The Education Advising Center within the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Louisville continuously strives to improve delivery of advising services to students. To that end, an initiative that the advising center undertook in the past year has proven successful on several levels. We reframed our view of students, acknowledging them not only as students but also as educational consumers. Just as they are customers of retail establishments, restaurants, or banks, our students are also our customers. This paradigm shift allowed us to make modifications in some of our advising strategies, thereby improving our services to both our internal customers (staff and faculty) and our external customers (prospective students, current students, and the general public).

The impetus for the advising center's customer service approach was an outgrowth of discussions we have had in recent years about the changing nature of the student population we serve. Martin and Bloom (2003) suggest that higher education is a “dynamic, rapidly changing industry” (p. ix). Our advising center staff would affirm that notion. We sensed that a growing number of students view themselves as value-conscious consumers of higher education and advising services instead of passive students enrolled in college. During our college careers, many of us on staff in the advising center accepted collegiate policies and procedures without question and were satisfied with minimal advising services, but today's generation of students has different expectations, which we referred to as the “drive-through restaurant” mentality. Today's college students grew up with convenient fast food, computers, and the Internet. They are accustomed to one-stop shopping, instant messaging, and lots of competition for their buying dollars. This culture has produced college students who are savvy comparison shoppers with short attention spans and high expectations. Increasingly, our students want relatively fast service with few hassles and fair value for the tuition dollars that they are spending at our institution. If they do not receive it, they are not opposed to taking their money and loyalty to other colleges that they perceive will serve them better. So we experimented with a customer service approach as a means of fine-tuning advising for our student customers. At the very least, it was theorized that this would energize us into looking at our advising center operation “outside of the box” and provide us with a new perspective.

During the past year at weekly advising center staff meetings, we discussed various customer service topics and how they could be adapted for use in our office. Our principle resource was 50 Powerful Ideas You Can Use to Keep Your Customers (Timm, 2000); each advising center staff member was provided with a reference copy. To introduce the project, award ribbons were presented to each of us, highlighting specific, observable behaviors that demonstrated effective student customer service. For example, our receptionist/adviser at the front desk received an Award of Excellence for the way he stands to greet people when they visit the office and the sincere manner in which he interacts with them. Another staff adviser received a Super Star Award for the extra mile she goes to help students and for her gentle laugh and sense of humor, which puts students at ease. Even though these fifteen ribbons were presented months ago, they still hang proudly in our offices. The awards were public recognition that our advising center employees already possess innate qualities that promote good advising service and, by extension, good customer service. Gordon and Habley (2000) encourage advising programs to make a “systematic effort to recognize and reward exemplary performance” (p. 287). Our effort also helped ensure a buy-in of our customer service initiative and reinforced the fact that we were already on the right track.

Here are some of the customer service themes (Timm, 2000) that we discussed:

To keep us engaged in our project, various motivational thoughts were shared at staff meetings: “Expect the best from yourself and others” (Ziglar, 1986, p. 87); “People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care ... about them” (p. 110); Ten Performance Principles (p. 30, p. 280); and “I'll be glad to!” (Walther, 1991, p. 9). These anchoring statements were printed on colorful construction paper and taped to staff computers or bulletin boards as reminders of positive approaches to customer service. At a luncheon meeting, we participated in a game of customer-service bingo to further reinforce our customer service approach.

We at the Education Advising Center are pleased with the results of our customer service initiative. The advising center is receiving less negative feedback from students, and many take the initiative to tell us how pleased they are with our service and the courteous treatment they receive. The goodwill we are building should continue to have beneficial effects throughout the community. Positive feedback and pleasant student-adviser interactions have led to greater job satisfaction for our staff. One of our standard sayings has become “What can we do to help this student?” Our assistant dean for student services encourages us to “own the student's problem.” Rather than referring a student to other offices on campus, we attempt to resolve problems by communicating with the offices directly and then informing the student of the outcome. We consciously set an example of excellent student customer service for the rest of the College of Education and Human Development by returning phone calls and e-mails promptly, following up with students, and making university procedures as seamless and pleasant as possible. We strive to satisfy our students' needs by exceeding their expectations. We have adopted the stance of “when in doubt, lean toward the student” (Howe & Bellizzi, 2003).

A facet of our customer service emphasis includes making students feel positive about choosing the University of Louisville, thus assuaging any “buyer's remorse” that they may experience. When we field inquiries, we use these conversations as opportunities to promote and market our programs, the distinguished faculty, and our institution's comparatively affordable tuition. Because we know that people appreciate being remembered, when we speak with returning students, we take the time to reconnect with them, expressing pleasure that they have chosen to return to the University of Louisville to continue their education. We view them as repeat customers.

Recent events have bolstered our customer service efforts. For example, the Marketing Committee of the College of Education and Human Development has instituted the Cardinal Pride Award, reflective of our university mascot. The purpose of the award is to give students, staff, and faculty an opportunity to recognize those in our college who have provided service that exceeds expectations. It is a means of serving our internal customers. In addition, the University itself has established a task force to explore “ways to make the area around Belknap Campus [main campus] more attractive, accessible, and inviting ... President [James] Ramsey said the beautification effort has the potential to improve the quality of life of people in surrounding neighborhoods as well as those on campus” (Fitzpatrick, 2003, p. 2). In this way, we are attracting new student customers while building rapport and goodwill within the community, which should have a positive effect on our future student customer base.

Also, the College of Education and Human Development faculty members are becoming more intentional about communicating with their advisees and maintaining advising schedules, especially during peak registration periods. Our advising center staff is enjoying its strongest collaboration with faculty to date, including joint marketing and recruiting efforts, departmental and committee work, and participation in policy-making decisions.

Fostered by the desire to improve our services to students, what began as a simple project has laid the foundation for continuous improvement in advising and a sense of solidarity and esprit de corps among our advising center staff. As we build on our customer service emphasis, we predict that it will provide a means for continuous improvement and student customer satisfaction.