You Matter: Camp Won’t be
Successful Without You
Ryan West
OASFAA Conference 2016
Welcome!
• What are some of the qualities we see in good customer service within your
functional area in student services? – and/or –
• What are the successful professional qualities or traits that make a successful
student services professional?
Customer Service Means…
• Please get into groups of about 5 people – as best as can be done, don’t hang with
people from your own office
• In the envelope you’ll find words and phrases that when assembled provide 7
definitions of customer service
• Assemble the definitions – the first team with them all will receive a prize!
Customer Service
• What are some companies or organizations that you think of when you think about
good customer service?
• What are some companies or organizations that you think of when you think about
poor customer service?
• What contributes to those factors?
• We know bad customer service when we experience it.
In Search of Excellence
• Best-selling book first published in 1982 by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.
• Focused on how corporations that were innovative and profitable were managed
• The book cited 8 themes that the authors attributed to the success of the companies
profiled
In Search of Excellence Themes
A bias for action, active
decision making – “getting on
with it.” Facilitate quick decision
making & problem solving tends
to avoid bureaucratic control
Close to the customer –
learning from the people served
by the business
Autonomy and
entrepreneurship – fostering
innovation and nurturing
“champions.”
Productivity through people –
treating rank and file employees
as a source of quality.
Hands-on, value-driven –
management philosophy that
guides everyday practice –
management showing its
commitment.
Stick to the knitting – stay with
the business that you know.
In Search of Excellence Themes
Simple form, lean staff –
some of the best companies
have minimal HQ staff.
Simultaneous loose-tight
properties – autonomy in
shop-floor activities plus
centralized values.
In Search of Excellence
• Back to the Future – can you
guess what year this was
made?