Practical customer service skills delivery in Higher Education –
Background perspectives
Executive summary
The project has researched widely to identify empirical evidence, HE staff perceptions and understanding,
along with working practices within and beyond the HE sector, to support approaches to customer service
delivery and service quality in HE.
This report presents evidence that HEIs need to focus on a number of key areas in order to work towards the
goal of delivering quality services in line with customer expectations. Options are presented that build on
applied service logic theory, the service quality construct and successful initiatives in the public and private
sectors.
Key areas for attention are:

Getting students involved

Making sure staff know every interaction is important – with students and with colleagues

Measuring quality not just targets

Measuring impact

Managing behaviours and performance

Keeping expectations married to reality – research, engage
Introduction
Scope of this document
This document represents one half of the LFHE project “Practical customer service skills delivery in Higher
Education”. The document recounts the findings from an extensive literature search and background reading
from a wide range of sources, contextualised with information from:

interviews and correspondence with other HEI staff around the UK

customer service professionals in retail and industry

commercial training providers who have specialised in customer service training interventions.
Overview for the project (abstract from proposal)
The Dearing report in 19971 commented on Higher Education’s need to ‘push towards delivering a more
“customer-oriented” service and a focus on “value for money”’. While this statement has given rise to much
contentious debate, increasing student “savvy”, relentless financial pressure and increased public and media
awareness has driven Universities to address the issue of customer service head-on.
There are three distinct areas in HE where services are provided, each of which require service management
alongside client interaction. The first of these areas is the University Administration (also known as
Professional Services in many HEIs) who administer the greatest diversity of services to students, their
parents and to academic departments (plus the internal service provision between different administrative
departments). There will also be responsibilities for services to external bodies, authorities and partners in
the community (eg HESA, Research Authorities, and the general public). Aligned with these are the devolved
administrative services based in academic departments whose customers include their immediate academic
colleagues as well as most, if not all, of the other customers with which the ‘central’ administration deal. The
third area includes the academic staff who deliver academic programmes and research. This area is the
most contentious as academic colleagues are not quick to recognize their role as service providers or indeed
their students as customers, although there is increasing recognition of the blurring of boundaries and
responsibilities particularly in the realms of staff and service management 2.
Why do we need customer service skills in HE?
There has been some debate on this topic in recent years, largely from the perspective of the threat to
collegiality, “academe3” and “scholarly communities4” that an increasingly “commercial culture and consumer
mentality5” brings to universities. Paul Ramsden, Chief Exec of the Higher Education Academy presses the
issue by stating6: “Students are not customers in any conventional sense of the word. The product or service
they acquire derives value from their striving to achieve it and their achievement of it is determined to a
Page 1 of 21
significant extent by those who supply it. Most students want to be treated as collaborators in a process of
developing understanding.”
However there is also a strongly felt opinion in the HE community that students are “…undoubtedly
consumers of what universities provide.” 7 and that universities need to encompass all aspects of their
responsibilities to staff, students, parents and external communities within which they exist 8. This inevitably
involves some level of service provision, implying a customer-provider relationship for every one of these
areas of responsibility.9 Humes, although writing about the US HE system, captures the zeitgeist in UKHE 10:
“Yes, most of our academic institutions today have departments devoted to providing student services. But
true customer service must involve more than a department or a handful of individuals. Providing a true
service-centred environment is everyone’s job and the inspiration for delivering more than lip service must
begin at the top.”
We can conclude, therefore that all staff working in HE need to have at least some of the skills required to
manage and deliver services to customers, whether they work in administrative or in academic roles. This is
evidenced by the range of interventions already being applied within the community by commercial providers
(eg Mentor11) and professional bodies (eg the AUA12). Furthermore there has recently been much online
traffic on the Staff Development Forum regarding approaches to providing staff with these skills. Again, even
here, arguments have arisen about the relevance and particular characteristics of customer service skills for
academic staff. Colleagues from around the UK approach customer service skills delivery in different ways
with varying degrees of success and at vastly different levels of cost and measurable effectiveness.
The approach used by this project
In conclusion, there is no doubt that an injection of concerted effort is now required to determine:
(a) what are the necessary knowledge, skills and understanding that require attention;
(b) what are the most effective forms of intervention to deliver this;
(c) what is the relevance of the different customer service quality standards and how are they related to
each other and to other quality initiatives and standards.
The most pressing concern is that leaders and managers of teams and divisions within HEIs do not have the
necessary information at their disposal to make the right decisions regarding these items. Consequently
service delivery is compromised: managers and team leaders are disconnected from the services they
manage13; responsibility for service provision is fragmented and vague; and unnecessary or inappropriate
training interventions are made, sometimes at considerable cost, with little impact on the services and the
staff concerned.
Theory and practice
Prologue: the student as customer/consumer
Palfreyman (2007)14 discusses the complex marketplace in which UK (and US) HE operates and the
historical changes that have resulted in the system status quo. We might be tempted to begin with an
attempt to understand why Universities exist but, for this project at least, it is sufficient that they exist and that
the primary customer is the student.
Undoubtedly, the current situation with regards the issues around students as customers/consumers, their
part in moulding the product/services they are buying, the relatively fragile economics of UKHE and our
aspiration to be more like our US cousins, reflects the economic climate of the era in which we exist (and is,
therefore, being analysed accordingly).
Swain (2008) and Palfreyman agree that “students are undoubtedly consumers”, furthermore Palfreyman
suggests that the sovereignty (i.e. supreme control) of “professionals and administrators” should go and that
“the consumers should be re-enthroned.” According to Rosenthal, Peccei and Hill (2001)15:
“Customer sovereignty has been cast as the dominant discourse of the current socioeconomic-political sphere”.
It is reasonable to conclude that we might be prone, therefore, to deploy this model of analysis in the context
of this project’s research and too readily see students as potentially dominant forces in the delivery of the
services/products that UKHE offer. That they have a significant role to play might seem obvious but, as
Palfreyman puts it (in the role of consumers):
“the student punter does not know what he/she is buying by way of HE”
The role of the student, the concept of HE as a service provider and the complexities of the market are all
investigated in the sections below.
Page 2 of 21
Customer service: is it all nonsense anyway?
There are a plethora of popular books, internet sites, articles and studies that are aimed at addressing the
spectrum of subjects that collectively form the topic of “customer service”. The majority of even the most
popular published books and articles, however, contain little or (most often) no reference to empirical or
theoretical research to support their content.
There are so-called “gurus” in this field as in many others (eg John Tschohl 16) and authors of mainstream
“Customer Service theories” (eg McMillan, 200317), but finding definitive, robustly evidenced sources is
difficult and there are few that deal specifically with the situation in education or HE in particular.
It is, however, clear both anecdotally (eg by talking to any call-centre operator – see Datamonitor, 200418 for
context) and in research literature (eg Lovelock & Wirtz 200119; Zeithaml et al, 200620; Sturdy, Grugulis,
Willmott, 200121) that “customers” and “services” are not entirely artificial concepts but can be characterised,
albeit with varying degrees of complexity, and explored objectively and empirically.
In an attempt to pull all this together and to understand the development of the wide range of customer
service practices and any theories underlying these, this project has researched a wide range of literature in
both the academic and practitioner domains. This section draws together the most salient points for this
project and attempts to relate this information to the data collected from interviews, email exchanges, group
discussions and experiences about what is happening in our Universities with regards customers and service
provision.
Service logic theory in Higher Education
Ng and Forbes (2009)22 discuss the application of “service logic” to the idea of education as a service (and,
implicitly, students and their parents/sponsors as customers). Services are variously viewed, traditionally, as
activities or as deed, processes and performance (Gonroos, 198823; Zeithaml et al, 200624). Lovelock and
Wirtz (2003)25 further characterise services, in relation to their generalist qualities and distinctive attributes
but these are not necessarily aligned with the usual focus deployed in HE, i.e. that what matters is the
“learning experience”.
Ng and Forbes present a “new” framework that synergises traditional services marketing research with
educational theory and concepts to help analyse the “value to students” of the University experience. This
framework employs a number of key concepts discussed below.
The customer as co-creator of the service experience
Ng and Forbes’ paper discusses the application of marketing theory and research in an educational context.
Appreciating services marketing principles, as applied in HE, is central to this project’s attempts to
understand the impact of customer service practices on the main customer (i.e. student). However, As
Ramsden (2006) puts it,
“Students are not customers in any conventional sense of the word. The product or
service they acquire derives value from their striving to achieve it and their
achievement of it is determined to a significant extent by those who supply it”
The underlying principle here is that the “product or service” (i.e. the overall University experience) is cocreated by both the student and the service provider (i.e. the collective body of the University).
The principle that the customer has a significant impact on the service they experience (as opposed to just
the product they receive; this distinction being that the interaction affects the experience regardless of the
product – see later) is discussed in other contexts by Bitner et al (1997 26) among others. The impact of the
customer’s role in co-created services is significant (see Ng and Forbes’ paper for further discussion) and
thus will determine the overall experience of the student (as customer).
This concept is supported by other research (Sierra and McQuitty, 2005 27) applying social exchange theory
to determine that:
“social exchanges can create a sense of shared responsibility to service settings
and predict that inseparability produces customer perceptions of shared
responsibility for service outcomes”.
This, in turn, can develop greater customer loyalty in situations where the experience is positive.
The post-modern educational paradigm of “shared discovery” is hardly new but using it to build an argument
against the growing “consumer mentality28” in HE is a relatively recent occurrence, at least in the UK. This
argument also brings into question other aspects of the university’s relationship with its students. The Times
Higher Education reported in March 200929 that a respondent to a recent survey stated that although one
institution was
“signed up to being responsive, there has been no fundamental debate about why
student engagement is important. The language of the student as customer is very
Page 3 of 21
strong, but the language of the student as a junior member of a learning community
is less often heard.”
In this case it seems that the concept of student-as-customer is not the problem, indicating that perhaps the
balance of the experience, or at least the University’s understanding of that experience, had shifted too far in
one direction. Clearly it is important to appreciate all the different points of impact a University can have on
the student experience and attempt to understand all the components of the complex relationship between
University and student.
The concept of Core and Supplementary services
In order to understand how to affect this co-created experience requires unravelling the relative contributions
of both agents (i.e. University and student) and then isolating the significant “pinch-points” for each. Ng and
Forbes (2009) talk in terms of elements of a “University Experience Framework” that indicates as objectively
as possible the key points for students and how this is impacted upon by the University’s contributions.
The core service is all about the learning experience which is (based on cognitive science research)
“emergent, unstructured, interactive and uncertain” and the learning by the student cannot be disconnected
from the teaching by the staff. Similarly, not only is it co-created by both student and teacher but it is
“hedonic”, i.e. contains elements of pleasure and adventure. The hedonic aspect might seem even further
out of the University’s control but can be a product of many service-oriented functions and features. For
instance, through the creation of more pleasant social spaces (the “servicescapes” of Bitner,1992 30; see also
Lovelock and Wirtz, 200631 for extensive discussion about service environments) resulting in improved
customer-customer interactions. Johns (199932) states:
“interacting with other customers may not be included in the provider’s service
concept but nevertheless contributes to the customer’s experience”.
In Universities the social mixing of students is important and this might include diverse interactions including,
for example, those of different nationalities or gender 33. All this will impact on the overall student experience.
At this point we should consider the composition of core services before we move on to look at the impact of
other services. NG and Forbes’ principle assumption is that core services are all about the direct learning
experience, i.e. the outcome of direct teaching and the student’s own learning. This however can be
unpacked somewhat to expose an overlap with other service provision in modern libraries and online via
University-hosted (usually) e-resources, the provision of which is not all managed in the academic domain.
This is particularly prevalent since the inception of “e-learning” (where learning occurs through the use of,
and interaction with, electronic resources) and “blended learning” (where different modes of learning are
employed). Maltby and Mackie, 200934 give an excellent account regarding student engagement with virtual
learning and its relationship with other learning modes. Such learning is the result of access to and use of
services provided by information technology and library services. We should not ignore the fact that much of
these services exist, as far as the customer is concerned, in the “core service” arena and will have a direct
impact on the learning experience.
Within, and also beyond, the core service element is the “Supplementary service”. Ng and Forbe’s concept
of supplementary services includes student applications, finances, campus facilities, accommodation and so
on and includes the combination of the people involved, forms, manuals and processes. Crucially, Ng and
Forbes propose that:
“…the efficient delivery of supplementary services does not denote a good
university experience. These are commonly referred to as hygiene services…i.e.
services that meet basic needs and that, when not met, can cause dissatisfaction
amongst students. Yet, meeting these needs does not make students satisfied – it
merely prevents them from becoming dissatisfied.”
It follows that getting these “hygiene services” right is essential before we can even think about delivering
excellence in any aspect of the core service.
It is apparent, however, that the relationship between all the different services provided to customers is also
critical. Ozment and Morash (1994)35 found in their empirical study that both core and “peripheral” service
offerings must be tailored to customer needs to give satisfaction, i.e. one without the other will not give a
positive result even if “peripheral” or “supplementary” services are considered to be largely “hygiene” in
nature (as in Ng and Forbes). In a University context the faculty and professional services might thus be
mutually culpable for bad customer experience. If we add-in the customer we get a triad of inputs into the
equation:
Own
Contribution
Student Experience = LT + SS + OC
Experience of Learning
and Teaching
Experience of
Supplementary Services
Page 4 of 21
Here the good experience of learning and teaching is down largely to the experience in academic Schools or
Departments; the good experience of supplementary services includes all other services beginning with
Open Days and ending with Graduation; and the customer’s own contribution includes the “hedonic” aspects
such as social interactions and adventure, pleasure, discovery.
Of course, we should be aware in this model that each component has a respective weighting, but
determining this would necessitate a relatively deep insight at an individual level, i.e. each individual Student
Experience will have its own weighting factor for the “LT”, “SS” and “OC” components. This is in part
because different individuals will have different reasons for entering HE which will flex and change as time
progresses) and also because the “OC” component especially is impossible to objectively measure in any
meaningful manner.
In terms of marketing and evaluating services, this model thus begs the question of “what DO students
want?” or even “WHY are students attending University”? This goes beyond the scope of his project but does
shed light on how difficult it is to objectively evaluate the overall student experience (and therefore the impact
of service quality) in a reliable, empirical fashion.
The importance of the customer and service-provider interaction
There are plenty of references to the quality of the customer experience being affected by the customerprovider interaction, indeed the vast majority of training interventions are aimed at improving and developing
service-provider skills when dealing with customers. Sierra and McQuitty (2005) puts this in context:
“When there is a close interaction between a service employee and a customer, the
manner in which the service is performed is often more important than what is actually
delivered.”
In all service-oriented organisations (including Universities even if we remove the learning and teaching
element) services, in Lovelock and Wirtz’s (2006) words, services:
“…cover a spectrum from high-contact to low-contact operations reflecting the type of
service involved and the nature of the processes used in service creation and delivery.”
Hence not all interactions will be personal (i.e. face-to-face in this sense) and, therefore, it follows that not all
interactions can be directly impacted by interpersonal skills development, although the service provided
might be the same. For example, the University Library self-issue machines will issue a book for you to take
from a Library in a similar way as talking to someone behind the issue desk. The customer experience,
however, will be affected not by the human interaction but by the experience of using the machine. A slightly
different example might be the use of a call-centre operation versus a face-to-face operation. The call-centre
operation brings with it a host of other factors that further complicate the customer-provider interaction
including the impact of “efficiency” goals on the interaction 36 (often through a negative impact on empathy
building in an attempt to drive down handling times).
If we do some very simple comparisons (see the Table 1 below) between interpersonal and automated
services there are some superficial differences in service quality measures, the most obvious of which is the
“added value” measure. This brings to the dynamics the idea that, by being proactive (and to some extent
being more empathic with the customer) a service provider can interpret what other/associated needs the
customer may have and/or help make the customer’s experience more positive.
The customer-provider interaction can also be examined from the perspective of how the customer is
perceived and actively managed by the service provider. It is interesting to see, that in academic discourses
at least, the paradigms used to describe customers include “sovereign”, “spy”, “emotional vampire”, “object of
control”, “enemy” and “source of uncertainty”37. Practical and business literature, however tend towards a
vision of the customer needing “care” and “support” and sufficient attention to “delight” and exceed
expectations. McMillan (2003)38 goes as far as employing a medical paradigm where the provider delivering
excellent customer care can experience a “helper high”.
Page 5 of 21
Table 1 Comparison of services and relative qualities
Interpersonal service
Service quality measure
Automated/online
service
Service quality measure
Issuing a book in a library
Length of queue
Efficiency of person
Politeness of person
Appearance and demeanour
of person
Added value
Self-issue machine
Availability (i.e. is it
working?)
Length of queue
Ease of use
Computer problem
solving, clinic-style
Length of queue/booking
slot
Efficiency of person
Confidence in ability to solve
problem
Politeness of person
Appearance and demeanour
of person
Added value
Call centre
Response time
Efficiency of call response
Confidence in ability to
solve problem
Politeness and demeanour
of person
The perceptions of customers by service-providers is important, in particular by service managers who will
mould the service provided by their influence on their employees.
The impact of employee performance on customer service
Sierra and McQuitty’s39 work builds on empirical studies that highlight the role of employee performance in
the experience of the customer. Their work relates the social exchange theory discussed above (i.e. that of
the “shared responsibility for service outcomes”) to how the services are actually delivered. In their words:
“Consumer’s perceptions of shared responsibility for service outcomes correspond
with the extent to which consumers experience emotions in a service setting, which
affects their willingness to purchase the service repeatedly.”
In HE, the customers for the “core” services (i.e. learning and teaching) are, to some extent, captive and the
service they co-experience is only “sold” – for want of a better term – once (although this excludes any other
services related to this such as adult education, second degrees, higher degrees and so forth). However,
once attending, the principle customers (students) do have a range of choices of the “Supplementary”
services like bars, accommodation (to some extent), shops and social events. Furthermore we must
remember that both “core” and “supplementary” services are part of the overall customer experience and that
the “supplementary” services are usually hygiene-services in nature, i.e. do not necessarily contribute
positively but can contribute negatively if they do not meet expectations.
Hence, even in HEIs there needs to be a good understanding of the role of the customer. Again, to use
Sierra and McQuitty’s words:
“Thus, service employee training programmes should emphasise the customer’s
role in the service experience to increase perceptions of shared responsibility and
to create a positive emotional response for customers.”
The key point is to increase customer involvement, to seek out key areas where the customer can have an
impact on the service in a managed fashion, and to seek customer feedback. Such increased engagement
will bring a range of benefits such as stronger emotional response, improve loyalty (to “brand”) and reduce
complaining behaviour or at least give a better response. Most importantly it gives the customer a chance to
understand what the expectations are on them as well as making it clear what are the responsibilities of the
provider.
Ng and Forbes (2009) go further and argue that:
“…the problems encountered by the US higher education system (i.e. student
consumerism and disengagement) are a result of institutions not communicating
their expectations of students’ commitments. The problem therefore is not created
by student-oriented marketing but by the failure of universities to see how value is
co-created.”
Page 6 of 21
It would be reasonable to make customer engagement a key aim of customer service initiatives in UKHEIs
and to make sure that this is not just finding out what customers think of the services they have received but
also to find out:

what they wanted/needed in the first place;

want they want/need in the future and;
 how they can best be involved in shaping the service(s) they want/need.
How to go about achieving this might, effectively, involve aspects of the next few sections.
The Service Quality Construct
There is a widely employed model used to measure customer service called SERVQUAL. This has been
adjusted over the years into a core, five “dimension” model (see Schneider and White, 200440 for a
comprehensive overview –the table below is from this publication):
Dimension
Definition
Reliability
Delivering the promised performance dependably
and accurately
Tangibles
Appearance of the organisation’s facilities,
employees, equipment and communications
materials
Responsiveness
Willingness of the organisation to provide prompt
service and help customers
Assurance (combination of items designed originally
to assess competence, courtesy, credibility and
security)
Empathy (combination of items designed originally to
assess access, communication and understanding
the customer)
Ability of the organisation’s employees to inspire
trust and confidence in the organisation through their
knowledge and courtesy
Personalised attention given to a customer
The dimensions have been used extensively in customer satisfaction surveys and in empirical research on
the topic, largely to identify quality issues (and solutions).
In UK Public Service there is a reference to similar dimensions (although not explicitly termed “dimensions”)
that are the policy objective of “delivering customer-focused, efficient public services41”. This is all about
making sure government departments are “relentlessly customer focused” and deliver a “joined-up service42”.
The dimensions presented in these papers can be summarised thus:
Dimension
Definition
Responsiveness
Provision of services designed to meet the needs of customers not for
the convenience of service providers.
Seamlessness
Provision of joined-up, multi-channel service delivery so that the
customer experiences a co-ordinated and consistent series of
interactions for a particular service or set of related services.
Quality of service
Improve customer satisfaction to engage customers with processes
and make them more likely to take up services to which they are
entitled. Also to generate less unnecessary contact therefore be less
expensive to serve.
Strategic transactional efficiency
Getting customers to use the channel that best meets their needs and
to be most cost-effective for the service provider
In public services the underlying problems arise from the multitude of services being provided by a multitude
of agencies, hence the drive to make the wide range of services more seamless and the service experience
more consistent.
Interestingly the last two dimensions include an emphasis on cost-effectiveness where the cost to the service
provider is actually part of the boundaries within which the customer service quality dimension must operate,
implying a provider-driven compromise at the expense of the customer. Whilst, in reality, all organisations
need to attain cost-effectiveness it is not usually so explicit. Indeed looking at the case study of Yorkshire
Page 7 of 21
Water43 it suggests that effectiveness was achieved by investment in service mechanisms not by restricting
services to what was best for the provider, despite what the customer wanted 44.
The Cabinet Office papers propose that the customer experience can be best improved through
segmentation: targeting “different customer groups with the right combination of treatments that will influence
their behaviour”. By “treatments” what is meant is offering a differentiated approach to dealing with
customers who need different services, principally by adopting different options for:

Service offering (features, attributes and benefits)

Channel (face-to-face, telephone, post, electronic)

Communications (branding, positioning)

Pricing (Standard, promotional, differentiated)
The aim is to identify the most appropriate form of service delivery to meet the segmented customer market.
In UKHE this might be modelled into the provision of diverse services such as IT support, Student Finances,
Counselling Services and Admissions, i.e. adopting different, but consistent service provision to ensure the
most cost-effective and suitable customer interaction.
Customer perceptions
As we have seen above the perception of the service quality by the customer is critical in the overall
experience of that service. Brady and Cronin’s (2001)45 study identifies a model of service delivery that is
linked to service quality perceptions. In their model, empirically founded:
“..service quality perceptions are tied to distinct, actionable dimensions: outcome,
interaction, and environmental quality.”
Their research develops the SERVQUAL dimensions and identifies “sub-dimensions” for each of their own
that are controllable by the service provider; recognising that the customer will also have an impact and,
indeed, responsibility46. Brady and Cronin’s research model is copied in part below:
In Brady and Cronin’s work they also identify that each “sub-dimension” contains three items which act as
descriptors for each dimensioni (excepting the dimension of “tangibles”):

Reliability

Responsiveness
 Empathy
The omission of the tangibles dimension from the list is interesting as Brady and Cronin propose that “there
is evidence that customers use tangibles as a proxy for evaluating service outcomes”. Thus we could
presume that tangibles will “set the scene” for the customer experience (at least in some cases), regardless
of real outcomes. Although taken to its extreme this might result in the development of style over substance,
there is no doubt that first impressions of a range of tangibles will impact significantly on the overall customer
experience.
i
Valence = the perception of overall service quality as a result of service interaction.
Page 8 of 21
In analysing the components of service quality we are beginning to look more closely at the areas of the
service experience on which we can impact. In particular, for this project, we find that there are specific
components of Brady and Cronin’s work that might be a starting point for developmental intervention,
whether that be of a strategic-procedural or cultural-behavioural nature.
Fundamentally, what is on offer, in terms of the sum-total of the service dimensions and the customer’s own
input, must match the overall performance. As Ng and Forbes (2009)47 propose, there are a number of areas
where gaps between customer expectation and service reality can occur: keeping them all closed is the key
to service quality.
Service quality and Service gaps
Ng and Forbes48 apply service logic to the “University Experience” via the Gap Model of Service Quality seen
in Zeithaml et al (1990)49. This is applied in preference to the literal application of the service dimensions
described in Brady and Cronin given that the University experience is the product of unknown expectations
which can be influenced. Ng and Forbes suggest that the Gap Model might better reflect (as a broad
approach) the service dimensions that need attention for the student experience. A summary of the model is
presented here (as described in Ng and Forbes):
Gap 1
The difference between what a student
expects and what the institution thinks
the student expects, often arising from
the lack of research.
Gap 2
The difference between the institution’s
understanding of students’ expectations
and the development of service designs
and standards, a difference where
resource constraints play a role.
Gap 3
Gap 4
The difference between the development
of service designs and standards and the
actual delivery of the service, arising due
to the complexity of the service encounter
and the interaction between students and
staff.
Student expectations
Service design and
standards
Institutional
understanding
of student
expectations
The difference between the delivery of
the service and the institution’s external
communications, i.e. promises made by
the brand, advertising, sales force etc,
arising where there is a difference
between performance and promises.
Service delivery
Institutional promises
The Gap Model can also be represented as feedback “loop” where the loop is not closed from the student
point of view (i.e. the dotted line), thereby creating the dominance of the service provider. As we have seen,
in all other effective models of customer service the customer is dominant 50; this model therefore is doomed
to failure from the outset.
Applied to the combined services (i.e. “core” and “supplementary”) this model could be used to isolate areas
for attention although ultimately we are really presenting a model of organisational development rather than
targeted troubleshooting.
Students aren’t the only customers…
Staff in UKHEIs have to deal with a range of customers other than just students. Parents and sponsors are
often quoted alongside students as “stakeholders” (see references 3-7 for example) or customers at various
points of the student’s own “customer journey”. Additionally HE Registry and Admissions services are
expected to deliver accurate information to HESA and to funding bodies, who will be customers in their own
right at various times of the year.
Lastly of course there are the internal customers – colleagues. This is usually perceived to be in the form of
non-academic staff providing services to academic staff (and also to each other). There are however
increasingly grey areas where academic staff may become “managers” of departments and consequently
adopt a more service-oriented approach to various aspects of their work 51.
Interaction with these “secondary” customers will impact on employee performance, work efficiency, job
satisfaction and ultimately, therefore, on behaviours towards “primary” customers, i.e. the students. Thus, in
this sense, we are once again in the domain of Sierra and McQuitty and examining the end-result of (secondorder) performance management on employee interactions with customers. This is not to say that secondary
customers are not important but that I am proposing that this project is mostly concerned with our primary
Page 9 of 21
customer base (i.e. students) and therefore mostly concerned with interactions with them. Getting these
interactions right may well involve performance management which might be considered “first-order” in this
case.
Where otherwise secondary customers become primary customers, ie when they are asking for the same
services as primary customers, the same parameters for achieving a good customer experience will apply.
Therefore it is not necessary to explore secondary customer interactions (i.e. staff-staff, staff- agency etc) in
this project.
Finding out what customers want
Principles
As seen above in the “Gap Model” of service logic, it is essential to find out what customers want, to adjust
the service offerings accordingly, and to monitor customer expectations and actual service delivery
constantly. All the studies quoted so far have employed a range of well-established techniques in an attempt
to understand:
1. What the customer really wants or needs
2. How well services are being delivered
Public Service model
The Cabinet Office paper cited above52 includes a useful summary account of the wide range of
interventions that can be employed to this end:
1. Front line staff
2. Surveys
3. Customer journey mapping
4. Usability testing and website analysis
5. Ethnography
6. Consultation
7. Formal and informal contact with representative bodies
8. Agents or intermediaries
9. Written correspondence
10. Media coverage (i.e. coverage concerning the service and/or service provider in the media)
Explicit interventions such as customer forums, focus groups and “mystery shoppers” are not included but
might be implicit in one or more of these methods. From the list there are some interesting comments and
case studies with possible impacts on this project.
Firstly, front line staff are considered:
“a rich vein of customer insight which is often overlooked…typically they have an
excellent idea of what is important to their customers, that customers would like to
have more of, what frustrates them and what they would change.”
Secondly, concerning customer surveys:
“The data from quantitative surveys is often useful for providing robust evidence to
support a business case for change, for example….However, to fully understand
why customers behave or think in certain ways a blend of approaches is often
needed.”
The report goes on to comment that “surveys are expensive and time consuming” and imply that they may
not always tell the provider what they want to know. Indeed survey design is critical (consider the SERQUAL
dimensions53 above) and the purpose needs to be honest and very clear so that organisations do not use
surveys as a shield to demonstrate a superficial commitment to customer feedback.
Lastly, concerning ethnography (the scientific method of describing human behaviour and culture):
“People can’t always articulate what they want or need…you can’t expect them to
just give you answers.”
Ethnography has been used in the private and public sector to identify behavioural patterns and habits and
to help overcome issues and problems associated with these.
What is certain, however, from all the literature and research seen is that regular and appropriate
interventions must be in place, along with the willingness and processes to be able to act on outcomes, if the
service organisation is to even start on the road to delivering a quality customer experience.
Page 10 of 21
Gaining customer insight through such interventions is seen to be the first step in engaging the customer and
to ensuring the customer’s part of the co-created service experience will be as positive as possible.
NSS and other student surveys
In the past decade there appears to have been a far greater use of surveys in HEIs and across the UKHE
landscape in an attempt to see if, in essence, things work. The National Students Survey (NSS) is the most
widely known survey tool along with the International Student Barometer (ISB). Both are employed to
benchmark “student experience” nationally (i.e. inter-HEI) and to paint a broad picture of the experience at a
local level (intra-HEI).
The NSS is marketed as a chance for students’ voices to “be heard”. The role of the NSS is seen (by the
NSS providers) as54:
“It’s your chance to have your say about what you liked and didn’t like about your
student learning experience during your time in higher education.”
The data gathered is described as being:
“1. published on Unistats.com where prospective students and their advisors can use
the results to help make informed choices of where and what to study
2. useful to your university, students’ union or college to facilitate best practice and
enhance the student learning experience.”
Hence, the NSS is positioned as a method of getting feedback about (in effect) service quality although the
quality of the data is questionable for all the reasons highlighted above concerning what makes the student
experience and the limitations of anonymous surveys (see Ng and Forbes, 2009 for a fuller discussion). That
the NSS at least provides a benchmark for UKHE is not in dispute, that the NSS cannot drive service
improvements might be a conclusion from this analysis.
The ISB, however, is marketed differently. Its providers, i-graduate, see the ISB as55:
“An independent and confidential feedback process for education providers, tracking
the decision-making, perceptions, expectations and experiences of international
students
• A risk management tool, identifying the key drivers of international student
satisfaction and establishing the relative importance of each.
• A comparative measure, tracking year on year how expectations and perceptions
change - within your institution and against national and global benchmarks”
Whilst more measured in its approach to the value of the survey tool there are tacit assumptions that HEIs
making use of the ISB will expect service quality to be influenced by action arising from findings. Neither the
NSS or ISB can provide the solutions to problems with student experience. Like all surveys that do not
expressly probe clearly identified service dimensions 56, the information acquired will simply highlight an
issue, not the dimension or attribute that needs to be adjusted.
i-graduate offer a range of other barometers/surveys that do attempt to address service dimensions, or at
least the outcomes directly related to these (eg price and scholarship which addresses market perceptions of
fees and scholarships , employer which looks at what employers are seeking in graduates in an attempt to
influence service offerings tailored to employer needs).
There is no doubt that such high-profile customer feedback has a direct influence on service provision in
HEIs. They certainly provide a starting point (i.e. “something has to happen”) and point a finger at the likely
service area that needs to be addressed. Brady and Cronin’s model 57 and the comments regarding the
organisational service gaps in Ng and Forbes could then be used to target the service dimensions that need
attention although it is more likely in many cases that wider organisational development (OD) will be required
in the long run.
Holistic Evaluation
Research in the US58 has proposed a move away from “accountability models” with an operational focus to a
more holistic approach that considers impacts. Sheffield Student Services have piloted this approach with
the aim of developing a more strategic approach to improving service quality and the overall student
experience. The Director of Student Services at Sheffield summarises the reasons for this approach thus:
“Arguably it enables us to be more proactive in influencing policy, rather than merely
to demonstrate levels of usage or customer satisfaction in a somewhat reactive way.
This organic model of evaluation encourages us to focus on learning and it is a
balanced approach which is closely in tune with the Balanced Scorecard/Strategy Map
concepts which underpin our departmental strategy. Holistic evaluation should help
us move beyond one-dimensional satisfaction indicators. In short it could be seen to
put the ‘values’ back into evaluation.”
Page 11 of 21
The key to holistic evaluation is the information gleaned from the customer and how this is acquired. Rather
than ask questions or focus on the service delivered (the “tangible” dimension) or indeed on the interaction
itself, customers are asked to say how the service has impacted on aspects of their lives or other parts of
their University experience. It could be argued that there is a possibility of mismatch between the impact and
the service since customers may not be able to determine the boundaries of service delivery (effectively the
dimensions being evaluated) and their holistic experience.
However, in this form of evaluation we are seeing a move towards closing the gap between service delivery
and customer expectation without disengaging the whole student experience from the complement of
different services that make up the experience. A holistic approach, therefore, might be effective in
measuring both elements of the co-created experience, through smart questioning and reflective techniques.
Taking the student pulse
Being able to collect, analyse and feedback quick snapshots of student perceptions of their experience (and
by extrapolation the product of the associated services’ quality) might be a more effective way of moderating
service delivery than large-scale surveys over longer periods of time. The LFHE project “Taking the Pulse” 59
demonstrates this methodology being deployed for staff surveys.
The principle is to make the snapshot (i.e. data collection) very simple therefore allowing rapid collation,
analysis and, in theory, action through feedback to relevant stakeholders. Although the principle is sound
there is a risk of “survey burnout” when institutions also expect returns from NSS, ISB and so forth, and is
increased should the pulse surveys be run as intended, i.e. throughout the student lifecycle.
Towards service quality through Customer Service frameworks
Principles and overview
A recent workshop on customer service in HE concluded that:
“it is easy to hide behind customer service awards and charters to avoid doing
something really effective”.
The same group of HE service providers also concluded that many HEIs struggle to find where to start and
what to do to start making necessary improvements. Service frameworks are intended to help both with the
overall quality of service provision and with the change agenda necessary to make the provision work in the
first place and over the longer term. Unfortunately the world of customer service frameworks is complex and
made worse by the overlap with “Quality Standards” which are often constrained by operational context with
only a nod to the customer service element. The latter include procedurally driven frameworks like the IT
Infrastructure Library (ITIL) which talks about service quality60:
“IT resources are focused on service quality to satisfy customer requirements”
However, most of the voluminous supporting materials are concerned solely with process and systems: the
impact on customers is only implicit.
Frameworks concerned largely with customer service and service quality tend to have an emphasis on the
customer interaction. Whilst we have seen that this is important it is by no means the only dimension to
service quality that needs attention. This is perhaps most extreme in the competency framework like the
NVQ in Customer Service. The National Occupational Standards (NOS) 61 do make reference to process and
systems but their job is largely to ensure that the individual concerned has the necessary competency, not
the organisation or team working within it. Having said this, the higher levels (3 and 4) contain reference to
strategic interventions along with establishing, adapting and monitoring the systems and processes, although
this is dependent on the role of the individual undertaking the award and is not concerned with the
organisational angle in the larger picture. In other words the NOS are somewhat dependent on both a
cultural approach and necessary OD already being in place to be effective, although it is possible to achieve
the standards as individuals, given the right opportunities.
The other frameworks of interest to this study are to do (in essence) with service quality: establishing
processes and systems, ensuring competency in staff, measuring the quality of interaction, engaging
customers and selling the service appropriately. In other words, closing the gaps identified in Ng and Forbes’
model62 we saw earlier. Although this study does not include advanced frameworks like the ISO9000 series
or EFQM business excellence model, a short discussion on two more basic frameworks is worthwhile.
Customer First
A standards-oriented framework aimed at “putting the customer first”63, this is used extensively in the
hospitality industry, often as a starting point for progression to other frameworks. One of the attractants with
Customer First (and with other frameworks) is the working towards an “award”, moderated externally to the
organisation, thus endowing a real sense of achievement and success.
Page 12 of 21
The framework consists of 32 statements divided into three sections under the headings of “customer
relationships”, “market awareness” and “people”.
Each statement contains detail grouped under “why”, “what” and “evidence examples”. Success is governed
by the ability to consistently demonstrate the statement as required by the external assessor(s). There is
room for subjective evaluation but, given the contexts, it would be reasonable to expect fair assessment.
In UKHE many corporate services possess the standard although, anecdotally, this does not necessarily
follow that these services are excellent, simply that they have at some point demonstrated processes,
understanding of the issues and some measure of reasonable customer service.
The simplicity of the standard, however, does lend itself to a starting point for areas where there is very little
to work with otherwise. The key points, with respect to the discussions preceding this section, are that this
standard identifies:
1. the importance of the involvement of the customer in the service, implicit to which is recognition of
the co-created elements
2. the importance of the interaction between service provider and customer, including employee
behaviours
3. the significance of understanding customer expectations and managing these through
communication and related interactions.
Customer Service Excellence (previously Charter Mark)
The Charter Mark standard has been around for some years and has recently been revamped into the
Customer Service Excellence (CSE) model. In the words of the relevant Government Office 64:
“The Government wants public services for all that are efficient, effective, excellent, equitable
and empowering – with the citizen always and everywhere at the heart of public service
provision. With this in mind Customer Service Excellence was developed to offer public services
a practical tool for driving customer-focused change within their organisation.
The foundation of this tool is the Customer Service Excellence standard which tests in great
depth those areas that research has indicated are a priority for customers, with particular focus
on delivery, timeliness, information, professionalism and staff attitude. There is also emphasis
placed on developing customer insight, understanding the user’s experience and robust
measurement of service satisfaction”
CSE is a more sophisticated model of service quality than Customer First, largely because it is aimed at a
certain type of service delivery by a certain sector.
CSE also contains statements, termed “elements” grouped into “standards” in turn grouped into one of five
“criteria”. In all there are 57 elements allowing for a more detailed description of what “customer service
excellence” means in this context. Key to the CSE is the concept (and practicalities) of customer
segmentation. This is discussed above65 but in essence is about offering differential modes of services to
different customer groups. In the complex service delivery that is HE this might be applicable on a microlevel but is harder to see how this can be scaled to bring about – or at least to herald the start of – cultural
change for the student experience as a whole.
Consequently, in HE we see CSE being awarded to individual service areas (eg the Libraries of Swansea
and Nottingham Tent), whereas Customer First appears to cover wider service groups, albeit with quite
different service remits (i.e. the “tangibles” of a student coffee shop and halls of residence are quite different
to those of the Academic Registry and an IT Helpdesk for instance). A confident service or small group of
similar services might be able to sustain achievement of the CSE but its more detailed probing of market
awareness and tailoring of services might be more challenging to a wider grouping in an HE context.
The status quo in HE
Introduction
Discussions with a range of individuals from UKHE Services has provided some insight into how customer
service is perceived, and acted upon. The discussions were based on answers to a standard set of
questions, also deployed in a survey format (using BOS). Conversations with individuals have been
augmented in a number of instances with group discussions and sometimes from team inputs (eg HELOA,
SDF and the Bath Workshop on Customer Service).
Appendix 1 lists the questions asked and respondents (when identified) used in this section.
Page 13 of 21
The voice of service providers
General position
Everyone encountered had some form of customer awareness with regards:

an appreciation that students are customers at various points in their journey

that students contribute to the overall University experience

that learning is not wholly consumer-oriented

that students are not the only customers (i.e. internal customers and those sponsoring students
are also subject to the same experience of service provision)
Customer Service skills training provision
All but one of the respondents also had some from of customer service training available in their institution,
or had undertaken some themselves or in their division. The value in this training was not universally seen
with half of respondents saying it was “OK” or “some positive impact” but included with this were comments
such as “teaching granny to suck eggs” and “didn’t address underlying problems with my department”.
Most of the training was in the form of short sessions although some institutions also had longer “focused”
skills sessions or rolling programmes. Five Institutions offered NVQs internally to staff. More than half of the
respondents had skills sessions delivered by both internal staff developers and external training providers.
Four of these employed external providers to instil a more strategic approach and to help with developing a
“service culture”.
Evaluation of customer satisfaction/service quality
Over half (12) of respondents seek feedback from customers proactively although it was not identified if
things like the NSS or ISB formed part of this. Of these, six of the institutions had feedback restricted to
certain departments, two were unsure and four were adopting, or had adopted, an institutional-wide
approach to evaluating service quality. This included Sheffield employing their “holistic” evaluation model.
Use of frameworks
Seven respondents knew of “Customer First” or “Charter Mark” in their institutions, exclusively in “hospitality”
or “estates” related service areas. Four respondents were undertaking ITIL in their IT sections and three had
“Customer Charters” of which they were aware. This data, of course, really only shows the awareness of the
individual concerned and does not accurately reflect the bigger picture but it is worthwhile noting that, in
terms of measuring and attempting to ensure service quality, HE services in the traditional consumeroriented areas of retail, residences and leisure are way ahead of their colleagues in the rest of Professional
Services.
This does reflect the changing culture of the student as customer which is driving the need to adopt more
customer-centric practices in other areas of academic institutions and perhaps justifies the more
“managerialist” approach to higher education, feared by many academics.
Strategic approaches
13 institutions believe there is a need for customer service skills although it was not specified if this included
a strategic approach but is implicit. This includes seven who feel these need to be developed for academic
and administrative staff across the board.
Bath, Middlesex and Imperial are all taking a strategic approach to service quality which includes qualitative
and quantitative measures of the student experience and satisfaction across the institutions using different
methodologies. These will be examined in more detail in the case studies phase of the project.
It is worth noting that all the strategic initiatives (bar Sheffield) have been driven, and have arisen, from staff
developers not service managers. Having said this, where present such strategic approaches have all
involved Senior Management at a very early stage and engage service managers and senior academics
from the outset. This is particularly evident in Imperial and Bath’s approach and cannot be emphasised more
strongly for these initiatives to work.
All respondents were quite clear that programmed approaches to service quality improvements are very long
term and include strategy, process, management, evaluation and skills elements.
Page 14 of 21
Views from training providers
This section contains highlights of the information kindly provided by two leading customer service training
providers in HE, Paul Kent Associates and the Tim Russell Group.
Both providers, and also Mentor with whom Exeter have worked, offer bespoke and standard workshop-style
skills sessions which they have tailored to the UKHE market. All have slightly different approaches but agree
that:

customer service awareness in UKHE is on the increase

until recently customer service skills development was restricted to student services

greater emphasis is now given to building relationships including with colleagues, addressing the
internal market

academic staff are becoming more amenable to skills interventions and becoming involved in
wider initiatives delivered through external providers (although the “customer” word is not
employed as such).
Paul Kent have developed a substantial portfolio of different customer service interventions aimed at all HE
staff and have a broad experience with many HEIs tailoring provision to meet their needs – where the
tailoring element is seen as crucial to effective delivery. Their approach reflects the constant demand to keep
up with what students want which in turn, in Paul Kent’s opinion, is beginning to be driven by:
“fee paying students wanting more value for money”
Again, the importance of all interactions is emphasised although Paul Kent admit that:
“In reality, so far Universities have concentrated their customer service initiatives
almost exclusively on their support staff.”
Tailoring and targeting skills sessions, and putting them into a wider programme of development will drive
change to some extent, although the impact of such skills sessions will be lessened where there are
procedural gaps, or poor management or supervision. This was evident in one Institution where trainers
delivered a whole programme of skills sessions which, upon evaluation, were discovered to have had “little
or no impact”. In fact such costly exercises can count heavily against the general purpose.
Tim Russell’s approach is less about skills interventions and has, in the HEIs mentioned during discussions,
taken on a more strategic theme with his team acting as consultants and advisers to promote cultural change
through institutional-wide development. Tim says:
“To be really successful in achieving improvements in customer service, a holistic
approach is essential.”
This approach relies less heavily on skills sessions although there is included in the model provided a focus
on communication, interpersonal relationships and performance management, clearly identifying employee
behaviours as one of the keys to service quality. The model is also inclusive of all staff and all customer
segments:
“It should be emphasised that, although there has been some debate about the use of
the word ‘customer’ within HEIs, the thrust of our work is about developing the
effective relationships between all interested stakeholders within the university. These
include academic and administrative staff, students at all levels of study, their parents,
employers and local and national businesses, suppliers, research and funding
agencies.”
Whilst skills sessions will always be needed and are relatively simple to procure and deliver, higher level
development is far more time consuming and difficult and requires considerable commitment from the
institution’s senior team.
Synthesis of the research and the status quo
Introduction
Whilst there are no obvious universal answers there are some clear messages from the research literature,
practical interventions and discussions with Institutions and service providers. Ultimately each situation will
probably require a different approach but some starting points and milestones can be derived from the work
above: these are presented below.
Lastly, given the economics of the sector, it is inevitable that students will require HEIs to be more
accountable for the service they experience, regardless of their contribution to their experience.
Page 15 of 21
What’s important
Get students involved
The NSS, ISB etc are starting points and contributors to the mass-indicators applied (with some variation
and debatable value) as a benchmark for UKHE. Institutions need to take notice but not rely on them as
drivers for change. The key message might be “think institutionally, act local”. Following the Cabinet Office
model of segmentation each service will need to ensure that it has the right channels of contact for its
customer group and that customers really do take part in formulating service provision and have a voice.
This is tied in with evaluation but should be more about aligning expectation with reality and closing any
gaps.
Make sure staff know every interaction is important – with students and with
colleagues
Concentrating on effective communication and internal relationships will ensure that all staff know their
responsibilities and will know how to escalate and refer enquiries. This is the first step to engendering a
culture of service-quality ownership and therefore allowing confidence in service provision and trust between
provider and customer.
Measure quality not just targets
Quality is about consistency, value and richness of experience. Although targets are important to ensure
volume of tasks are managed appropriately, there is evidence that the quality of the employee-customer
interaction can be more important than the service itself. This is linked to performance and behaviours (see
below) and to interactions (discussed above).
Service quality is a product of:

getting the right policy and procedures (informed by the customer) in place and making sure they
are applied appropriately by observation of application (management, mystery shoppers) and by
consulting customers (focus groups, questionnaires etc)

ensuring staff give consistent, reliable and empathic service through adaptation and
development of appropriate attitude, behaviour and expertise. Some of this can be developed
through skills sessions but much of this is a product of the overarching culture and also of the
environment in which the service is delivered. This must be monitored and measured by
observation (management, mystery shoppers) and by consulting customers (focus groups,
questionnaires etc).

ensuring the service environment is fit for purpose and encourages positive customer-customer
interaction and employee-customer interactions
Measure impact
Sheffield’s holistic evaluation of impacts on student lives might be considered as an adjunct to the more
functional, reactive assessment of service quality provided by focus groups etc. This should not, however,
rule out these service measures, simply augment the quality of the data acquired, thereby enabling a much
more strategic approach to service development. “Taking the student pulse” is a good example of spotchecking in a holistic fashion.
Manage behaviours and performance
Managers need to be heavily engaged with the daily operations, talking to customers, watching service
operations, being visible and acting on situations without resorting to disruptive and dis-empowering micromanagement. Teams need to be reviewed using customer service parameters or competencies and be
offered appropriate development.
Keep expectations married to reality – research, engage with customers
Managing this gap is crucial. There is evidence that not enough research is done about what students think
they have registered for when they begin a course at a University. Differences between the reality of the
student experience and perceptions developed from Open Days, prospectuses, website information, league
tables etc need to be identified and acted upon. Getting the “hygiene” services right will not necessarily win
awards but getting them wrong will lose customers:

Ensure real listening happens

Ensure there is action when needed
Page 16 of 21

Tell your customers what’s going on

Deal with PR and marketing spin
What can be done
1. Get the basics in place. If you don’t have consistent customer service policies and procedures then
ask your customers to help you develop them. Make sure your staff are all on board and fully
appreciate the ramifications of every customer interaction and the role they have to play.
2. Use a framework. There is a lot to do across services and within teams. A framework like Customer
First gives a good introduction to the basics where there are a lot of inconsistencies and/or
communication barriers. CSE offers a more sophisticated model for complex services particularly
where customer segmentation (i.e. developing different channels and service offerings) is important.
3. Employ someone to oversee it all. There are so many key areas where things can go wrong which
halt the necessary cultural change that an individual driving force might be able to overcome. Shared
responsibility is possible although there is always the risk of “slow death by democracy” where no
one person is able to act without a consensus.
4. Get senior staff engaged. Cultural/organisational change is impossible without strong leadership.
5. Monitor constantly. Effective monitoring and evaluation of services is essential and is one of the
starting points for any initiative. This needs to be consistent and the data gathered needs to be of
value and communicated and acted upon appropriately. This function needs to be given to an
individual or team.
6. Offer skills development. Targeted, tailored skills development will always be needed. Choose the
provision carefully and make sure people know why they are receiving it and what impact it should
have. Measure and evaluate this constantly.
Next steps for the Project
The Case studies
Three HEIs have been identified as suitable case studies along with a cross-sector study with the Tim
Russell Group. The HEIs and their approaches are:
1. Imperial College, London. The Customer Service Academy.
2. University of Bath. The Service Quality project.
3. Middlesex University. Developing an Institutional Service Culture
Further information will be provided for context from operations at Exeter and Bournemouth.
Case study material will be collected during the months of August and September by visits, interviews and
focus groups.
Page 17 of 21
Appendix 1
1a Questions asked – conversations
1. Do you have a customer services strategy, charter or statement?
* If so, from where did this originate and who maintains/updates it?
* If not, do you feel you should have one?
2. Please state which, if any, quality standards or frameworks you employ that focus on customer service
and service delivery (such as Charter Mark, Customer First, EQFM or ITIL).
* If you employ one or more of these who is responsible for its implementation and monitoring?
3. Please state which, if any, customer feedback and evaluation systems you have in place (eg "mystery
shoppers", focus groups, customer forums)?
* If you have such systems who manages them?
4. Have you or your colleagues had any customer service skills training in the past five years? If so:
* In general how was the type of training determined (eg advice from Staff Development Unit or
external provider)?
* What need was the training intended to meet?
* How was the training delivered (i.e. in-house or by an external provider)?
* How was the success of the training measured?
* Was the training considered to be effective?
1b Questions asked – survey
1. What is the name of your Institution?
2. When considering customer service skills development, what is your involvement?
3. Please select which role is the closest to your own.
4. In your Institution, do you believe there is a need for customer service skills?
4.a. If you answered "Yes" please select the most appropriate reasons why from the list below.
4.b. If you answered "No" please select the reason(s) why from the list below.
5. In your Institution, does customer service skills training happen (including the use of learning opportunities
such as online resources)?
5.a. If you answered "Yes" please select the type of training or learning intervention.
5.b. If your answer was "Yes" please select how the training or learning intervention was provided.
5.c. If you answered "Yes" please choose how effective the training has been.
6. In your Institution please select which of the following underlying frameworks and/or procedures are in
place.
6.a. If you selected one or more of the options please select where these operate.
7. Do you have any other comments?
Page 18 of 21
1c Contributors to this report (as of 1/7/09)
Organisation
Position
Aberystwyth University
Network Development Team leader
City University
Infrastructure Services Manager
CSE
Key Account Manager
HEaTED
Executive Director
HELOA
Chair of Regional Group
Imperial College, London
Learning and Development Centre Manager
Loughborough University
Staff Development Adviser
Mentor Training
Account Manager
Middlesex University
Staff Development Manager
Paul Kent Associates
Chief Exec
Royal Holloway, University of London
Infrastructure Technical Architect
The Open University
IT Helpdesk Team Leader
Tim Russell Associates
Chief Exec
University of Bath
Head of Staff Development
University of Bath
Assistant Registrar
University of Bournemouth
Staff Development Adviser
University of Brighton
Principal Systems Officer
University of Cardiff
Counselling Services Administrator and Receptionist
University of Exeter
Counselling Services Administrator
University of Exeter
Library Customer Service Manager
University of Exeter
Planning and Resources Assistant Director
University of Exeter
Corporate Services Training and Development Manager
University of Exeter
Professor of Marketing Science
University of Greenwich
Technical Services Manager
University of Manchester
Shared Service Desk Manager
University of Manchester
Student Services Manager
University of Oxford
Chief Cashier
University of Plymouth
Student Services Manager
University of Portsmouth
Technical Support Officer
University of Reading
Helpdesk Team Leader
University of Reading
IT Support Manager
University of Sheffield
Director of Student Services
University of Sunderland
Acting Customer Support Manager
University of the West of England
Student Services Manager
University of the West of England
Staff Development Manager
Page 19 of 21
References
1
Dearing, R. 1997. Higher Education in the Learning Society. The Report of the National Committee of Inquiry into
Higher Education.
2 Whitchurch, C. 2006. Professional Managers in UK Higher Education: Preparing for complex futures. LFHE Research
and Development Series.
3 Diacon, T. 2008. Customer Service, or Provider Responsibility. Inside Higher Ed. 13th March
(www.insidehighered.com/views)
4 Newman, M. 2008. New order of service as ‘customers’ are ditched. Times Higher Education 24th January.
5 You pays yer money... 2006. Times Higher Education. 29th September
6 Ramsden, P. 2007. Editorial. Academy Exchange. Issue 7, Winter 2007.
(www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/publications/exchange)
7 Swain, H. 2007. Go the extra mile with a big smile. Times Higher Education 16th February.
8 Ibid.
9 Humes, L. R. 2004.The role of customer service in Higher Education. Humes & Associates.
(www.humesassociates.com).
10 Ibid.
11 See http://www.mentorgroup.co.uk/profile/ourstory.html
12 See jttp://www.aua.ac.uk/events/courses/customerservice/
13LFHE. 2006. A CPD Framework for Service Managers in HE. LFHE Small Development Projects SPDCPD06.
14
Palfreyman, D. 2007. Market, models and metrics in higher education. Perspectives. Policy and Practice in Higher
Education. 11(3): 78-87.
15
Rosentahl, P., Peccei, R. and Hill, S. 2001. Academic discourses of the customer: ‘soveriegn beings’, ‘management
accomplices’ or ‘people like us’?. In Sturdy, A., Grugulis, I & Willmott, H. (Eds). 2001. Customer Service –
Empowerment and Entrapment. Critical Perspectives on Work and Organisations: Palgrave
16
2009. See http://www.johntschohl.com “The Service Quality Institute”.
17
McMillan, B. 2003. The Customer Service Theory. www.brianmcmillan.net.
18
Datamonitor, 2004. see www.datamonitor.com, reference code BPCS60. Improving customer service provision within
the utilities industry –Yorkshire Water Case Study.
19
Lovelock, C.H. and Wirtz, J. 2003. Services marketing: people, technology, strategy. Prentice Hall: New Jersey.
20
Zeithaml, V.A. & Bitner, M.J. and Gremler, D. D. 2006. Service marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm.
McGraw-Hill: Boston.
21
Sturdy, A., Grugulis, I & Willmott, H. (Eds). 2001. Customer Service – Empowerment and Entrapment. Critical
Perspectives on Work and Organisations: Palgrave.
22
Ng, I. C. L. and Forbes, J. 2009 Education as Service: The understanding of University experience through service
logic. Journal of Marketing of Higher Education, forthcoming.
23
Gonroos, C. 1988. Service quality: the six criteria of good perceived service quality. Review of Business 9(3): 10-13.
24
Zeithaml, V.A. & Bitner, M.J. and Gremler, D. D. 2006. Service marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm.
McGraw-Hill: Boston.
25
Lovelock, C.H. and Wirtz, J. 2003. Services marketing: people, technology, strategy. Prentice Hall: New Jersey
(Chapter10).
26
Bitner, M.J., Farander, W.T., Hubbert, A.R. and Zeitaml, V.A. 199. Customer contributions and roles in service
delivery. International Journal of Service Industry Management 8(3): 193-205.
27
Sierra, J. and McQuitty, S. 2005. Service providers and customers: social exchange theory and service loyalty. Journal
of Services Marketing 19/6: 392-400.
28
You pays yer money... 2006. Times Higher Education. 29th September
29
Institutions hear consumers when students speak. 2009. Times Higher Education 5th March.
30
Bitner, M.J. 1992. Servicescapes: the impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees. Journal of
Marketing 56: 57-71.
31
Lovelock, C.H. and Wirtz, J. 2004. Services marketing: people, technology, strategy. Prentice Hall: New Jersey
32
Johns, N. 1999. What is this thing called service? European Journal of Marketing 33(9/10): 958-973.
33
Ng, I. C. L. and Forbes, J. 2009 Education as Service: The understanding of University experience through service
logic. Journal of Marketing of Higher Education, forthcoming.
34
Maltby, A. and Mackie, S. 2009. Virtual learning environments – help or hindrance for the ‘disengaged’ student? ALTJ, Research in Learning Technology Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2009, 49–62
Page 20 of 21
35
Ozment, J. and Morash, E. 1994. The augmented service offering for perceived and actual service quality. Journal of
the Academy of Marketing Science 22(4); 32-363.
36
Korczynski, M. 2001. The contradictions of service work: call centre as customer oriented bureaucracy. In: Sturdy, A.,
Grugulis, I & Willmott, H. (Eds). 2001. Customer Service – Empowerment and Entrapment. Critical Perspectives on
Work and Organisations: Palgrave pp.79-101.
37
Rosenthal, P., Pessei, R. and Hill, S. 2001. Academic Discourses of the Customer: ‘Sovereign Beings’, ‘Management
Accomplices’ or ‘People Like Us’? In: Sturdy, A., Grugulis, I. & Willmott, H. (Eds). 2001. Customer Service –
Empowerment and Entrapment. Critical Perspectives on Work and Organisations: Palgrave. Pp 18-37.
38
McMillan, B.M. 2003. The Customer Service Theory. See www.brianmcmillan.net.
39
Sierra, J. and McQuitty, S. 2005. Service providers and customers: social exchange theory and service loyalty. Journal
of Services Marketing 19/6: 392-400
40
Schneider, B. and White, S.S. 2004. Service Quality Research Perspectives. London: Sage.
41
Segmentation guildelines. Delivering a customer-focused, efficient public service. 2006. Cabinet Office (e-Government
Unit).
42
Customer insight in public services – A Primer. 2006 (October). Cabinet Office, Delivery and Transformation Group.
43
Datamonitor, 2004. see www.datamonitor.com, reference code BPCS60. Improving customer service provision within
the utilities industry –Yorkshire Water Case Study
44
Ibid.
45
Brady, M.K. and Cronin, J.J. 2001. Some new thoughts on conceptualizing perceived service quality: A hierarchical
approach. Journal of Marketing 65 (July 2001): 34-49.
46
Sierra, J. and McQuitty, S. 2005. Service providers and customers: social exchange theory and service loyalty. Journal
of Services Marketing 19/6: 392-400
47
Ng, I. C. L. and Forbes, J. 2009 Education as Service: The understanding of University experience through service
logic. Journal of Marketing of Higher Education, forthcoming.
48
Ibid.
49
Zeithaml, V.A. & Bitner, M.J. and Gremler, D. D. 2006. Service marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm.
McGraw-Hill: Boston.
50
See Sturdy, A., Grugulis, I & Willmott, H. (Eds). 2001. Customer Service – Empowerment and Entrapment. Critical
Perspectives on Work and Organisations: Palgrave
51
Whitchurch, C. 2006. Professional Managers in UK Higher Education: preparing for complex futures. London: LFHE.
52
Customer insight in public services – A Primer. 2006 (October). Cabinet Office, Delivery and Transformation Group.
53
Brady, M.K. and Cronin, J.J. 2001. Some new thoughts on conceptualizing perceived service quality: A hierarchical
approach. Journal of Marketing 65 (July 2001): 34-49.
54
See http://www.thestudentsurvey.com/
55
See http://www.i-graduate.org/services/student_barometer.html
56
Ozment, J. and Morash, E. 1994. The augmented service offering for perceived and actual service quality. Journal of
the Academy of Marketing Science 22(4); 32-363.
57
Brady, M.K. and Cronin, J.J. 2001. Some new thoughts on conceptualizing perceived service quality: A hierarchical
approach. Journal of Marketing 65 (July 2001): 34-49.
58
Keeling, R., Wall, A., Underhile, R., Dungy, G. 2008. Assessment Reconsidered: Institutional Effectiveness for Student
Success. NASPA: http://assessmentreconsidered.org/
59
Brown, M.E. 2006. Taking the pulse. LFHE Small Development Project. See:
http://www.lfhe.ac.uk/research/smallprojects/sdppulse06.html/
60
See http://www.itsmf.co.uk/BestPractice/Why_BP.aspx
61
Institute of Customer Service 2006. Overviews of Customer Service National Occupational Standards and NVQ/SVQ
Units at Levels 2,3 and 4. http://www.instituteofcustomerservice.com/Gallery/docs/1/NOS%20Overviews.doc
62
Ng, I. C. L. and Forbes, J. 2009 Education as Service: The understanding of University experience through service
logic. Journal of Marketing of Higher Education, forthcoming.
63
See http://www.customerfirst.org/PotentialCustomers.aspx
64
See http://www.cse.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/aboutTheStandardCSE.do
65
Segmentation guildelines. Delivering a customer-focused, efficient public service. 2006. Cabinet Office (e-Government
Unit).
Page 21 of 21