University Business - April 2009 - (Page 39)

• Gathering best-practice data from other colleges, universities, and organizations • Developing measurement baselines and metrics • Assigning responsibility for managing those touchpoints and rewards for improved performance Let me offer a couple of insights about this step. First, while the research will help you deconstruct the larger experience into its component, interrelated parts, it should also tell you which subexperiences are most valued. Spend premium time and money on those sub-experiences that matter most. Of late, Stamats Communications has been asked a number of times to help clients refine the overall academic experience they deliver. We discovered that the students at one client college identified 13 sub-elements of the academic experience: 1. Class availability 2. Flexibility of class scheduling 3. Advising 4. Honors 5. Registration 6. Classroom and lab experience 7. Wireless access (technology) 8. Internships and co-ops 9. Study abroad 10. Academic assistance/tutoring/remediation 11. Library 12. Career planning and placement 13. Grad placement These same students placed the greatest emphasis on four of those touchpoints, and improving those experiences dramatically enhanced their overall academic experience. One reminder: It is important when viewing a list such as this to remember that not all students ranked these sub-experiences the same way. For part-time students, for example, flexibility is key. Full-time students, however, place a premium on advising. When mapping your touchpoints, pay special attention to the boundaries between touchpoints. It is the overlap areas—when more than one office is involved—that often slip through the cracks. For example, who is responsible for cleaning up a room after a meeting? Is it housekeeping, catering, or even the office sponsoring the meeting? Second, one of the most remarkable qualities of higher education is the willingness of colleges and universities to share best practices. There is little need to invent, but there is often great need to borrow. Third, remember that if it cannot be measured, it cannot be managed. It is critically important at this stage to develop firm metrics that define the current experience and help you determine whether or not you are making progress in enhancing the experience. For universitybusiness.com example, as part of delivering a great financial aid experience, one client put a customer service kiosk immediately outside the financial aid office. After completing their business, students were asked for their overall level of satisfaction with the experience. Finally, assign responsibility and authority of each touchpoint to a single individual. Of course, a team will likely be involved in delivering that touchpoint, but a single person needs to be in charge, and that person’s overall performance, ideally, should be tied to some sort of reward system. Now that you have refined the overall experience, it is time to engage, equip, and empower the providers of that experience. Experience providers need to completely understand the importance of the touchpoint and how that touchpoint fits into the larger experience. They need to be fully trained, completely resourced, thoroughly managed, and held accountable for their performance. Because the idea of accountability is a relatively foreign concept to higher education, there may be some pushback on the idea of holding people accountable. The next issue—committing to Kaizen—is not so much a step in the process as an attitude about the entire process. Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous and incremental improvements. A commitment to experience management assumes a commitment to continual improvement. No matter how well received the new experience might be, it must be continually improved. Some organizations—and the individuals who inhabit them—grow weary of continual improvement. However, successful organizations—and the professionals who work there—do not. The final step in implementing an experience management strategy is the creation of a reward system for individuals who significantly contribute successfully. The idea of merit awards is relatively new to higher education. But failing to reward performance sends the signal, at one level, that the performance is not valued. One final reminder: Rewards aren’t always financial. One college offered to pay the costs for a graduate degree for key employees. Another gave high-performing employees release time to pursue specific projects of interest. A third reduced the number of committees employees sat on. It is important to take the time to design a unique reward structure for the employees you value most. Robert A. Sevier is a senior vice president at Stamats Communications (www.stamats.com). He can be reached at bob.sevier@stamats.com. Resources Jan Carlzon, Moments of Truth (Collins Business, 1989) Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap (Peachpit Press, 2005) Ellen O’Sullivan, Experience Marketing: Strategies for the New Millennium (Venture Publishing, 1998) B. Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage (Harvard Business School Press, 1999) Pine and Gilmore, Markets of One: Creating Customer-Unique Value through Mass Customization (Harvard Business School Press, 2000) Kevin Roberts, Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands (powerHouse Books, 2005) April 2009 | 39 http://www.stamats.com http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - April 2009

University Business - April 2009
Contents
Editor's Note
Company Index
Advisory Board
College Index
Behind the News
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Internet Technology
Financial Aid
The Main Event
Software Serves
Managing the Experience
Independent Outlook
What's New
End Note

University Business - April 2009