New Report Highlights Importance of Customer Service

A recent K12 Insight report indicates one-third of parents surveyed don’t know who to contact when they have an inquiry or issue, highlighting a need for exceptional customer service in schools.

Survey Results

K12 Insight’s National Report on Customer Service consists of responses from 1,511 parents and guardians nationwide who have children enrolled in K-12 public schools. The report found that districts with reliable and responsive approaches to communications are perceived as more dedicated to customer service. Additional key findings from the survey include:

• When parents don’t know where to go when they have questions, they are highly likely to have a negative opinion about the district and how reachable the district is in the community.
• School districts should reduce the number of contacts needed to get answers and ensure every interaction is courteous.
• Parents who get to the right person to resolve an issue give their districts higher Net Promoter Scores than parents who are not able to find the right person. A higher Net Promoter Score is related to lower levels of student attrition.
• At least 43 percent of parents indicated an openness to receiving automated responses, and that number is expected to grow as digital natives become a larger fraction of parents of school-age children.

More details about the report can be found in the K-12 Dive article Families are Frustrated with K-12 Customer Service: Here’s Why.

Improving Customer Service

Excellent customer service and communication benefits all parties. Fortunately, any employee is capable of giving great customer service with proper training.

TASB HR Services’ Providing Exceptional Customer Service can help with improving all district staff’s interactions and ability to effectively serve internal and external customers. The course is self-paced, can be completed in approximately an hour and a half, and allows participants to:

• Gain an understanding of the different aspects of serving their customers
• Think in a customer-friendly focused way
• Improve communications and relationship building skills
• Implement strategies to help deal with difficult customer service situations

It’s important to remember that families have many educational options to choose from. Building trust and ensuring parent satisfaction are key to keeping families in public schools.

Providing Exceptional Customer Service is the first online, on-demand course offered by HR Services through the TASB Online Learning Center. Members should log in with their TASB login; nonmembers will be prompted to create a nonmember login. If you have any difficulties creating an account, reach out to onlinelearning@tasb.org.