Kudos to the Gilroy Unified School District for its focus on
customer service.
The private sector knows that focusing on treating customers
well pays off with a healthier bottom line, but in the public
arena, the importance of customer service is often less clear.
Kudos to the Gilroy Unified School District for its focus on customer service.
The private sector knows that focusing on treating customers well pays off with a healthier bottom line, but in the public arena, the importance of customer service is often less clear.
We’re glad to see the GUSD is encouraging its employees – starting at the district office – to make good customer service a priority.
“I think it’s common-sense stuff that we all need to be reminded about,” Trustee Jim Rogers told reporter Lori Stuenkel. “I think it’s good for jogging the memory on how to deal with things.”
Because the district’s clients don’t directly write checks payable to GUSD for its services, because their “payment” – taxes – travels through many federal and state filters first, it’s easy to forget that students, parents and the community are, in fact, the district’s customers.
Often for public sector employees, that reminder is even more important than for workers at private businesses.
After all, if a customer experiences poor service at a grocery store, for example, he can buy his kitty litter and TV dinners at a competing business.
When a school district customer has a poor customer service experience, his only recourse is likely to be to vote against the school district’s next bond measure.
The district’s common-sense approach to encouraging good customer service – responding quickly to e-mail and voice mail messages, using polite greetings, staff support for the district’s customer service providers – are common in the business world and bode well for a culture change throughout the district.
“What we’re trying to really do is trying to improve our communication process, but we’re trying to standardize and define what is support – what does that look like,” Super-intendent Edwin Diaz said.
“What is response, what is the expectation for follow-up on a request for service, and how do you treat people? Do you treat them with respect? Do you treat them with courtesy?”
Those are all important issues, key questions for anyone who deals with GUSD’s customers and a refreshing attitude change for the district.
We’ll be watching for the survey results for the GUDS’s initial customer service focus implementation at the district office, and we look forward to hearing that the customer service focus will be implemented districtwide next fall.
