Does Educational Customer Service Exist?

Summertime….it is that time of year again when many of our campuses are packed with summer time visitors, often a result of various conferences or camps staying in university housing.  Although many of these groups are only on campus for a short while, there are various situations or conflicts that might arise which can call our “normal” and educational responses into question.  For example, what are housing professionals to do when the adult leader of a camp uses a racial or homophobic slur?  If they were a student during the year, we would immediately pull them aside to have an educational conversation about how language like that hurts others and how it is not welcome in our communities.  Does this response change with summer conferences groups and if so, how? Despite what we have all been told, conferences are a money making venture and in order to keep the “customers” and “clients” happy, there are some things that we need to sacrifice, or do we??

If one thing is true, it is that I am a very “business minded, administratively detailed” person growing up with parents who worked in Corporate America for 36 years.  Dinner table conversations often were related to how to keep customers “happy” and continue to acquire their business.   A happy customer is one that returns, often.  The same holds true when entertaining camps and conferences, yet we cannot, and should not lose sight of the fact that we are educators, first and foremost.  What this may mean during summer conference season is that as a department you are going to need to discuss what values and fundamentals of your program you are unwilling to compromise on in order to make the clients happy,  and in what areas you can give a bit more.

This was exactly the conversation that our department needed to have a few years back when we were housing a 7,000 person conference for an organization that fundamentally disagreed and did not support our Residential Programs and Services Diversity Statement.  Although we still needed to house the conference, as an organization we agreed to continue our educational responsibility and plastered our housing communities with the Diversity Statement.  In addition, we also posted ways in which we work to create an inclusive community within our residential communities.  The conference ended with  very little incidents, but we made it as clear as we could to the client the type of behavior that was expected of everyone who was a part of our communities, even if for only a few short days.

It is possible to still provide quality customer service, be business minded while also being educational, certainly, but one must not be afraid to engage in these conversations as a department.  Also, remembering that camps and conferences are guests in OUR facilities and within OUR communities can also be a starting point for conversations related to conduct.  By having these conversations before groups arrive on campus can help make summertime a more enjoyable time for all.

 

Kelly Thacker is the Associate Director of Residential Operations at Indiana University.

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