The first set is for health care insurance, the second is for payroll and the third is for your retirement benefits.  Do you remember that feeling of being overwhelmed?  Unclear?  All of the instructions you need are right there……It was awfully nice of the HR person to drop them off. 

NOW imagine they stayed with you, and talked through the forms.  They provided a little more clarity.  You take them home, read and review them.  Will you have the opportunity to go back for questions?  I would propose that good customer service is the HR person brought you the forms and provided an overview for you.  Customer Care would be additional meetings and follow up from your HR department.  It may get old and awfully repetitive for the HR person to do this every single time – especially after 10 years!  Is that the same for us and guiding students through the FAFSA?  Or the verification forms….or exit counseling.  Even though we do it day after day we will want to put ourselves in the shoes of the customer; it is their first time hearing it….our “buh-jillionth” time saying it.  It takes mental energy but we must think of it as our first time explaining “it” to that student. 

I often tell my team, “we are in the world of education; we must go beyond the questions asked to provide them all of the relevant information in the student’s situation. It’s the unasked questions we must provide answers to.”  But you have to care enough to take the time and let the student see you care enough.

Only you can control your attitude; it takes your desire, your interest, your motivation to make good customer service happen.  But you have to want to do it.  And it doesn’t just happen; you have to make it happen.  YOU decide ~      :( :

We have to challenge ourselves to take customer service to the next level.  Keep your perspective fresh by challenging yourself to be creative in your delivery, or find a new way to deliver an old message so students and families can better understand what you are explaining to them.  Take the time to care, be intentional. 

It is not easy nor is it a quick fix.  It must become second nature.