The Experience Strategy Podcast: Why Students Should Be Treated Like Customers

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It’s time to start treating students like customers. Historically, higher education hasn’t leveraged modern customer experience techniques to support students throughout their journeys. In this episode, Cindy Casper, the first insights strategy consultant in higher education, makes the case for taking a fresh look at students’ needs. Tune in to discover the powerful insights and experience strategies Cindy and her team employed at Arizona State University to better support students at their institution.

Voiceover: [00:00:00] This is the experience strategy podcast, where we look at the best and the worst customer experiences and ask what were they thinking? And now here are your hosts experience, nerds, Dave Norton and Aransas Savvis.

Aransas: Welcome to the experience strategy podcast. I'm a random. And I'm Dave Norton today. We welcome Cindy Casper who calls herself the first insights person in higher education.

Now, historically higher ed is an industry. Can we call it an industry, a category? I guess the problem is that it doesn't consider itself an industry that's focused entirely, really on the recruitment of students, but hasn't leveraged modern customer experience, techniques and strikes. To support those students throughout their journeys.

And there's a lot that they know through hundreds of years of serving students, but we want to make the case today for taking a [00:01:00] fresh look at those students and their needs. While at Arizona state university, Cindy and her team employed some powerful experience, strategy and insights to better understand the student.

And their needs and goals so that they could improve the support of the students throughout their journey with the institution. And this episode, we listen in for ways that org structure and KPIs specifically influence the customer, or in this case, the student experience, we're also going to look at some of what's been taken for granted in the past in terms of jobs to be done when it comes to educator.

Anything else you're listening for Dave.

Dave: I'm also listening for the way that language plays an important role in organizations because higher education institutions, they're always concerned about the commercialization of their products. [00:02:00] To make, they want to actually talk about it as something that is distinct from and separate from the commercial world.

And yet a lot of the principles that lead to the best experiences are described in commercial terms, right? Customers versus constituents and so forth. So listen for how the language kind of evolves as we try to go back and forth between, uh, those two different words.

Aransas: Excellent point. All right. Let's get Cindy in the room and see what she has to say.

Cindy, thank you so much for being here. Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do just to kick

Cindy: things. Sure. Well, I'm a, what I call an insights person, which means I combine different ways of understanding customers to help usually marketers make decisions that are going to be more customer centric.

I'm using data. And I have a background in initially marketing [00:03:00] research and then primarily in retail using retailer. Transactional data, third-party data, primary research, secondary research, scanner data, all those things can help us understand what customers think, feel, and believe and how to motivate the behavior that we're interested in.

Dave: Fantastic. Now I was looking at. And bio a little bit. And Sydney, you made a big transition. You went from Sam's club to Arizona state university. If I remember. Right. And what was that like? That's like two totally different

Cindy: worlds. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, going from fortune one to anywhere else is pretty dramatic.

I had the same. Reverse shock. When I went into Walmart, which is a half of a trillion dollar organization. So a lot of times they would joke if you, [00:04:00] if you were overwhelmed by scale, you just dropped three zeroes and make the same decision you would've made. So with so many billions and millions, it w. You know, kind of a shock to get into there and then to leave there to go anywhere else, but especially to go to a completely different industry, because I had always been in retail.

So, you know, Walmart was different Sam's club as a division of Walmart, just different in terms of a matter of scale, but going to a completely different industry that really had never done insights before. I used to say that I was the best in insights and higher ed, because I was the only one who did it.

Um, but that was also the worst, I guess, but what, neither my boss, nor I realized at the time, because he had come from a packaged goods background and had always, you know, relied heavily on insights to make product packaging, marketing, branding decisions. When he was designing the org structure [00:05:00] of this new central branding enterprise for the university, he thought, well, I need to have creative.

I need to have operations. I've got to have insights. You know, one of the, the key functional areas. And we didn't realize at the time that higher ed just didn't do that, they didn't even know what insights meant. And so when I got there, We, he and I would just naturally apply all of the best practices from retail and packaged goods.

And it took us a little while to realize that the rest of the industry was kind of intrigued by what we were doing because they saw it as revolutionary. And we saw it as well. This is what we've been doing, our whole careers. Um, but what it caused was people to think about their roles, different. And so that's, I think a little bit about we're going to talk about today is putting that customer [00:06:00] focus and bringing that into the room kind of changes the dynamic of the conversation.

Absolutely.

Dave: I mean, I'm excited to talk about, uh, just exactly that topic and you know, you think about it. When I think about Arizona state university, I think about number one in innovation, just, uh, Big wonderful, uh, university organization, high levels. In person and remote learning capabilities. Just in fact, I don't know if you know this Cindy, but my daughter just transferred to ASU.

So I'm, I'm super excited about that.

Cindy: So that's pretty shared on social media. That was great.

Dave: Yeah. So that was, that was pretty exciting. A great school truly at top. And yet at the same time, there is kind of. Um, distinction that all higher education institutions make [00:07:00] between what they do and what we do when we're creating experiences, um, in retail or in any other category that somehow the experiences that they create are different than the experiences that you were creating at Sam's club.

Why is that? Where does that come from? Do you. Well,

Cindy: and, and so any of the comments that I make really aren't meant to call out ASU because they're actually, as you mentioned, number one in innovation, they're really on the frontier of thinking about how to run an institution differently. And, you know, I have made a lot of changes, but there are some things sort of just inherent in the, the model, the business model that, um, and I think in org structure and incentives, and, you know, a lot of people in higher ed ASU included have never worked anywhere.

Higher ed. And [00:08:00] so there were sort of accepted ways of doing things and, you know, even if people come in from other institutions, there's just a set way of thinking about your role, the way different departments interact. And it's just not customer centric. In fact, my title was constituent knowledge and insights.

Hmm, not customer.

Aransas: What does that mean?

Cindy: Well, it's hard to say, so I hardly ever used it. It was on my card, but I just said insights. Um, but I liked being in charge of knowledge. I was like, wow. Being in charge of knowledge at a university, that's kind of, but, um, apparently it wasn't all knowledge, just constituent knowledge.

And so what I learned is that considered. Means a whole lot of different people. I think I track 13 different audiences in our brand tracker. So Dave, you mentioned some of them because there are in-person learners, which is called full immersion at [00:09:00] ASU. And then there was digital immersion, which is on.

Uh, learning modality. And then in, um, more recent time with COVID there became hybrid options. And so you learn terms like synchronous and asynchronous learning. And there was a difference if you're learning digitally immersed synchronously or asynchronously, but anyway, um, there are also the perspective students that are the alumni.

So you think about the full life cycle, but then there are other influencers, like. Uh, parents of prospective students, uh, high school counselors teachers, there are also all of the faculty and staff. You also even worry about faculty and deans primarily and up at other institutions because they impact the rankings.

So there are marketing campaigns to. Target actual individuals at other [00:10:00] schools. There's the voting public. There are legislators, so I could go on and on, but, um, and then there are different geographies that could be focused on. And so a lot of different perspectives to take into account. But when I think about the primary customer, I primarily think about the student who is enrolled and.

I would say that they're treated, they're called a prospect or a suspect or a lead or all kinds of different words, depending on where they are in the conversion funnel before they enroll. And then they're considered an alumnus, a perspective donor, you know, a potential parent, um, and lots of other things once they graduate.

But while they are there for four ish years, when they are a student. That language and the way that they are treated kind of shifts from, [00:11:00] you know, the courting relationship and the, you know, sort of retention model type of thinking into a very transactional and sort of compliance, oriented mentality, because.

The student becomes someone who is evaluated and who must prove themselves in order to get the credit. And that kind of changes the whole dynamic from, okay, now you're in our institution and this is regardless, you know, I've, I've gone to a number of different institutions and the model is the same of now you're a student.

Now you have to prove yourself. And sometimes if you even question that as a staff member, it's like, well, if they can't figure out how to do X, Y, Z, you know, if they can't figure out the system, Well, then maybe they shouldn't be a student. Maybe they're not smart enough to get the credential. So, you [00:12:00] know, why would you make it easy for them when they need to prove themselves worthy?

Dave: That's an interesting transition that kind of happens. And I think it happens for a number of different institutions where once and, and frankly, It kind of happens a little bit in banking, honestly, too. Right? It happens in other categories. We put all of this energy into winning the customer, winning the student, the prospective student, win, winning whoever.

And once we've won them, then we think only about, uh, whether or not, what kind of value they're bringing to us as an organization. Um, and whether they merit us kind of, you kind of flips a little bit, uh, when you have these long-term relationships, why is that? Why is it that we make that kind of, uh, of a shit.

Yeah.

Cindy: Yeah. And [00:13:00] I've thought about it in the banking example too, you know, um, I was frustrated with my bank recently and have been with them forever. I wanted to open a business account when I started Casper insights and, you know, the, the person was great. Um, helping me get all set up, but then I think you shift from marketing responsibility to operations and operations.

I think. They must not have the same KPIs. I've never been behind the scenes in a bank, but I'm assuming that the teller or the person that you call for assistance, or even the person who's maybe managing the website that could be confusing or making policies about what you can and can't do. And what things cost.

I don't think those are marketing people. I think those are operations people and show. They must be incented to have efficient. To not make errors to follow procedure and things like that. But then I [00:14:00] think about the retail side. Okay. So operations is always the dominant force, I should say. In retail.

Yeah. Especially in Walmart. I mean, operations. With that many stores and that many personnel, I forget how many millions of a

Dave: hundred thousand or something like that,

Cindy: right? Yeah. I can't even remember the numbers anymore, but it would blow your mind. So with that many people, you know, certainly they have to have compliance and efficiency and freedom from errors, but they also have to delight the customer.

Or members in the case of Sam's club. And so insights was actually responsible for measuring the delight of the members and, you know, same thing on the Walmart side. So those operations took ownership of the experience. And we used to say, um, at [00:15:00] ASU that the challenges everyone is responsible for experience.

So. And so, and the KPIs didn't reflect that delight aspect, the way that, that it did, um, when you were trying to win the customer to get them into the system. And so it becomes about, you know, and certainly there's regulations that would apply. And with government involvement, Both of those systems that we talked about, but there, I don't think there's any reason.

It can't be an, and so it's not that you have to be non-compliant in order to deliver a wonderful experience, you know, as just thinking about. One of my best experiences. I was thinking about it later. Cause I was like, why can't I think of any positive ones and maybe it's cause I haven't left the house in a year and a half, but um, you know, I guess the package getting dropped off and ringing the doorbell can only be so [00:16:00] great.

But um, one of the best experiences I had was, um, uh, rafting. Now there was compliance. I had to sign a waiver. I had to wear a life vest. I had to make sure my children were life vest. You know, there were things that we had to do to be compliant, but it was one of the funnest things we ever did when I, whenever I think about the best vacation ever, that was it.

And it was because of that rafting trip, even though, you know, there was a week and that was just one day. And it was just because we were so catered to, and I think it's because we felt like we mattered and what we, you know, it was all about making sure that we had what we wanted, not what the rafter one.

And so I still work with higher ed institutions and this idea of trust comes up. And I actually also did trust when I was working on my doctorate at case Western I, [00:17:00] um, I did a bunch of interviews on what trust meant that later got published by my advisors. And we were wrestling with, it's not only trust that you know what you're doing, but I think an important aspect of, of trust is that.

You believe that they have your best interest in mind, not theirs. And I think that's, what's really different between a customer mentality and an operational mentality. Is, are you looking at it through the dynamic of what. What they want. And so you're not just pushing marketing messages, for example, to get them to believe what you want them to believe, but you're understanding how is it that you could add value to what it is that they're looking for.

And then you cater to that and you tap into that. So, you know, do they want to go through the rapids or do they want to have a nice, peaceful, little leisurely [00:18:00] experience? It's understanding them well, And caring enough about what they want to put that ahead of what the institution might want, or at least making it an, and

Dave: there's a couple of things that you said in here that I'd really liked to, that we'd really like to tease out.

And one is this idea of making people feel like they matter, which I can see working very well, honestly, in a. Education institution, sometimes higher education institutions. Don't want to use the language of a commercial enterprise to describe what it is that they do. And that's perfectly legitimate. I think I understand why they don't want to do that type of a thing, but making students feel like they matter is a powerful thing to do and to be about.

And as you mentioned, um, as well, You can create KPIs around helping students to feel [00:19:00] like they matter. Right. Um, and, and so delight might be an element of that. But there might be even more to it that's even more meaningful. I think behind the, some of the KPIs that you're, that you're trying to create.

What, what are your thoughts on the types of KPIs that, uh, higher education institutions should be looking at for students once they're enrolled let's let's disregard prospects for now. Yeah,

Cindy: so actually, you know, it's interesting because. Academia does research on these things. Right. Um, and, but they seem to be kind of publishing to a different audience than the ones, you know, there's, there's faculty in their staff and within faculty, there's also research and teaching.

And so the people who are studying [00:20:00] this would be more than. Academic researchers within who are studying education itself or higher education. But if you go into that literature, you find this whole concept of mattering and belonging. And there are studies that prove that it not only leads to higher retention, which is a KPI that they monitor very closely.

In fact, uh, even the state was monitoring the Arizona institution's retention rates. So it was a really important KPI for funding for her demonstrating value to the state. So I tried to latch on to that and show those people who were responsible for retention, which were administrative people, not faculty that this concept had been researched and applied.

And that it not only led to a KPI that they cared about, but all kinds of other wonderful KPIs, like positive mental health outcomes, [00:21:00] you know, likelihood to get involved, to have friends at the institution, all kinds of positives are, I mean, there was really no argument to be made for why would you want a student to feel like they don't belong or they don't matter?

But part of the challenge is if you think about how many touch points a day, your daughter. Interact with, at the institution. And, you know, from, let's say parking attendant to grounds people, they walk by on the way to class, to the instructors. So they spend a lot of time with who may be teaching assistants, um, who might be adjuncts, but even if they're full professors, In some way you have even less control over them because they have tenure and academic freedom.

So you're not going to tell them how to teach their class or how you treat a student. They do have the evaluations, but I'm not [00:22:00] sure that those really have any teeth from what I've seen, because there's really just not a mindset. Overall. No, certainly that, but there's as much variation. I think that's the challenge is there's huge variation in the experience that you get from one staff person to the next, you know, one may be coming your mentor and a lifelong, you know, resource for you.

Um, and you might have a wonderful experience with, and another one might feel like they're giving you a really hard time that they just don't understand that they don't care. You know, some of that could be perception versus reality. You know, I have a daughter at the institution right now and she has, you know, a healthy respect and probably even fear of a lot of the instructors because they have power over her and she doesn't know what she's doing.

And she's learning, you know, she's first semester freshmen. When is that variability and experience, it's not being [00:23:00] managed. There's not a standard. You know, if you go to Disney world, you're not going to expect a different experience depending upon. Which staff member you interact with. It's going to be wonderful regardless because they've ensured that, that.

It's

Dave: consistent across the board. The interesting thing about belonging is it is a social job to get done. And of course, when we go to a higher education institution as a student, we definitely want to experience that sense of being a part of it. That's why we're alum at the end. There's so much that's going on there.

And I think to some degree, Higher education understands that, but getting an education is actually an aspirational. To get done. Right. And aspirational jobs are very, very different than social jobs to be done. Right. You know, you you've, you've got a starting point. You've got to make your way, you [00:24:00] got to feel like you're progressing towards something.

Um, all of that is, uh, it is embedded. What are some KPIs that you think about when you think about aspirational jobs to.

Cindy: Yeah. So I think even with an aspirational job focusing primarily on higher ed right now is you want them to graduate and they want to graduate, presumably. But let me say that you've got to understand there's more to it than that, right?

They, they probably aspire to have a certain kind of experience. That's going to allow them to transform and grow and not just have a credential. But to have a different outlook on the world, which kind of requires you to engage in dialogue with people. You really can't have. You know that full experience.

If you just studied this material on your own at home, [00:25:00] you need to talk about it. You need to write about it. You know, you need to have dialogue and talk to people who have different perspectives, or at least in a written format have a back and forth, even if it's not an actual conversation. Um, and I'm thinking about the online experience where you don't have the physical presence of the others.

But I'd argue. You could even, in fact, the alumni affinity for ASU shows that the online experience is superior to the in-person experience. And that is I think, a number we could, I bought the size a number of reasons, one. Is where you set your expectations to be different. First of all, you're choosing to use that modality.

So you're not going to hold the modality accountable for putting the constraints of not being able to get together in person. But there's also something to like a democracy in the classroom [00:26:00] experience because it's not the bravest, most vocal, most outgoing person. Um, gets to dominate the conversation, you know, in some ways the technology requires everyone to be participatory and to put their opinions out there.

So it becomes, I guess, a more even experience, um, across the students and get into that variability thing again. But the other really smart thing at ASU is they created a role called a success. And, um, they also have high schools. And so I have a child who is attending one of their, um, prep academies right now.

And then the one that is enrolled at ASU did their online prep, that digital prep academy. And so I experienced their success coach firsthand and the success coach going back to KPIs is responsible for making sure that they're successful. Thus [00:27:00] the name, they're not an academic. Advisor, you have one of those too, and they're not an enrollment person and the.

Their whole job is making sure that you are navigating the system, that you were managing your, your whole life so that you can get what you need to out of the experience. So they'll talk to you about finances or time management or childcare, or, um, you know, learning how to fail and pick yourself back up again.

I mean, it's whatever you need them to be. And it's truly a coach in every sense of the word. And when. You know, I would often have conversations at home about why is higher ed have to treat people like they're there to measure them and score them. And why can't it? Why can't it be more than that? Why can't it be a positive experience?

And so I was trying to think of an analogy and I came up with a personal trainer. [00:28:00] You don't want to push a trainer that takes it easy on you and just gives you, you know, oh, let's say you lifted a hundred pounds, even though you didn't, you want them to push you and challenge you, but you also can have a tremendous connection and respect for them because they understand what your aspirational goal and how they can help you get there.

Even if they have to push you through some discomfort and challenges. And, you know, maybe have, I dunno, some criticism or some, uh, you know, maybe some negative moments, but overall, you know, that they're in your corner. And so I guess it goes back to that trust. And are they looking out for your best interests?

Dave: I love what you've described here and Aransas, I'm totally interested in your point of view on this, because it's so important when I think about a social job to get done. I think about time well spent, and we've talked a little bit about time we'll spend in previous episodes, but when I think about [00:29:00] aspirational job to get done, I think about time, we'll invest it as.

Key indicator of success and that's, that's one of the big differences they have to feel like the time that they're investing is worth what it is or ANSYS, what are your thoughts?

Aransas: Yeah, I mean, I think what really strikes me about all of this is without the customer, let's just use the word, the customer journey tools applied to the student journey.

You would have no idea. What the job to get done is. Or where the weather they are most going to benefit from time. We'll spend time on vested, et cetera. And so what I really hear in this conversation at a very high level, and I think I always want to bring it back to, um, sort of cross category insights that different organizations.

Yeah, who are managing student populations, but whether they're [00:30:00] customer populations, patient populations, or student populations, there's so much we can take from what you're saying. And, and to me at an overarching level, what we're hearing here is. Like most industries, if we look at the customer needs, which is what you invited in at this organization, it sounds like it was really the core of why you were, why you were brought to Arizona state.

We look at these customer needs and we look at the jobs to be done. We review. Where the big opportunities are to better serve students. And then once we understand better, what matters to these constituents? My new favorite word, thank you. We can customize the experience and we can make it more meaningful.

Like Dave said, then we can start to say, okay, how do we ensure that there is time well spent here? How do we ensure that there was time well invested, where that matters? And beyond that, I think like most industries, the [00:31:00] big blockers are the same it's KPIs and work structure. Those are either going to block or enable progress.

And, and you see in these, you know, this big proud stat that we ever may ask you over and over again, the most innovative organization. Yeah. I mean, I think this is evidence of that innovation to bring in insights, leadership, to look at the student journeys as we would customer journeys and try to differentiate and add value by leveraging those insights.

Dave: Totally. Totally great. That's fantastic that they, they took a big bet and, uh, brought in somebody from one of the biggest companies in the world to work with them on thinking about student journey. It's just fantastic what they're doing

Cindy: and actually the, the industry starting to go that way now. So. Um, I'm actually doing [00:32:00] this for other higher ed institutions and the word starting to, to spread and people are starting to measure things like alumni affinity, um, or, uh, student engagement.

And people from outside of higher ed are being brought in to lead the charge and make some changes. So, um, when I left retail, I said, I'm going to the next frontier, because when I first got into retail, they weren't really customer focused. Um, but I guess I've been doing this so long that they were no longer at the frontier and I had to find new space.

Aransas: I love that you are an innovator. Um, as we start to wrap up in short, what would you say is the big opportunity here for universities, higher education services that want to employee insights and really come to understand their [00:33:00] customer's needs and motivations what's in it for them,

Cindy: you know, I guess. It usually starts with the marketing organization and, and maybe that's the best way for it to start because they should be the customer champion.

But then I think, um, you know, just like everything, if you don't have the top level of leadership bought in, you really can't transform. So, uh, I guess then maybe it takes a really strong marketing leader to help them convince top leadership that they need to think about KPIs and org structure in order to enable that better experience.

And you, we had talked about whether there should be a chief experience [00:34:00] officer and I think. That we're able to take off in higher ed than I think you might have the right person at the table to help bridge. We always call them all the different silos because in higher ed institutions are very decentralized and that works for them.

And I don't know, um, How easy it would be to change that in some ways I think the online space it's easier to innovate. Um, and you know, I talked about online alumni having higher affinity than campus alumni, but the highest affinity of all were the alumni participating in this Starbucks. Experience, um, the college achievement program.

And so that actually, I think is what led to the initial number one in innovation ranking from us news and world report [00:35:00] was that was the year that the Starbucks partnership had taken off. And that's where, um, between Starbucks and ASU, they pay for their partners, um, which is what they call their baristas to get a bachelor's degree.

And there's no requirement that they even stay. In fact, the program had evolved so much that they realized that, uh, as they were measuring satisfaction or affinity, that once they left Starbucks and got that next job is when they were happiest. So they were putting programs in place to help them quickly find new jobs upon graduation.

And that really blew my mind that Starbucks. There KPI was, did a college graduate get that next new job, even if it meant leaving their organization, because they knew the benefits when they were there. We're going to offset those of having to find [00:36:00] that next new partner who wants to get a college education and comes in to work in their stores.

And so the way that they achieve that, I believe is they treated. Student partners as VIP's they had special perks, special privileges, special, you know, study groups so that they could get that social aspect as well. But they really made them feel like they mattered and that, so I guess we keep coming back to, yeah.

And so, um, in some ways it's almost easier to go into a space where you can build a different model from scratch, like in online then. Um, to try and overhaul, you know, a hundred year old land grant institution. It's always done things a certain way. Um, so I don't know. Um, eventually, you know, I think as we said, online is turning into hybrid and, um, hybrid campus is looking [00:37:00] more and more like hybrid online.

And so maybe just eventually those distinctions will go away and we'll just have a different. Experience that can be transformed. Maybe through technology, maybe through different KPIs, different org structures, different, um, leader, mentalities, people coming in from other industries.

Aransas: Yeah. And what you're describing is so well aligned with other episodes that we've done on disruptive innovation in those frameworks.

And so I think for anybody out there, who's listening, who wants to sort of put this in a broader context, um, go back and look at that episode on disruptive innovation. I think you'll see more there, uh, that. Paints a pretty clear picture about where higher ed is headed. Thank you so much, Cindy. You matter, we are grateful for you.

And, um, it's so exciting to think about the potential that exists when we [00:38:00] apply these really modern approaches to the. Really old well-respected institutions. Thank you so much for being with us. Those of you listening, tell us your stories, go onto our website, share your best and worst stories about customer experiences that you've had so that we can feature them here on our show.

Thank you so much for listening.