“Are you delivering top notch service?” Fenella Bramwell – Fenella.Bramwell@nus.org.uk Gemma Hoyle – Gemma.Hoyle@nus.org.uk 24th June 2014

Introduction This is an interactive session to support you in striving for commercial excellence, set against the evolving nature of service provision currently demanded of Unions. Session flow: Identification of key challenges facing students’ unions What's happening in the current student market Opportunities on how to improve your commercial excellence Benefits of monitoring your services Case studies from other unions on how they monitor their commercial excellence Conclusion

‘Top Notch Customer Service’ – what is it and how do you know if you’ve got it?’ Group activity ‘Barriers to Commercial Excellence’

“Barriers to offering top notch customer service…” Group discussion: What are your key challenges to providing commercial excellence?

Top Notch Customer Service - knowing your customers Success in the Student Market 2014 Current situation in the student market

Success in the Student Market 2014 Success in the Student Market Survey 2014: This involved over 1600 students completing an online survey 40 students unions in a semi structured telephone interview. Almost half of the students were aged 18 to 20 years old, Over 80% were undergrads

Student use of facilities Decrease in student use of facilities (for those aware) Café -16% Coffee shop -6% Bar/pub -20% Nightclub -9% Increase in student use of facilities (for those aware) Volunteering/employment advice +10% Sporting events +16% Advice and welfare +9% Figure 18 SISM report.

Overview of the barriers What are the barriers to offering top notch service

‘Top Notch Customer Service’ – what is it and how do you know if you’ve got it?’ How do you improve your service

“What enables good customer service…” Group discussion: What do you do to offer good service? 98% of students’ unions said; “I like to learn about the new things that other students’ unions are implementing.”

Understanding students Home comforts Feel closest to their friends from home or school and choose not to take part in any extracurricular activities. Study buddies Feel closest to their course friends. They might socialise in their SU, but not in the evening. In & outs Feel closest to their friends from home/school. They are likely to engage in some clubs and societies. Resident partiers Feel closest to the people they live with at University. Their social life is on the top of their mind and they tend to use the SU facilities. Figure 1 SISM report.

Understanding customers’ needs Top 5 things students want to see improved year on year: What students would do to make their students’ union more appealing to them; 1st - Employment agency 2nd - NUS Extra 3rd - Extracurricular activities 4th - Advice/support services 5th - Healthcare for students Cheaper events and services More events inc daytime and non-alcohol Better communications More targeted activities Figure 27 SISM report. Page 46 SISM report.

Monitoring levels of satisfaction How do you monitor your customers’ satisfaction

How to evaluate your service Evaluating your customer service: Feedback forms Incentivised online surveys Talking to customers Staff opinions/views/feedback Complaints and compliments letters Mystery shopping Word of mouth

Benefits of monitoring commercial excellence Train and develop a staff team Reward staff for high performance Inclusion of target scores in KPIs Strategically to identify the business’ customer service Strengths and weaknesses Benchmark against similar organisations Gain insight into your competitors’ activities Hear from your ‘true customers’ Give you detailed management statistics

‘Top Notch Customer Service’ – what is it and how do you know if you’ve got it?’ Mystery shopping programme

Mystery shopping “How to get a comprehensive overview of the customer experience showing quality of service, which can be rolled out elsewhere, or implemented as a new initiative to increase traffic and loyalty?”

Mystery shopping How the programme works: NUS has organised over 600 individual visits to students’ unions over the past Six years We have a panel of over 4k students, largest in UK Flexible programmes Run by the dedicated mystery shopping team here today A great technique for obtaining valuable customer insights

Mystery shopping Termly analysis at the end of each term A breakdown for each venue allowing for trend analysis. Section summary analysis, allowing you to compare each section based on term 1, term 2, term 3 and the total average score. A graph indicating how your students’ union has performed in comparison to other unions.

‘Top Notch Customer Service’ – what is it and how do you know if you’ve got it?’ Case studies

Meet your panel Alan Williams, Head of Trade Services, Nottingham Trent Students’ Union Nottingham Trent monitor their customer excellence through the mystery shopping programme. Rob Balding, Development Manager, Newman University Students’ Union Trialling Mystery Shopping for the first time in 2014

Product Sampling Evaluation What is product sampling evaluation? How does it work? But….What are the benefits to SUs?

Thank you. Any questions

Fenella Bramwell Research Officer Fenella.Bramwell@nus.org.uk Gemma Hoyle Research Assistant Gemma.Hoyle@nus.org.uk