Page 22 - Laker Connection Fall 2010

Above: Amy Poole from the Office of Recruitment and Admissions leads a Cus- tomer Service Training class. Left: To assist Clayton State’s Customer Service Training, the University created in-house videos to demonstrate effective (and non-effective) customer service. Shown here is the Workplace Wizard, played by Dr. Julia Spinolo of University Health Services.
By John Shiffert and Ciji Fox
Customer Service at Clayton State...
From improving academic advising to “Ask Me!”
The statewide “Customer Service Improvement Initiative,” initially champi- oned by Governor Sonny Perdue and then adopted by University System of Georgia Chancellor Erroll Davis, has no greater supporter on the Clayton State campus than Assistant Vice President for Auxiliary and Administrative Services Carolina Amero, Clayton State’s “cus- tomer service champion.”
“The University is on a mission to not only provide great service, but to ex- ceed students’ expectations,” she says.
With the broad goal of improving customer service for students, faculty and staff, Clayton State’s Customer Service Project Team (chaired by Amero) has undertaken numerous proj- ects since 2006. In fact, there have been more proposed projects than there has been time to implement them.
“We have no shortage of great cus- tomer service improvement ideas, but we have to prioritize and pick a few projects to work on every year and work hard to do those things well,” she explains.
After improving the academic advis- ing process and reducing registration holds in 2007, the Customer Service Team moved on to student support services customer service training for the University’s primary student support services: Admissions, Financial Aid, the Registrar’s Office, Continuing Education and “The HUB,” in 2008.
The first project started by clearly delineating the important roles played by the Dean of Retention and Student Success, the Director of the Center for
20 THE LAKER CONNECTION