ERIC Number: ED374837
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1994-Jun
Pages: 24
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
A Quality Improvement Customer Service Process.
Messina, Robert C., Jr.; And Others
To develop a college-wide resolution process for dealing with student concerns, Burlington County College, in New Jersey, undertook a planning effort involving the faculty, student, staff, and administrator senates in the college's governance system. Rather than appoint an administrator to lead the project, a member of the staff senate was selected to lead a 15-member team composed of members of all the governance senates and charged with the development of a customer service philosophy and resolution process. The team began by looking at 165 past examples of student requests for intervention as a springboard to developing a system-wide method of collecting reliable customer service data, or a Customer Service System (CSS). The next step was to provide employees with training related to the customer service process itself, as well as hands-on experience with the CSS. A course, "A Quality Improvement Customer Service Process," was presented in one-day workshops to all employees and an in-house customer service videotape was developed. All new employees receive a customer service manual and are shown a copy of the video. Lessons learned by the planning team in this improvement effort included the following: (1) employee involvement is essential; (2) every employee must be encouraged to improve quality service; (3) cross-functional teams produce better outcomes; (4) continuous improvement must be structured and ongoing; and (5) achieving quality improvement takes hard work but the benefits to customers and employees are enormous. (KP)
Publication Type: Reports - Descriptive; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A