Why Customer Service is relevant in Schools.

A few days ago, my Dad called me to seek my help on a presentation he will be making at a local high school in a week or so.  These are some of my thoughts on why customer service is such a relevant part of teaching!

When my Dad called to ask me to share my thoughts on why customer service is important in schools, a million thoughts raced through my head.  I had many initial thoughts that I could have shared, but I felt so strongly about the importance of this idea as an educator, I did not answer immediately, but asked if I could write down my response instead.  Here are a few of my thoughts about why I believe customer service plays an absolutely essential role in the world of education.

First, a little bit about me.  I am twenty-six years old.  I am a history teacher by training.  I have spent the last eight summers and counting working at a small camp near Camden, ME.  I would never claim to be an expert on the world of education and know (and love) that I have so much more to learn about my (our) craft.  These are just observations that I have had in my few short years in and around the classroom. 

In order to get my thoughts in order, I had to think about the restaurants, venues, retail stores, and events that I frequent, and dive into why it is that I chose these places to return to time after time.  Not surprisingly, many of these places share the same characteristics: friendly/genuine staff, predictable (I’ll get more into this in a minute), fast service, honesty, quality products, smooth operations, etc.  Looking back through the list, I was not surprised that as a teacher, these are also qualities that I aim to emulate with students, parents, and peers. 

Student Buy-In:

A good education is the most important thing that can be “sold” to a student.  When teachers aren’t able to sell their students on the topic they are teaching, students will likely miss concepts and the teachers will be wasting their time.  I think (may be a biased train of thought) that this generation of students is probably the hardest to teach, because they have instantaneous access to so many different stimuli.  So as teachers, what can we do to convince students that it is worth their time to listen to what we have to teach?  Why is our product valuable to their learning?  I think that much of that has a lot to do with their interests and goals, but if lessons are framed with your particular students in mind, I believe that there becomes a correlation with their success. 

Stay Current:

If you walk into Wal-Mart hoping to buy the newest FIFA game and they only have copies of the game from 10 years ago, I doubt that they would have much success making that sale.  Why would the classroom be any different?  My first year teaching was 2012.  I was assigned to a classroom that had a broken LCD projector.  While I still had use of my computer to use as a personal reference, I felt that my students were short-changed in some ways by the lack of technology.  When I finally got a new projector, my lessons became much better-rounded and students responded positively to the presence of technology.  As a customer service industry, I believe it is essential to learn to be proficient with all necessary tools and current on content and methodology. What can we do to strengthen our lesson plans? What do I need from others to help achieve this?

Challenge Students:

This is an idea that contributes to an excellent customer experience in the classroom, but may not have much success in other platforms.  For example if you are a car salesman and the customer comes in trying to buy a lightly used Ford Focus, they may not respond well if you then said, “you know what, I can see that you can do bigger and better things, why not just upgrade to our brand new super-sporty Mercedes Benz?”  My response would probably go something like this: “Well, you know, because I’m a teacher…” 

It is such an essential part of the student’s experience to be challenged to search for different perspectives or to practice new methods they are learning.  Without that challenge, the final product will likely be lackluster. How can you challenge students without putting them off?      

Consistency is key:

Consistency manifests itself in so many different ways, but is so important.  My family and I have been going to the same Chinese restaurant for years.  We know that when we get there we will have a friendly waitress, the food will be prepared quickly, and it will taste delicious!  In all of the years we have been going, we may have had two or three less than stellar dishes, but because we have built up the trust in the restaurant, it does not deter us.  Now imagine we had gone once, had poor service, and sub-par food… do you think we would have gone back?  Probably not.  I have found the same is true in so many ways in the classroom.  As you all know, students are much more perceptive than they get credit for, especially when they sense inconsistencies.  In what ways could these inconsistencies manifest themselves? How can that effect the final product?

Reputation matters:

I used to eat my fair share of Chipotle.  I think it is delicious!  Every time I ate it, I did so without any ill effects (other than being really full).  However, since the reports came out of the e. coli incidences I have not touched a burrito.  Even since they have made sure that all of their products are safe and ready to go, I just do not have that trust anymore.  Unfortunately, that’s the way things go with reputation.  Building a positive rapport with students, teachers, and other parents can go miles towards building that reputation and trust within your classroom and school.  I think that this is such an essential piece of the customer service experience not only in schools, but in any business!

Keep parents involved:

I have worked in two schools since graduating.  In my brief experience, I can definitely attest that students whose parents play an active (but not overbearing) role in their learning usually show a higher affinity for learning.  The most difficult part of this is cultivating a relationship with the parents to maintain an open dialogue about what their kids are learning and putting forth conversation starters to further the students' learning.  I think that this goes way beyond the surface questions of "did you finish your homework?" or "did you get any grades back?", but instead "tell me about something you learned today," "are there any difficult concepts that you are running into," "how can what you learned be put into practical use to make it more applicable to your life."  I believe that this simple change in general conversation can make a huge difference in a students' learning process.   How can you use parent involvement to promote a students’ success?  How can you “sell” what you are teaching to the parents to generate healthy conversation outside the classroom?