Category | News

Perdue awards KSU for service

Published on March 11, 2008 by The Sentinel

    Governor Sonny Perdue has awarded three separate customer service
awards to KSU.  Two of the awards have been given to the Financial Aid
office and the third has been awarded to the bookstore. 

    Each of the awards recognized the university for its exemplary approach to improving customer service and recognizing students’ individual needs.  Both the financial aid office and the customer service champion from the bookstore were honored by Gov. Perdue for team and individual accomplishments.

    The honorees were chosen among some 400 nominees to receive the three “Team Georgia Customer Recognition Program” awards.  Gov. Perdue launched this program last year in order to recognize the efforts that state agencies and their employees make to provide Georgia residents friendlier and more efficient customer service.

    The first two awards were given to KSU’s Financial Aid office team, represented by Director Rondall Day, and Vice President for Student Success and Enrollment Services, Nancy King.  The two recipients were recognized for their efforts in customer service, which resulted in reduced wait times for students to meet with financial aid counselors and more privacy for students to discuss their individual financial needs.

    As one of the most notable improvements in KSU’s Financial Aid office, Financial Aid officials eliminated the public, bank-style windows where students previously stood in line and publicly discussed their financial needs.  Now, with the help of the Financial Aid office staff, students are allowed to meet privately in counselors’ offices.  The department of Financial Aid also redesigned the office lobby to be more comfortable for students.

    Financial Aid student services associate Maria Gadberry believes that KSU’s office of Financial Aid shows exceptional customer service.  Gadberry defines customer service as “trying to cater to the needs of students and trying to help them with what they really need.” She said, “That’s how we define financial aid through customer service.”

    According to Gadberry, the Financial Aid office continues to give extensive customer service training to existing employees. “We have been doing some customer service training through our new director, Rondall Day.  Internal surveys are taken periodically among staff to see what customer service issues need to be improved.”

    Yet, aside from receiving personal honors from the governor himself, Gadberry claims that there are many rewards to giving good customer service.  “Students will get to see the good customer service of Kennesaw [State’s] Financial Aid department, and they will want to come to the school.  Through word of mouth, people will say that Kennesaw State University’s Financial Aid office has great customer service.”

    In addition to the two financial aid awards, a “top individual” customer service award was given to Linda Lyons, director of the Center for University Learning.  Lyons was recognized for her leadership role in establishing the university-wide program, “Shining Star.”  The purpose of the program is to award outstanding performance in customer service and building business relationships.  Lyons was also awarded the top customer service award from the University System of Georgia this past November.

    According to student employee Marie Petremann, good customer service is heavily instilled on the current KSU bookstore employees.  “Customer service is a huge part of work and for us it’s very important that we treat customers properly and it is a large part of our training.  The amount of books can be confusing and when you give guidance to the students that come here and get them what they want and need you feel like you did something good,” she said.