Written by Paul Schaumburg from ideas by the Graves County Schools’ Staff
When educators see co-workers and students as customers, it can change how we treat them. These are ideas created in our Graves County School District’s project we conducted a few years ago.
We asked department heads to identify staff members who, with a little training for this project, could facilitate discussion among their co-workers. Our leadership met with these new facilitators, who then met with their groups to discuss the topic and create a comprehensive list of customer service tips for schools. We took those tips, organized them, and made these lists. Both the leaders and the groups produced quality work, as exemplified here.
Not all organizations have students and food services, but all do have internal customers. These ideas can help many groups and can spark other ideas.
Internal Customers
1. Establish good will with co-workers. Encourage, support, assist, and appropriately compliment one another.
2. Reflect a positive image of our organization in public.
3. Honor confidentiality.
4. Use caution in conversations about our organization that take place in public.
5. Use caution regarding personal conversations in the workplace that might be overheard.
6. Avoid gossip in the workplace.
7. Communicate regularly with co-workers and supervisors to ensure the service you provide meets their needs.
8. Support and assist our organization’s after-hours projects whenever possible.
9. Proactively offer and provide your services and talents to enhance projects without waiting to be asked.
10. Take “ownership” of problems appropriate for your job category.
Student Customers
1. Call students by name. If remembering names is difficult, consider calling each student by a silly (but inoffensive) nickname in the moment.
2. Help each student see the best in him- or herself.
3. Greet students in positive ways. Remember you might be the first adult a student sees that morning.
4. Seek out one student per day for extra attention.
5. Give attention to good and quiet students who tend to be overlooked.
6. Give attention to students who don’t have a good home life.
7. Seek out potential troublemakers and create friendships with them.
8. Talk calmly to students concerning discipline. Let them know you care and have their positive development at heart.
9. Choose a student or two to influence, set goals, and reward meeting those goals.
10. Recognize students when you “catch them being good.”
11. Learn specifics about an individual student. Use the student’s interests, names of siblings, etc. to influence that student.
12. Attend a student’s special outside activities on occasion and let that student know you are there to see them perform.
13. Phone home to highlight a student’s achievements, good behavior, etc.
14. Make a special effort to contact parents of English-as-a-Second Language students.
15. Remember that students are the reason we’re here.
Serving through Food Services
1. Use cordless phones to answer calls promptly, preferably within three rings. Return missed calls as soon as possible.
2. Decorate the cafeteria to make it as inviting as possible.
3. Strive to make the visual presentation of food appetizing.
4. Use technology systems that identify students to greet each student by name and to relate to that student as an individual.
5. Celebrate birthdays and special achievements. Consider creating a birthday board to recognize each student, allowing an honored student to choose a favorite dish for his or her special day, etc.
6. Celebrate holidays appropriately including ones like Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Super Bowl Friday, and even something like Beach Day. Consider decorations, cards, cooks’ wearing special hats, and small holiday-themed treats.
7. Invite parents and other visitors to eat with students.
8. Keep parents informed about weekly lunch charges to avoid periodically sending them overwhelming bills.
9. Consider rewarding students for good behavior through certificates to win treats.
10. Consider hosting hands-on kitchen tours for younger students, allowing them to try on hair nets, aprons, etc.
11. Consider allowing intermediate students to prepare the menu for a week based on the food pyramid.
12. Consider allowing selected high school students to help prepare food.
13. Consider hosting a food pyramid week.
14. Consider taking food to the alternative school.
15. Give a little extra to those in need.
Question of the Week
When a school district sees its students as customers, co-workers as internal organization customers, and cafeterias and their workers truly as food services, how do those factors then change our perspective in general and how we treat each other specifically?