What is customer experience and why is it needed in school – tells the magazine “Focus” the customer experience manager of the European College – Ms. Yaroslava.
Greetings! My name is Yaroslava Gerashchenko and I am a customer experience manager at the private school “European College”. I am a psychologist by education and worked in the HR field in commercial companies for a long time. Then there was my own business. And here came the understanding of the importance of building long-term relationships with customers, understanding everyone’s needs, providing such a service that would make you want to come back again and again. When I talk about my position, I always see surprise in the eyes of the interlocutor. Private school and customer experience…what is it and why?…These internal questions are not surprising, since the field of customer experience is relatively new — in Ukraine, only a few companies systematically study and improve customer experience.
Customer experience is the impression (thoughts, emotions, feelings, attitude, assessment) that customers have during or after interaction with a company, that is, what customers remember and broadcast to the outside. If it is clear, easy and pleasant for a customer to interact with an organization, there is a high probability that he will stay with this company for a long time and recommend its product to his friends, colleagues or partners.
While studying at the School of Service of Kyiv-Mohyla Business School, I was inspired by the idea of improving the quality of service in Ukraine. Motivated, I went to implement this idea in my own business – the free space of Freud House. A responsive attitude towards customers, a focus on quality service, and creating a positive customer experience always depend on the position of the owner or manager of the company. I believe that only in companies where top management is customer-oriented is it possible to build high-quality service and a positive customer experience. I was lucky that in the person of the owners of the European College I found like-minded people.
And here was my first working day at school. Where to start? I have never worked in the education sector. Here my own experience as a mother came in handy :-). I began to think and behave like a student’s mother. When you start looking at business through the eyes of a client, many things open up that you would never notice as an employee of the company. I began to study information about private schools, read reviews about our educational institution, call the call center, and even enrolled my children in the electronic queue for admission. I walked like a pedestrian and drove like a driver, I ordered food and reviewed homework in the electronic diary to understand whether it was convenient for the parents of our students and where they might have difficulties. I organized a survey of parents to see the level of their satisfaction with school processes.
Seeing the day through the eyes of a client of the European College, I discovered a number of parental “pains”, such as insufficient awareness of parents about their children’s school life or concerns about the quality of school food. Now the European College promptly informs parents not only about planned school activities, but also about any news and innovations. This way, parents received information about the latest powerful air purification system that operates in the school and reduces the number of seasonal diseases. A video was filmed and distributed among parents about the school kitchen, which is not inferior in its organization to Michelin restaurants. It is planned to develop and implement a convenient mobile application instead of the existing electronic diary.
When improving the organization of internal processes in a school, it is worth remembering that the communication of parents with class teachers, call center, and security has a great impact on the customer experience. We have introduced regular employee training aimed at improving their communication skills and customer orientation.
We all know that a complaint is a gift. A customer complaint gives a company the opportunity to improve its internal processes and service, but parents of students are not always ready to complain, as they may fear a biased attitude towards their children. Since one of my tasks is to improve the interaction between the school and parents, I consider the complaint as a tool for these improvements.
Parents of students of the European College can give me feedback in any way convenient for them, and I will try to find the best solution acceptable to each party to the negotiations.
In the process of communication with parents, great ideas emerge that help create an extraordinary customer experience at the EC. For example, one family’s concerns about internal motivation of their child, inspired us to create a series of videos where school students share their secrets of success. There are still many discoveries and improvements ahead that we will make for our clients and together with them. More to come…
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