All 3 are very important! Service goes further and leaves the most lasting impression with the student.
Joseph,
Interesting point of view and I think most participants agreed that all three aspects were important. Many participants agreed with you that service was the key to making a lasting impression with students and/or parents. However, timely and accurate processing are essential to quality services.
Sincerely,
Chyrl Ayers
Service can win customers and keep customers. We work very hard to provide the best customer service to our students and we hear how much it's appreciated. As the section on Exceptional Customer Service stated, a large percentage of students are lost due to poor customer service. We are going through the accreditation process at our school and do not offer financial aid yet. We tend to cost more that the competition but win over students due to our reputation for great customer service and top rated Instructors. Once we begin accepting financial aid, we will contine to maintain our standards.
Elizabeth,
You have a great approach by offering exceptional service. This approach will be beneficial as you enter the area of financial aid. If your students already recognize the service aspect it should not be difficult to add timely and accurately processing. It has always been my opinion that these three characteristics go-hand-in-hand to develop the best experience for students and parents.
Best wishes as you complete the process to participate in Federal Student Aid Programs.
Sincerely,
Chyrl Ayers
Service is most important characteristic of Financial Aid. I find that timeliness and accuracy operate from a place of fear, pushing, rushing, and accurancy (although important)can feel stressful, and actually, stress causes more problems. If we strive to be accurate, fine, but the emphasis on HAVE to be, is less productive. In my practice, to be of best practices in Customer Service, areas of timeliness and accuracy naturally are key components to the service provided. Accurancy can always be fixed, timeliness happens when it happens, customer service his human, present and could make or break the being I'm supporting.
-Laura Minnick
I required to select one as the most important, then Service would clearly be most important. Providing quality service includes timely processing and timely response to student questions and concerns. Good service also involves accurately processing award letters, disbursements, monitoring, and return of Title IV funds.
Laura,
Interesting persepective in your approach of these characteristics. There is not a right or wrong answer but more of a thought/discussion question to see what other aid administrators find important in the management of their staff and office.
Sincerely,
Chyrl Ayers
Maureen,
I agree that good customer service is more than the face-to-face time with a student and/or parent. Customer Service is the whole process to deliver all aspects of service - processing of information is part of the service aspect.
Sincerely
Chyrl Ayers
I believe accuracy is the most important. I have in the past had a student become comepletely discouraged and wanted to leave our school because of an error in an award package made by our third party servicer. I learned an important lesson that day that becoming detail oriented was the most important quality that I needed to posess as an FAA.
To the customer, customer service is always #1 regardless of the product. When we think of customer service, we often picture a person with a complaint, but doing a consistently good job of timely, accurate processing will pre-empt many such complaints.
Sparky,
I agree with your comments. Customer Service is more than handling a complaint. It is about providing service in a timely and accurate manner to insure the student is satisfied with the handling of his/her financial aid process. If you provide quality customer service throughout the process you should reduce the number of students with complaints or issues. Also, when you do have a student complaint address it with the same level of timely and accurate processing and this should satisify your student.
Sincerely,
Chyrl Ayers
I would rate these three items equally as each are important components to ensuring a student's enrollment and completion of the program. If you value one item more than another, you encourage the following:
(1) no enrollment
(2) withdrawal
(3) drop
And each of those has their own subsets of negatives. In order to keep a student, we must enthusiastically encourage them, deal with them honestly and provide excellent customer service during the length of their interactions with the college. Just because they have finished the program does not mean that they should no longer be offered service.
Lisa,
Your closing is a great point - service that is excellent, timely and accurately delivered goes beyond enrollment, attendance and graduation. The staisfied student that received an excellent experience and education will be your best advertisement out in the public. Also, all of the characteristics work together to leave a lasting impression on the applicant and ultimately the graduate.
Sincerely,
Chyrl Ayers
All three of these Items are very important in the Financial aid process. However I feel that Accuracy is the most important of the three. It is very essential to be accurate in student information and income reporting to see that the student is awarded the correct amounts and is processed correctly.
Gabrielle,
Most of the participants have had similar comments on the importance of all characteristics but each has a focus point. Accurate processing normally leads to timely and good customer service.
Sincerely,
Chyrl Ayers
Of course all three are important and a good financial aid office will stress all three characteristics. In my opinion, I put the most emphasis on accuracy with my staff. Great customer service helps students truly understand and feel like they are part of the entire process. Timeliness ensures that the FA office runs smoothly and no student falls through the cracks. Accuracy ensures that you are correctly awarding students and in compliance with Department of Education. Accuracy makes sure that taxpayer dollars are being spent responsibly. I would like to reiterate that if i could choose all three, I certainly would.
Michael,
Most participants in this forum felt the same as you - all three are important to the overal success of the student. If you are accurately processing the student's financial aid paperwork then you should be doing this timely and with great customer service. All three of these characteristics go hand in hand to a successful experience by student and parents.
Sincerely,
Chyrl Ayers
I believe you always have to put your emphasis on Excellent Customer Service, then
accuracy and timeliness.
LORLA,
Each participant has their own personal feelings about what makes a successful financial aid office. Each of these characteristics are important and offer equal value to the process and go hand in hand. It is difficult to offer excellent Customer Service without providing accurate and timely processing of the students. If you are giving excellent Customer Service you and your team are striving for timely and accurate processing.
Sincerely,
Chyrl Ayers
I think service is the most item in the process because if you have good service, you will strive for timeliness and accuracy. It all goes together with a positive attitude. You will want to do things right for the student. Even in tough situations, good customer service and attitude can always get you through and help you to meet the needs of the student.
