The first weeks of a semester or term are always the most challenging for financial aid administrators. After weeks of fielding phone calls, emails, and live chat (if you’re lucky enough to have that!), students and their families are now visiting our offices. And it’s likely these visitors are not coming to you with easy-to-resolve issues, or you would have heard from them earlier. Plus, there’s all sorts of work not related to serving individual students that must get done: reporting to executives on campus; making sure funds are originated and disbursed properly; and of course, FISAP. It’s tempting to short-cut service to students and families under these conditions, but doing it right the first time generally results in less time spent down the road because you avoid repeat visits to your office or the need to respond to complaints made to your boss.
So, take this customer service quiz and find out if you are a superhero or have the potential to be one for your students. Disclaimer: the ‘correct’ answers to these questions are completely subjective and based on 35 years of experience serving members of the higher education community. Results may vary.
1. A student and their parents visit you at the front desk. They are visibly upset and ask to speak to someone ‘in authority’, so you…
a) Tell them that counselors are only available on an appointment basis, and you can squeeze them in next Tuesday.
b) Ask them to tell you a little about their situation, and you will determine if they need to meet with a counselor to resolve the issue.
c) Have them take a seat while you find a colleague to sit with them in the back office to hear about and try to resolve their issue. The colleague does not necessarily have to be an ‘authority.’
We think c) is the best way to go for three reasons. First, if the family is visibly upset, you risk a blow up at your front desk in front of other students, which is never a good thing. Second, their issue may involve information they don’t want others to overhear, so a less public venue will serve them better. Finally, perception is everything and the reality is, if you’re sitting at the front desk (or are the first to answer the phone, the first to respond to email, etc.) you are perceived as not having any authority to help. Meeting with a staff member in a cubicle or office ‘in the back’ creates confidence in the ability to resolve the situation.
2. You answer a call from an irate student who claims, ‘you screwed up’ and they can’t do something they need to do, and you must fix it now! You…
a) Review the student’s record and point out what they (or another department or a colleague) did wrong that caused the current situation. Continue to argue about who is at fault when the student pushes back.
b) Review the student’s record, figure out who most likely was involved in the ‘screw up’ and transfer the call to that person or department because you don’t get paid enough to deal with someone else’s mistake.
c) Immediately apologize to the student for the error (whether there was one or not) and ask for additional information from the student and/or time to research what it will take to resolve the problem.
Again, we’re going to go with c). It’s important to remember that when a student or a parent accuses you of ‘screwing up,’ they don’t mean you personally. You represent the entire institution to them at that moment. Further, even when someone says they want something ‘right now,’ what they really want is a commitment to resolve the problem. With that certainty they will generally give you the time needed to do so. Finally, you cannot get an appropriate level of cooperation from a caller who is irate. The priority is to calm the person down so they can work with you to resolve the issue. An acknowledgement of the situation and the harm caused to the caller generally will accomplish this; sometimes you just have to take one for the team.
3. For the first week after classes begin, your team schedules office hours for students wishing to meet in person. Each appointment is 15 minutes long and your priority is to keep to the schedule no matter what. You’re with a student who breaks down in tears 14 minutes into your meeting, so you…
a) Apologize to the student for running out of time and suggest they make another appointment at the front desk on their way out; pointedly ignoring the show of emotion.
b) Apologize to the student for running out of time and let them know they can stay in this office for as long as they need. Run out of that office to look for another one to hold your next meeting.
c) Send your boss an IM or text message asking for backup to take your next appointment while you manage this difficult situation.
Yes, c) again! This design for office hours is common but doesn’t work in every situation. Financial aid conversations can get very emotional because it can make or break a student’s ability to enroll or remain enrolled. Your team needs to have a backup plan for when a meeting will run over the allotted 15 minutes, regardless of the reason. Another option is to not have set appointment times but rather have students sign in when they arrive and wait for the next available staff member. It’s not perfect because it doesn’t create the same urgency for staff members to be efficient in their meetings, but it provides the added flexibility to deal with situations like this.
Are you finding it challenging to be a customer service superhero due to open positions on your team? The Higher Education Assistance Group has over 35 years of experience helping our customers serve their students and families. Visit our website to learn more about our interim staffing solutions or email info@heag.us for more information.
