MiddleView

If you are unfamiliar with the website www.simpletruths.com, check it out!  The site hosts a series of inspirational videos that are at the same time heartwarming and thought-provoking.  While it is a business that sells the videos and accompanying books, you can watch the videos for no charge.

I’d been to the site many times in the past and had even used the videos in staff meetings to spark conversations about the work we were doing as a school.  I hadn’t visited it in a while until the other day when a friend emailed me about a new video on the site called “The Simple Truths of Service”.  It’s the story of Johnny, a young man with Downs Syndrome who works as a bagger at a grocery story.

Customer service is at the center of so much that we do as a leader.  Our actions and responses to the students, parents, and community that we serve have much to do with the reputation of our school.  An incident this summer brought this truth home to me.

When the mover packing up my belongings heard that I had been a principal, he shared this story.  He had originally thought that the principal of his son’s school was wonderful – kind, personable, caring – but then an incident happened that changed his mind and he no longer thought the principal was “very good”.  You see, the principal had allowed students to hold a car wash in front of the school and they used one of the handicapped parking spaces.  The mover’s wife was handicapped and when she came to pick up their son, she had to park elsewhere.  This was a small incident, yet he was now out in the community sharing that the principal of his son’s school didn’t care about handicapped people.

Small incident? Yes!  Fair conclusion? No!  Yet these types of things happen more frequently than we like.  Schools do so much good that goes unnoticed and yet many positive interactions can be wiped away with a single unpleasant experience. And sometimes we're not even aware that this has happened. 

How can a school improve customer relations?  Here are a few thoughts –

• Smile!  Even over the telephone, it makes a difference in the tone of your voice.
• Listen and empathize – A good neutral phrase to keep handy is “I’m sorry to hear that, I’ll look into the situation.”  While this doesn’t imply that you agree with the stated concerns, it does recognize the caller’s feelings and promises action – just don’t forget to get back to them once you’ve gathered the information and formulated a response!
• Ensure a timely response – Whenever possible, try to return calls by the end of the day, or at least within 24 hours.  Maybe it’s just a quick call to say the concern hadn’t been forgotten and is still being examined, but even that assures the caller the issue was important.
• Be pro-active.  What are you doing to get the message out to your school community that says “we care about your children”?  Here’s an idea to try – In a central location, place a box of post cards along with mailing labels for all students.  Challenge the staff to send a positive note to the parents of every child in the school within a two or three week period.
• Give advance notice – Have you clearly communicated school polices and procedures with the parents of your students?  Are there multiple ways parents can access this information?  In discipline issues that deal with violations of rules/policies, prior notification of those standards are critical.

These are a few very simple suggestions for a complex issue and it’s important to remember that customer service is the responsibility of every person within the school – not just the principal.  But as the video of Johnny illustrates, one person’s attitude can impact the whole culture of a workplace.  What are you doing at your school to improve customer service?  Please share!