Upholding customer service excellence
THE phrase “customer is king” is an age-old mantra that reminds businesses and organisations that excellent customer service is essential for success.
In the competitive world of higher education, excellent support services are also part of the larger effort of ensuring quality provision of all aspects of the learning experience.
At Open University Malaysia (OUM), we consider customer satisfaction a crucial element in our learner-centred approach, which the university espouses to emphasise the importance of meeting learners’ expectations.
One of the strategies adopted to keep tabs on the quality of customer service is the mystery shopper approach, which is a useful tool to determine learner perception and experience of the OUM brand as well as to assess various aspects of service performance.
The mystery shopper exercise is not new to OUM. While the second phase of this initiative concluded in May this year, the initial phase took place in November last year.
Both exercises aimed to examine the quality of customer service at learning centres, which are generally the first point of contact for prospective learners.
In the recent initiative, 12 individuals played the role of mystery shoppers at six OUM learning centres in Alor Setar, Kota Baru, Ipoh, Seremban, Melaka and Johor Baru.
A questionnaire was used to evaluate various aspects of service, specifically telephone etiquette, employee attributes, building and facilities.
Compared to the first phase last year, the questionnaire findings from the May 2018 exercise showed significant improvements in all four criteria, with mean scores ranging between 5.39 and 5.81 out of a maximum score of six.
The highest mean score was given for building, indicating that all six learning centres consistently maintain a clean, organised and friendly atmosphere.
Importantly, this exercise revealed that customer feedback can lead to positive and tangible outcomes, especially when it concerns interaction with prospective learners.
One of the strategies adopted to keep tabs on the quality of customer service is the mystery shopper approach, which is a useful tool to determine learner perception and experience of the OUM brand as well as to assess various aspects of service performance.
After the 2017 phase marked telephone etiquette as one of the areas for improvement, the university took remedial measures by providing training and distributing guidelines to front-liners, resulting in an increase in mean score from 5.01 in the first phase to 5.57 in the second.
Undertaken by OUM’s Institute of Quality Management, this initiative will be revisited periodically as we strive to gain insight into not only how the OUM brand is perceived, but also the effectiveness of processes and staff efficiency.
Ultimately, it is an effort towards ensuring that learners get the best value for their investment.
We understand that, for working adults taking up parttime studies, this not only represents a financial commitment but also their personal endeavour in creating a better life for themselves.
Appreciating our learners’ deepest motivation for investing in higher education is key to how we strategise our support services.
We must strive to demonstrate that the university’s relationship with our learners is not transactional. Instead, it is a long-term relationship that needs to be sustained through genuine and persistent efforts to enrich every learner’s experience at OUM.