University of Western Sydney Wins Best Tertiary Institution Customer Service Award
at 2009 ATEM Student Service Centre Conference

At the annual ATEM conference in Perth the University of Western Sydney has won the much coveted prize for Excellence in Telephone Customer Service. The award is presented annually by Customer Service Benchmarking Australia.

 

A key focus for the Conference was Changing Expectations. This meant an understanding of current expectations and an agreement on what they should be when they contact a University.

As part of the Service Expectation focus, CSBA contacted over 40 Higher Education Institutions contact centres and assessed service quality using the unique CSBA customer service model.

 

Each institution was contacted at least 10 times in March and simple questions were asked to determine how effectively the institution met its callers’ needs. Calls were rated in over 30 different criteria that reflect the service quality of each call.

 

The results were then collated and a winner determined.

 

“The results have shown that the University of Western Sydney (UWS) have a real commitment to making sure that when a student contacts the contact centre they get a quality response. This is a great result for the UWS as they have really worked hard to make students feel welcome at the university” said Paul van Veenendaal Managing Director of Customer Service Benchmarking Australia.

 

“All too often we see Tertiary Institutions treat enquiry calls as a nuisance. What happens is the student is immediately put off from possibly attending that University. In today’s climate with competition for Tertiary students so high it is vital to get every interaction consistent with a top quality service experience’.